Posts Tagged ‘discovery’

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable than risk being happy.”

I saw this quote today and started thinking about life and the way we live it. The way we walk through each day, focusing on the people who cut us off while driving, the rude barista at Starbucks in the morning or the fact that no matter how early we leave to get somewhere, something always manages to make us late. I am no stranger to being this person sometimes. It happens. It’s inevitable. The inability to be positive at all hours of the day.

Then I can talk to people who really are able to put things in perspective for me. Like a sister. Who thankfully is bored enough at work that she can write me emails that remind me to live in the present and not worry about the past. And not the past like last year, but the past like yesterday. It really puts things in perspective, thinking like that. Realizing what’s important and what’s not. Realizing what’s worth expending energy into and what’s not – and remembering how to differentiate between the two.

I’ve happened to realize that nothing is life is simple. It really isn’t. And the harder to strive for simplicity and ease, the harder it is to find. It’s not about finding the perfect routine that will keep you calm at all hours of the day but more about finding that calm within yourself. So that when you are handed a situation that might make you a little colourful, you have that calm that allows entrance for ease.

On the May 2-4 long weekend that just passed, I hosted a party for a few of my closest friends just to celebrate the fact that I could have one (living in Calgary the last two years really put a detrimental plan-stopper on that one) and the beginning of summer.

Over fifteen people came – my highest turn out yet! And I felt it was a great success, mostly, as I realized that we all have so many people in our lives that love us and want to spend time with us – whether we’re single, dating or married. It’s these people that come out from all facets of our lives that we’re able to see just what kind of relationships we are capable of maintaining. I phrase it in that way because it’s hard work to maintain friendships and as the group you’re friends with increases, the harder it is to maintain all aspects of what a friendship entails. The description of what a friendship entails can be grossly misleading as well; depending on whom you’re talking to.

A friend of mine decided to cease being friends with me a couple of weeks ago and I was left hurt, blind sided and (true to form) asking questions to no one in particular about what could have possibly happened. This person was a very dear friend of mine throughout our university years but as we grew older and drifted apart (ranging from what cities we lived in to our careers) our emails remained and the odd phone call was placed. Communication was there between us but we’d definitely lost the closeness we had in terms of breaking news and calling the other on speed dial.
Suffice to say, our friendship hadn’t maintained it’s strength these past few years but I suppose betrayal and loyalty had its hand in the demise of the friendship at the end of the day. I was accused of being dishonest but with no situation – I guess I’m just supposed to know what I did. But I don’t.

For a person who was not in my life on a daily basis, I’m finding it difficult to just let go. I’m constantly wondering what happened and re-thinking everything I’ve done and said over the last month of two. I’m a person who hates being hated. I’m a person who doesn’t like not being liked. Maybe that’s an issue to deal with at another time, but for right now – it feels wrong. Friendships don’t last all the time, I know this, and people grow apart, move on and up or just don’t blend anymore. But I’ve never had a friendship just blow up in my face so quickly with no explanation. We’re done. You’re done. You’re a horrible person. It leaves someone to question – am I?

Could I have done more in the friendship to make sure it didn’t end this way? Probably, I could have done (or not done) whatever it is that garnered me this position of “ex-friend” in the first place – but how are you to know if the other party won’t talk to you?

Many in my life say that dwelling on this situation or even the person shouldn’t matter and I should just move on and rid myself of the negativity. I’m all for it – but tell my mind that. I work in an office alone, being creative and it’s a bit difficult to pull creativity out of the woodwork when you have something blocking it from exposure.

With time, things will improve, I know – they already have, but I can’t help but wonder – if I could go back and do things differently, would I? Probably not. Instead, I would probably go back to the Saturday evening of the long weekend when all the friends that could make it to the cottage, had, and were all eating hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages I had supplied for the party. I stood on the grass watching them like a creep all laughing on the deck and I couldn’t help but smile.

I have amazing friends. I have amazing people in my life that would do anything for me and I’d do the same. I have friends that I haven’t seen in years, yet still make time for me if we need it. I have friends that push me to be the best I can be when I don’t think I have it in me. I have friends that understand my incessant ridiculous love of Sushi and don’t judge. I have friends that will just sit and watch television with me, because I love Cougar Town, even though they don’t. I have friends that love me and fight with me and laugh with me and smile with me. And we fight; I’ve fought with all my friends. The difference is, the friendship is worth way more than the fight and that’s why it’s a hell of a lot easier to maintain.

I moved into my new living quarters this weekend, unsure of what to expect, and dimly surprised that it didn’t seem to effect me more. The first weekend in a while that I didn’t have much going on but a long drive to Barrie for a friend’s birthday and another night out. Add a morning of Aji Sai sushi with it and it could be deemed a tres successful 48 hours. And it was.

I went to bed earlier than I have on a Sunday in a really long time. Just because I was tired, and I was bored but I couldn’t help but wonder, as I stared at the slanted ceiling of my new room, why I wanted to do this. To take hold once again, a glimpse of the life I had back in Calgary. Complete independence, proximity to (almost) everyone I know and freedom. A few things that I haven’t even gone without since I’ve been back anyway. Yet, my stubborn head brought me here, with a “Toronto” address, Alberta plates, and Mississauga P.O. Box and a life of vacations and adventures.

Without a photo on the wall, but a photograph of the Manchester Ferris wheel, a birthday gift from my sister one year, and a couple of new cute black boxes from IKEA which now hold my make up – a bed frame made without the metal bars, so a mattress sitting in the middle of it with no support, I lay there, for now, wondering in an empty room.

Has summer officially started? Well, it’s 9 PM before it gets dark, so it seems like it. Only time will tell what kind of summer it’ll be.

After a whirlwind 72 hours, I’m finally back at work trying to wrap my head around the weekend. It all started with a seemingly relaxing Friday night of Hot Yoga at Infinite Yoga in Mississauga where I sweat, balanced and strengthened my calf muscles. After losing about ten pounds of water weight and feeling so overwhelmingly dehydrated, I prepped for a night of pretend modelling for my dear friend Lindsey Drennan for her big shoot she had the next day.

The end result (one of):

I’m really excited to see the rest of them! Perfect for my new website that’s currently in the works. I need some updated professional shots! And now I have them. A quiet night turned a little longer than expected and I wasn’t home and in bed until about 3 am only to wake up the next afternoon ready and waiting for my impending lunch date with Keisha – always a lovely catch up.

My Saturday night began back at Lindsey’s where the girls all got ready and drank some lovely wine – always a plus! Lindsey detailed the evening perfectly in her recount of the evening at Mercatto.

We got called the Canadian version of Sex and the City, many, many times:

We unfortunately didn’t get the amount of polaroids that Lindsey had intended, but the night was a huge success anyway. Ended off at Brooklyn on Queen for a quick cocktail, I was on my way home by 1 AM feeling a bit older at my exhaustion and cramped feet.

Sunday was filled with friends, beer and a Blue Jays game, which proved to be a small preview of what this summer is probably going to be like living with the girls in the Annex this summer: Fabulous.

All in all, it was just one of those weekends. A weekend I hadn’t expected nor planned for (every single thing I did this weekend was planned on Friday night with the exception of Saturday night girls dinner). It was one of those weekends when you hang out with true friends and realize who they are. Getting over disagreements and growing up. A weekend of first “I love yous” for some and for others, first drunk texts that weren’t full of hatred and disappointment. It was a weekend that made me full of hope and excitement for the summer. Who can’t love that?

After a long day on Friday, I went to Vecchio Frak on College for an Italian Meet Up. Now, before you go thinking I participated in some sort of Speed Dating (although, I am planning on attending one of those and blogging about it) event, it wasn’t. Instead, it was a meet up for lovers of the Italian language who wanted to meet other people with a love of Italian. Seeing as how I can manage with my meagre Italian on most days, provided I have my co-conversationalists speak very slowly and I’m allowed ample time to conjugate verbs in my mind before speaking, I wasn’t too worried about holding my own at the meet up.

Unfortunately, my nerves kicked in and I felt largely unprepared for what felt like a big test. Simple words I’ve known my whole life escaped me and I was left sitting there, my mind blank, nervous. However, unlike other Italian outings my heritage finds myself in – where I am called out by old Italian men at my lack of knowledge on the language, despite my father being so heavily involved in the promotion of Italy in general – I was encouraged, assisted and complimented on the fact that I was even there. It definitely created a sense of relief at in my attendance. The feelings didn’t help my lack of knowledge on the language, though. You see, when you’re meeting people for the first time and tell them stories about things that have happened in your life – you use a lot of past tense. Oh the past tense, a lovely new set of verbs, conjugation (or as I like to call them – “word endings”) and irregular verbs that have to be memorized in addition to everything else. Past tense wasn’t a unit I excelled in in my Italian classes. Mostly because I didn’t take Italian classes long enough throughout university to even get to them. Every two words, it felt like, I had to stop and ask what a word meant in Italian and how to conjugate it and then figure out if it was a dialect or proper Italian. Prompting me to hardly remember what the story I was telling was about in the first place.

At around ten, my friend and I left and ended up taking in Hemingways in Yorkville for a drink and ended up sharing life stories – which can seem pretty amazing and crazy when you’re summing them up in five minute intervals. We patrolled the surroundings to judge whether there were cute boys or not (yes and no) and dared each other to create random conversations with the ones who proved to be the most endearing at first glance.

We failed. Mostly, though, because of laziness. Getting into our old age, we were both afraid of sparking conversations with cute boys because my Heineken was making me yawn and her boyfriend kept texting to ask what time she was coming over. It proved to be a different night than most of the ones I’ve had lately – and for that I was grateful.

Grateful to be included in such an evening that didn’t feel adolescent, drama filled or weird. It was random, but randomly planned.

And it was nice.