Evil Monkeys and Mental Bananas

My glass of wine is half empty. Oh wait, or is it half full? Either way it tastes great and I will be sad to see it end! My mind is all over the place, and it is hard to pinpoint down the thoughts I am trying to process. For a long time there, I had been feeling such a weightlessness to my existence, and I must say it was refreshing for a change. For the first time in my life, I had been focused on only the pleasurable experiences, because it seemed that is all there was to be had! There was no weight on my shoulders, forcing me to trudge at a slower pace, carrying myself as if a collapse was inevitable in the near future. I slept like a baby at night, woke up with a smile on my face, and carried it throughout my day as if I had not a care in the world! Satisfaction was the theme of this phase in my life. Because that is what I see my life as so far, a series of phases leading up to any one of a number of supposed possible outcomes.

But all of a sudden, the weight has reappeared like a monkey on my back swooping down from the trees. He is bouncing around and grabbing at my hair and has become a total nuisance with his insistence that I feed him my Mental Bananas. I am telling you now, people, I do not have many of those banana's left, and if I give them all to him, I'm going to just become a Product of the Monkey, a slave to his incessant demands to appease his appetite for my Soul! Dramatic? Yes. But, at least you get my point.

My life is great. I feel I have learned how to be patient, optimistic (annoyingly so) and more self aware. I am trying to hold onto the things in my life I know should be lifting me up, above and beyond even the trees, staying out of reach of those incessant Evil Monkeys. I suppose we all have to come down for a reality check once in a while (oh no! Does this mean my eyes are going to open again??), but I hope that not all reality checks are disruptive forces sweeping through your life like a tornado, destroying the pretty little picture of life you had created for yourself just so you can start rebuilding it over again from scratch. I would like to think that some are more like the first warm spring rain that washes away the last of the snow to reveal something a little more natural, beautiful and warm. Something that causes you to breathe in deeply for a change, and say, 'this is what I have been waiting for'.

So, what is it I have I been waiting for?

It's Like Blinking (Forever Young!!)

So....29, eh? It's my birthday, and how do I feel? Once upon a time, a birthday was exciting, almost like you were getting that much closer to reaching a destination in life you had always dreamed of. When your dreams turn into reality, and reality isn't exactly what you dreamed it would be, birthdays seem to lose their air of excitement, and instead, turn into (in my case at least), an apathetic situation where you either A) Decide to fret over your passing days as if they are indefinitely numbered (which, when you think about it is most certainly true!). Or B) escalate into sheer mania as if your birthday is just another excuse to inebriate yourself beyond control just so you can continue believing you are Invincible and Untouchable and Forever Young . I find myself hovering in between the two. In my eyes, this is the best that can be expected! Thirty, however, may be a different story.

I am absolutely contemplating my life on this, my historic 29th birthday, the single last year of my 20's! I contemplate my life on every birthday and give thanks to all the joy (and sorrow!) I have been allowed to experience since my birth. My life is a gift and I intend to appreciate it (if not value it!) for what it is worth, even if it doesn't seem like much at times. I told K tonight that this Birthday, for me, was not about a fear of growing old, and a realization that is inevitable. Instead I am feeling confusion, and awe that 10 years has passed by me and I've hardly been aware of what has been happening.

It's like blinking. When you blink, your eyes close. When your eyes close, you stop seeing, even if only for a millisecond! On the scale of life, the amount of time your eyes remain closed is equal to about three years according to my calculations, and during this time, you stumble and you fall flat on your face at least once, only to open your eyes to rediscover your surroundings and to reposition yourself accordingly before the next black out occurs! I've repositioned 3 times so far since my eighteenth birthday, and what scares me is, even though I now I believe I am truly seeing, I know from experience my eyes must be closed right now. I wait in wonder and fear of what I will see when I am finally blinded by the light of day.

K told me that I was too deep for her tonight and she needed some wine to contemplate that. Unfortunately, she had to work, and so here I am contemplating it to myself. And listening to the Doobie Brothers!!

Now how is THAT for contemplatating your life, people;listening to music on YouTube that makes you feel like you are a kid again!

The anticipation of one moment often ruins the authenticity of said moment. When we are talking about things like death, and birth, those moments are severe in emotion and reactions (regardless of how long we have anticipated them), and, I believe, are totally unique and spontanious in their origins. Although, never experiencing birth, or planned death, I cannot be sure. For the premis of this blog, I have to assume that is true. The things I am speaking of are superficial in nature, like recieving an award or going on a first date. We often imagine, assume, and try to predict things in a way that either sets us up for failure or disappointment. At least, that is usually my experience!

I am thinking specifically about times when I practiced my part in the various possible scenarios of life events such as meeting with an ex for the first time, or having a first date with the 'man of your dreams', or even seeing an old friend for the first time in a very long time. Oh, don't get me wrong, we don't always experience failure or dissapointment, but not very often do things go as we planned they should, for better or worse!

I have been experiencing a very peculiar sensation lately. I have been feeling oddly content, and satisfied with an impending event in my life. There should be multitudes of speculations, anxieties and preparations for this future event, and yet, there are not. I feel calmed, and oddly reassured that everything is to go as it should. And obviously, where there is no anxiety present, I must on some level feel that things are going to go well; very well.

I guess at this point I should reveal, this new event is the first meeting between me and someone I have been frequently chatting to online. Meeting new people can be akward for me, and I don't feel any akwardness about this meeting even though the way we are getting to know eachother (pre face to face meeting) might be considered akward. Talking online will usually lead to promises made that cannot or might not be kept, but these online conversations are not like that in any way, shape , or form.

Why is feeling content a peculiar sensation for me?

Stalker poetry?

Boredom, anxiety and insanity will do strange things to people. Here is a poem (I have been told it is a poem) created inadvertently in a moment of pure mania. Thanks to A for the title!

Ode to Cyber-Stalker

I am stalking a lonely computer,
It's owner, probably off doing something more interesting
Like making a hot cup of tea,
Or talking on the phone,
Helping her kids back to bed,
Or taking a BIG SHIT.
And the computer, sits alone
With no one to share this new information with;
New communications from Cyberspace.
Crazy
Crazy
That is me

Over and Over

The only thing that says it right now is the following song by Morcheeba, Over and Over....

Waking to these sounds again I wonder how I'll sleep
Passing out is taking off into the stubborn deep
I'd like to meet a human who makes it all seem clear
To work out all these cycles and why I'm standing here

I'm falling Over and over and over and over again now
Calling and over and over and over and over again now

Running through my life right now I don't regret a thing
The things I do just make me laugh and make me wanna drink
I'd like to meet a mad man who makes it all seem sane
To work out all these troubles and what there is to gain

I'm falling over and over and over and over again now
Calling and over and over and over and over again now

Projecting what I want is always hard to know
But when it comes between my sights I'll let the damage show
I'd like to meet a space man, who's got it going on
Sailing through the stars at night 'til our world is gone

I'm falling Over and over and over and over again now
Calling and over and over and over and over again now

Over and over and over and over again now
Calling and over and over and over and over again now

Let's Get Philosophical For a Moment...

I am sitting here contemplating my past, present and future, and I find myself wondering; when, exactly, does your past become your past? I understand the concept of 'the past' as far as a timeline is concerned, but the heart rarely surrenders to the logic of the brain, at least in my experience. Just because something happened long ago, does that mean we are supposed to forget about it, stop feeling its effects before it can truly be considered our past? If we carry these emotions with us long after the event has taken place, how can we consider it our past when it continues to effect our daily decisions, feelings and routine?

When I was about 4, I watched a young friend of mine be abducted by a strange man. As a young child, I never really understood the gravity of that situation as it was happening. As I've gotten older, it seems this issue is no longer a part of my childhood and has become a major influencing factor in my thought process and view of the world. To this day, I still think about this girl, and many of my actions and reactions to daily events around the world and my own life are based on the silent outrage I now feel as an adult, reliving that incident over and over again in my mind. My brain knows it is the past (it happened over 20 years ago!), but my heart feels it as if it were yesterday. That confusing life experience is very much a part of who I am in this present tense. Therefore, can it really be considered my past?

Now I am struggling with confusion of another past experience, in the wake of something new and possibly wonderful. I understand I should be able to walk away from that heartache, but certain events are forcing me to relive those feelings even though I had buried them deep in the dusty, cobweb-covered recesses of my mind. I am considering the fact that being forced to reconcile these awful emotions going to allow room for new feelings to grow, but I also recognize these same feelings may very well alter the course of my present, and future, for better or worse. Am I ready for that? If I confront the issue head on, will this past event that has been haunting me be left in the past, both in my head and heart?

Whew! It's can be dangerous, confusing and exhausting diving so deep into a shallow pool!

Let's Go Back...

Remember when you were a kid, and you got excited about everything? It was pure uninhibited excitement, without fear of disappointment and hurt. I remember sitting on a large decorative rock outside my new apartment building when I was about 4, waiting for a 'surprise' my father said would be coming for me. We had just moved from one end of the city to another, leaving behind the only friend I ever really knew up until that point. She lived in the flat below us, and was older than me by about 3 or 4 years. She was beautiful, kind, funny; she was my idol. Sitting on that rock I imagined all of the things it could have been. Not once did I imagine I would see that little red car pull up over the hill with the sun gleaming off its roof sending bursts of light back into the early afternoon sky. There she was waving out the window looking as excited as I was for her to be here, visiting me in my new home. In that moment, as I jumped off the rock, racing to meet her car, I never would have believed it if you told me I would never experience excitement like this many times again, excitement that wasn't tinged and marred by apprehension and anxiety of all the things that might go wrong. Because up until that point, nothing ever had.

As we grow, if we are lucky, we experience all the good things that life has to offer in a way that allows us to appreciate life to its fullest as a responsible and capable adult. But I think it's terribly sad that over the course of our life, we come upon moments that rob of us of our ability to experience the joy of things as we did when we were young. We dash our hopes before they have a chance to grow, far too often in my opinion, in fear of disappointment. We should be allowing ourselves to indulge in the 'what if's' and 'if only I could's', and understand that if we've handled this much disappointment in our lives, we can certainly handle a little more.

What won't kills us, will only make us stronger!

He Said, She Said

Why does my past continuously come back to haunt me? You try to forgive and forget, you try to move on. Just when you think your emotions are under control and your thoughts are rational, along comes annoying old Fate and his clammy death grip pointing the way back to 'that place' with his bony lifeless finger. Is it my Fate to continue reliving the same few incidents from my past over and over again? Is it not enough that I think about these issues on a consistently random basis, trying to understand it all in the grand scheme of things for my own personal satisfaction? Now I have to start being reminded of them, and dealing with them in new and curious ways as though there is still a lesson to be learned in it all. And horror of horrors, the more I think about it, the more I think there probably is.

I think for an emotional matter to be settled, all parties involved need closure. ( I know, 'closure', what a cliche! But I believe in it!) Now closure is a personal thing. For one person, it might be kicking their ex husband in the ass with a steel toe boot. For another it might be seeing a loved one just one last time before saying the Big Goodbye. In terms of my own personal past issues still left unresolved, I would have to say my closure would need to come with the admittance of my own wrong-doings and faults which may or may not have contributed to the disarray that created the drama, which has led to the current blog I am writing. I used to think that admitting your mistakes in the shadow of someone else's looming, giant mistake was only going to the other person to feel as though they were justified in their actions. But after all this time, the burning questions I used to feel I needed answers to have seemingly disappeared, and all that is left is that tiny piece of me that knows I need to say I am sorry. Be damned who was right and wrong! It seems admitting your mistakes means as much to yourself as it does to someone else, if not more.

Public Transit Bites the Big One

Ugh! I hate the bus sometimes. If I am being truthful, my bus route is probably the most laid back in the city. When I first started taking it over 2 years ago, there was the same 5 faces every morning, with the odd 1 or 2 thrown in here a few times a week. The bus was ours. All of a sudden my 'stare friends' from the bus stop became my conversational friends. I even made one very good friendship from it, someone I think I will know and keep in touch with for a long time. Even the morning drivers sour, early morning 'I hate people' face became one of familiarity and I think he even took a shine to us.

Over the last 6 months, even this bus has become unbearable to me. Every morning a group of girls get on, proceed to congregate directly beside me (as if there were actually no other seats on the bus!) and continue to chatter in their very nasally, very annoying foreign language until blessed relief;my stop comes. Now there is also a spattering of other people strewn about the bus, going from my quiet, cool calm and collected 5, to this out of control noisy blob of 15 to 20 people. And the bus driver has reverted to his early morning 'I hate people' face again, and spacing out so much he misses stops regularly.

Today though, I was done work too early to wait for my regular bus, so I headed up the hill to catch the 20. The bus was late, I missed the connecting bus that would help me avoid rush hour, and had to wait 20 minutes just to cram myself into an overcrowded, over heated, smelly bus like one more sardine in the can, just to make it the rest of way home. It wasn't over fast enough! And the bubbles from the soap...when I washed my hands...were black.

At this point, car payments are sounding like a really good investment.

Reaping What We Sow

My brain is a mess! Why do I say things that I later fret and worry over? Actually, the question should be why do the things I say make me fret and worry? When my private thoughts escape my brain and there is a delay in communication, I instantly regret what I said. Is this some sort of paranoia, or just regular old pain in the ass self doubt? I don't know if I have always been this way or if it is some sort of wretched side effect of my past life experiences.

To be honest, I am feeling a sort of apathy about everything happening in my life right now. It's neither good, or bad, it just is. I am happy with my job, I am happy with the amount of money I earn (although c'mon people! Who wouldn't love to be making more money?), I am happy with the supportive relationships I have with my friends and family. The things I am missing are things I cannot force into my life, and for a change I truly have to take a backseat to the unseen forces driving my life forward.

About 11 years ago or so, my friend K and I were hanging out in her room at home, spending some time with good old MJ. This is something we did quite regularly. We laughed, and joked about how when we were 30 we would be roomates, living in Halifax, still sitting on the same glow in the dark plastic blow up furniture doing the same old shit and having the same old conversations. Well the blow up furniture is gone, but the rest pretty much came true. Some sort of crazy premonition neither of us really honestly and truly believed would come to be. It was a joke. I think both of us had dreams that by this age, we would be married, have kids and a career that we loved; Naively believing that the creation of a family could be controlled and planned and maintained in the same way as a career. Well, joke was on us.

I think a deeper understanding of the terms Fate and Karma bitch-slap you in the face once you reach about 25 or so. I still don't feel I can grasp the place Fate has in my life although I feel its clammy deathgrip every once in a while. Yes, this is how I view Fate in my life at this point, like the grim reaper creeping up on you when you least expect it. And as for Karma, well its as simple as this Bitches; you reap what you sow.

Shitstorms a plenty!

Well just sitting here, can't believe I am starting a blog. I said, hey, I know one person that will be my faithful dedicated reader, and that's good enough for me! Maybe I can recruit one or two more over time, but hey, you gotta start somewhere. I figure that writing out erradic thoughts on random sheets of paper was getting a little old and maybe time to keep a record of this craziness I call My Thought Process.

Why do I have an urge to write what I am thinking? And furthermore, why do I have an urge for other to people to read what I wrote about what I am thinking? It is insanely personal to me and I feel exposed when others read what I have written, but at the same time I need to know that maybe someone out there understands where I am coming from and can tell me that I am not completely insane, or devoid of any actual common sense. I think this is why I ramble, and continuously repeat myself to no end; just so I can be sure the person who is listening undestands what I am saying. Do you understand what I am saying??

Another reason I think I write is because I feel the need to connect to other people. And at the same time, I want them to connect with me. The written word has always been an amazing pleasure in my life, whether or not I was the reader or the writer. I have taken so much pleasure in other people's writing, I can only dream of giving back to others the things that were given to me through the things I have read, whether it be books, poetry, or song lyrics! It's like they've shared a little piece of themselves and their life with you, and I love that! Life is a wonderous thing for me and the human race is equally amazing. This world in which we live, and the experiences we have as people are a gift and not to be taken lightly, although sometimes we are all guilty of taking our lives, pleasures, and even hardships for granted. It is all a lesson in the making and God only knows if we will ever figure out what it was all for. Let's just hope we accomplish in this life what we were meant to, or at least we figure out what those accomplishments are supposed to be, and strive our hardest to achieve them. I tell my kids at work everyday to 'be the best you You can be'. And even when it is hard, if we try, at least we will have satisfied ourselves!

I guess that is enough rambling. Future rants to come!