This House

I find myself now very excited about moving I realize today that it’s sad in a way, packing up (crying). I am excited because it’s an opportunity to start fresh, somewhere new, somewhere where we make our decisions more comfortable. We make them with more knowledge and experience. We get to think about what’s best for us, not everyone around us. And I don’t mean that in a selfish way, I mean it in a more evolutionary way, to think about self-preservation and self-fulfilment as opposed to slowing one’s self-improvement of one oneself at the detriment of one’s personal advancement.

  

I’m excited about starting over somewhere (sorry!) English, where I’m charming, witty, and comfortable, where I don’t have to stutter searching  for my words, and my jokes aren’t lost. I can go to the corner store and talk to the lady every day. The potential of either actually making a life for myself there, the life I want, or this being a stepping stone to something bigger, better ,and different is refreshing. A little step in opening my mind up to new possibilities. All this is exciting.

Today as I pack up paintings and pictures and random things, I come across objects that remind me of SOMETHING and walking away from all that to jump into something I’m  completely unaware of is just scary and frightening and very heartbreaking at the same time. I come across things that I put away here, for another day, and I was going to do them, and this was going to be for that. I realize I spend so much time doing that, a lot of time and energy and effort and care on this house. This house I don’t even like in this neighbourhood I’ve come to despise in a city I hate. It’s this crooked, uneven, mystifying house, and yet when I think of what it was when I came here and what it is now, I can’t help but feel something because it is ours. And I rarely referred to it as home, for the last 5 years it is where my heart and my life with Vince have been.

I’m still excited and optimistic but today is the first day I am saddened to leave this behind.

Prelude to Aug 17

Today right now I’m very optimistic about moving, I’m actually not hoping, because that’s extreme, but I’m asking the universe to allow everything to happen to facilitate that.

I realise it would be a fresh start a chance to completely start over somewhere different, with a new set of responsibilities and priorities, a new outlook and understanding. To start a life which depends solely on our efforts and opinions, and doubt and criticism have hopefully vanished. I’m optimistic and somewhat confident. I am open to living as simply, easily, and not taking anything for granted-ly. I will try to not accept more than I earned or ask for more than I deserve and allow myself to be happy because I don’t owe anyone anything. That would be really nice.

I’m hoping the stars align for me and Vince and we can finally do something on which we see eye to eye and  is a choice made by both of us. I’m honestly asking that everything goes through in a way that is fair and allows us to do this comfortably. 

The Move

 On Friday Vince got offered a job in Belleville.

Although I really don’t want to move somewhere that small, somewhere that’s not the city (which I've been dying to move back to), for two people who have complained for so long about their situation and being stuck and all the other things we’ve complained about, this is a really, really, really, really good opportunity. It is an opportunity to start over, to start fresh; to start things and do them the way we want to, at the pace we want to, at the everything we want, instead of the way everyone else wants or is said to be "normal".

We don’t like being here; it’s an amalgamation of other people’s desires wishes advice opinion and not really our own. It would by hypocritical to say we want to leave so much and finally get the change and not go anywhere. It is a chance to do things on our own time on our own terms. To make a name for ourselves. To make friends based on preference and having common ground and common interest rather than geography and kindergarten. It will be a big change, but hopefully one that will lead us to some answers because we clearly haven’t found some yet.

Sometimes the most educated are the most ignorant, and I am basing this on what they have been taught.

Sometimes an Ivy League education can mean being intructed by some of the most closed-minded people. People whose views are slanted,  who make the rich, god-fearing, white man the hero of every story. There has to be not only the awareness that everything you are taught is not necessarily fact but sometimes what is being preached is only one person’s opinion. 

You have to possess the audacity to question, the courage to speak out, the respect to understand, the clarity to understand it all. And then find the wisdom to make that distinction between fact and belief.

It's been a week since I started exercising and today Vince said "It really shows today, your skin looks better, you seem happier, you look like you feel better in general."

Just do it...

"Failing to do right is just as much sin as doing wrong."

-Billy Graham, The Journey

Walking Makes it Better

Today I decided to participate in a walk-o-thon.

This is the first charitable thing I do as an adult. Well, I give money when I see the tables in the mall, or when kids come and ring on the bell, but I myself have never participated physically in anyhting before. My goal was to raise a tiny sum of 200$ and walk 10km. The proceeds will mostly go to a maternity hospital in Armenia and a part will go to Foundation of Stars children's health research.

Admitting Defeat

People with no balance should not stand on one foot, leaning against a non-stationary object.

I came to this conclusion while waxing my legs in the kitchen. I was standing on my left foot, with the right one up on an upside-down 3 gallon bucket. As I was talking to Margo and not really paying attention to what I was doing, I failed to notice that every time I moved, the bucket slid along the floor. Granted it was only a few millimeters at a time, but it was still enough to sporadically cause me to lose balance. When I uttered that statement, loudly (mostly to myself as an observation) she first looked at me confused, but upon noticing my stance, she laughed out loud and said "nice one, I’ll remember that."

This may sound crazy to you, but that one sentence, that small observation led to a bigger truth: We all know our limitations, yet we never accept them. We know we shouldn't do something, or that we can't (are incapable of) do said thing, but we still try. Perhaps it's to prove something to ourselves or to someone else. Maybe we do it to show off. Maybe we just forgot we couldn't. The point is that we try, even as we know we shouldn't. We push ourselves, knowing that we are causing harm. We persevere, sometimes unnecessarily, and end up disappointed or discouraged.

We then blame ourselves; we question our abilities, our decisions. We try to think of what we will do next time to succeed, all the while not stopping to think that maybe we weren't meant to succeed at this particular thing. We fail to realize that we do not have to be the best at everything, or able to do all that others do. And why do we do this? Simple: we are incapable of admitting defeat. 

If we accept our shortcomings and thereby accept defeat (so to speak), accept that we cannot do everything, we will grow to understand and respect our limitations. By doing so, we can stop wasting our time and energy trying to be perfect.

Religion and Shame

In response to the church's question of how to get the youth involved:

You cannot preach marriage and abstinence to a generation that has no shame.

You Are What You Think

It’s all mind over matter.

If you think good and feel good, you’ll be good.

It’s mathematics and logic.

That’s all there is to it.

Think good thoughts and do good things, you’ll undoubtedly feel good about yourself.

If you feel shitty about yourself and others, you'll keep feeling shitty and be unable to snap out of it.

 If you feel depressed, sick, or lonely, just take a deep breath, relax, and calm down.

Tell yourself you’re good and everything will be good and settle into place.