SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

Posts Tagged ‘emotional’

I have felt as though my life has been in limbo for the past few months. I’ve called them “the prospecting months” as I’ve spent countless hours prospecting people, places, marketing agencies, advertising opportunities, events, networking, dates and places to live.

This weekend was jam packed of relaxing work – which sounds more oxymoron than it really is. I’m grabbing more control on my routine and lifestyle and getting into a groove – most days. I’ve been thinking about my life and future so much (even though I know I should only be thinking of the present) and I can’t believe it’s been almost four months since I left Calgary. It blows my mind how much my life has changed since driving east on Highway 1 (16th Ave) and not looking back on October 13th 2009.

After how much everyone’s life has changed since I left, I realize that my life may have been easier if I stayed in Calgary, but I would be internally torn inside with a lot of things in my life and the thought of moving back to Toronto would have become a bigger choice than it was when I left.

It may sound confusing, and truthfully, it is. But I’m still excited. I’m excited for a lot of things because every day, I think while driving home for work and categorically go down a list of all the things I’ve learned that day. That technique in itself was worth the move, the big break up, the separation of the things, the wear and tear on my car, the missing of my friends – everything. Because when I drove home or took the bus from my position in Calgary, I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything even close to that. I was at a standstill, constantly looking at the bottom corner of my computer screen praying the time to fast forward to 4:30 pm. Every day.

For the first time in my life I’m working hard every single day because I have to. There is no room for slacking in this position because if I slack, I don’t get the feeling of a closing sale; I don’t get the internally proud feeling of accomplishment; I don’t get the satisfaction of knowing that I learned a new way to strengthen a bond or relationship.

I’m doing that, every single day. And because of that, I know that in ten years, when I look back on my 25th year, the year that I moved back from Calgary to begin a new chapter of my life – I’ll remember how I took charge of my life, refused the 9 – 5 job routine, took a beating, took a pay cut, took a new look at the word “humbled” and learned every single day.

That – I believe – is the most important thing.

If I’ve been reminded of anything these past couple of weeks it’s that life is short, and timing is everything. The coulda woulda shoulda of life has become so apparent and telling that somehow, I’ve just had to sit back and gage what my life would be like if I were a little more patient.

It’s been a weird feeling, these last few days of being in Boston. I’m getting the rest of the week ready as I have about a billion errands to do the second I get up tomorrow morning, resetting my phone up to work in Canada after basically having to erase every money-inducing feature of it while roaming in the States and fixing up a little to-do list for the next phase in my life.

I’ve also realized that my fixed expenses for every month has taken a turn for the worse and it looks like I’m going to be returning to “three-job-emilia” to keep up as a part of me is a bit apprehensive over what the heck I’m going to do, especially with the Christmas season coming. The other part of me wants to go …. Relax, like usual, it’ll all work out because it always does.

Perhaps I just begin to feel like this because I tend to listen to nostalgic and depressing music while I wait to board my plane. Habit. But what are you gonna do?

The thing I know is, I can’t believe how much I learned while on this trip. Not only about being a sales person, or an event coordinator, or even a planner. I learned so much about the United States, and if anybody knows me, they’ll know me as a 100% Canadian supporter and very skeptical of anything US related (whoops, did I say that?). The thing is, after being here for five weeks, not touring one specific city but actually experiencing the workforce here, albeit a tiny glimpse, I have a bit of a changed view. The amount of people I spoke to, the information I received on how their own people view others in the same country proved to be half-patriot and half-separatist. I found it extremely interesting.

I also found it amazing the vast amount of metropolis cities and realizing that, coming from a country that basically has three or four major cities that people can immigrate to and actually make a decent living, my view on the US was a bit biased. Okay, I already knew that, but my mind was opened a tiny bit. You really can go anywhere you want and start from scratch and make it. You have about a billion choices. Fifty choices, actually, because every state has a major city with a “headquarters” of some sort, a division and it’s probably roughly a two to three hour drive from the neighbouring state, and cheap to fly to.

It surprised me. I even have a new view on the health care system. Don’t get me wrong, it still is ridiculous that more than 11 million people don’t have health care but, boy was it interesting to see the difference in opinion depending on what state I was in.

I learned a lot of things from a lot of people on this trip. I didn’t learn all of them on day one, or day …. thirty three? I learned them from those close to me, far, ones I’d just met – everyone.

And that was pretty exciting and scary. And really, extremely … humbling.

Hillary Clinton addressed Americans last week.

I don’t know what it was about, or when exactly, but I remember her making a joke about the last twenty years of her life and she made a quip of the things her husband has put her through. She laughed, the audience laughed, her daughter standing right behind her laughed – and so did Mr. William himself. And I remember turning my head while getting ready for work and looking at the screen, at these such serene, sincere faces and wondering how on earth they got passed everything.

I know it’s been like eleven years, maybe more, maybe less – but how did they do it? No one separated, no one got divorced, no one did anything. Except maybe forgive. The media followed that story more than they followed how well Mr. Clinton was running the country yet when the questions arose to Hillary – was she staying or going – no one could get an answer. She was polite, calm and poised. She was private, most of all, and made her decision. And everyone judged. Everyone. Whether they were for or against the commitment to stay; everyone had an opinion.

In her memoir, she states that “no one understands her like Bill does” and love was the reason that she stayed. That’s all she said. That’s it, and whether you liked it or not, you were just going to have to accept the decision because in the end, it was nobody else’s life but her own. I think we forget that more often than not.

I’ve definitely taken a step back and looked at this past year a bit differently. I’ve been forced to realize that you can’t always trust someone, but you should always try. And forgiveness, it’s important. And although I believe it’s important for the one who needs to be forgiven, I think the concentration on it should really be within the person who has to do the forgiving. In the end, it’s really only doing more harm than good to focus on what was done, and not what has been done since.

My mom’s a grudge holder. I’m beginning to see myself as some part of a grudge holder as well, and it scares me!! The thing is, I noticed that the grudges I keep, or the things I remember the most, are usually with the people who matter the most with me. Why is that? Because I don’t care about the people I don’t hold grudges with, what they’ve done doesn’t matter – I can always get passed it. I can only wish that it was reversed.

It’s not impossible, I know this – I just have to let go. Can time heal all wounds if it’s continually thought about? Can you just fast forward yourself to a time when nothing in the past (at this time) means anything anymore? It can even mean something, it just doesn’t mean everything?

Mistakes are always made, and we all make them – but can they be forgiven, really and truly? If I’m asking myself that question, maybe I’m on the right track to trying to find out.

My phone smells dingy. My fingers smell like a hospital. I’m sitting in the critical care unit of the hospital basically waiting for my grandmother to die. Isn’t that awful? I’m waiting for my grandmother to die. We all know it’s going to happen. We all know that we’re to share the jewellery she’s left my cousin, sister and I. We all know that according to my grandmother we’re all to find each other and eat together, as it’s very important. She doesn’t want to suffer she says. She’s working so hard to stay alive, so she can lie in a hospital bed where her biggest achievement of the day is wiggling her toes. She’s tired, sick of it, she continues. So we wait. We sit and wait, periodically sleeping or going for McDonald’s runs and take turns going to hold her hand and hold back tears because somehow, in between the swelling, hospital gowns, face mask and IVs, she still manages to look like the cutest person you’ve ever seen.

It’s someone else’s turn, to go and hold her hand, gaze into her semi-vacant eyes and hope for great advice and wisdom to escape her lips. We think we can relax, sit for a while, while we wait. But no. Creaky doors open, uncompassionate doctors, nurses and volunteers climb through the miniature hallway that has become our living room for the time being, whispering apologies as they clasp stethoscopes and scurry through. We don’t sit long, just a small break, we have to enter the corridor of sick patients, impatient EMS workers, all bored, all sick, all waiting. Walking past into the emergency room, where beds are occupied by crying people, waiting to see the doctors, nurses – whoever has the pills – nobody’s phased anymore. Curtain number two. Bed number two. He’s been reduced to a bed number, because they can’t identify you any other way. Her bed is number nine. Ninety-two, twenty-nine. What was that movie with Jim Carrey, the Number 32? Or 29? I can’t remember, that’s what hospitals do, I think. I don’t know what day it is. I think I’m still jet lagged. I’m tired; I know that, regardless of anything else. Visitors in the hospital are probably more disoriented than the patients are.

My grandmother is in critical care. She is a DNR. That means a Do Not Resuscitate patient. When my grandmother has another heart attack, it’s a ‘when’ situation, not ‘if’, she will probably die. My grandfather is on bed number two, in the emergency room across the hall. His kidneys are dilating because his bladder cancer has progressed at an extraordinary rate. He must have emergency surgery to flush out the blockages in his kidneys so that they’ll start working again. We have to wait for that to happen. We had to have a conversation with him, a repeat one about resuscitation; he is now a DNR as well. They sit, waiting, patiently, impatiently. To die. And we sit, waiting, for something to happen. Unfortunately that something is to die. Isn’t that sad? But what else are we supposed to do? We wait. Read books, visit and listen and talk and laugh and try to joke and try to get our minds to think of something else. It isn’t possible, really. It’s all we think of nowadays. Death. And funerals. And machines. And priests. And rosaries. And everything. And I’m just tired, too.