No. 3

How are you today?

 

Good.

 

Do you collect PC Optimum points?

 

…

 

And you can have ones of these. It’s a chance to win a thousand dollars online.

 

I won’t win. Not lucky.

 

Maybe you don’t win because you never think you will. 

 

I won one at race horse, in Moncton. 35 dollar.

 

Oh, you won at the horse races?

 

Yep. This man give me advice. It was a rain day. Man say on rain day always vote for big horse. Big-hooved horse strong in the mud, you see.

 

That’s really smart thinking! I never would have thought of that. Not that I find myself bidding on race horses often, but still. That’s a really good idea.

 

…

No. 2

Old Man: Are you looking to put a sign up?

Girl: No. Just looking at the ones already up.

Old Man: You should advertise for a boyfriend.

Girl: Don’t need to. Already have one.

Old Man: Should get two then.

Girl: Oh, can’t do that.

Old Man: Why not?

Girl: Because polygamy is illegal.

Old Man: I didn’t say you had to marry the guy.

Older Man: Polygamy? I don’t even know what that is. Will you tell me?

Girl: It’s when you marry more than one person.

Old Man: Well I have two wives. What am I supposed to do?

Girl: I don’t know.

Old Man: I’ll tell ya. I’m going to jump off the Chatam bridge.

Older Man: In them places like India, a man has five wives.

Girl: The religion is different.

Older Man: I could never do that to a person. That is too many women at one time.

Old Man: You think so?

Older Man: Yes. I mean, Jesus Christ, that’s just too much.

…

No. 1

I can’t believe you people! It’s only a game!

You threw volleyballs at two kids!

 

…

Atoms

 

A document in my drafts from June, 2017.

I am a person who talks to herself. A lot. I laugh with myself, I sing to myself, I have interviews, conversations. I debate, compliment, bicker, rant, cry, smile, all while I am alone. I think this is a healthy thing to do, but the insane usually have to be told they are not of sound mind. Maybe I just haven’t been told yet.

Today I was rant-whispering to an imaginary person in a scenario I had fantasized. I’m not sure if my thoughts unravel themselves, or if they fall down a rabbit-sized hole –maybe they do both, but I had for some unannounced-to-me reason, looked my reflected self in the eye and said, “You are not a waste of space.”

I had stopped. I took a breath. There was a sudden pressure on my chest, my fingers, below and behind my eyes. This was something I needed to hear, and it was something no one was ever going to tell me because they didn’t know I needed to hear it. But I did, somehow. An inner-conscience, mini-me who is truer than I’ll ever be and lives in a pit within the deep confines of my chest, knew it was something that had to become words for me to realize it. I am not a waste of space.

I don’t exactly know how I’ve been feeling recently. This spacey-ness of mind has to be caused from something more than sleep deprivation, and it turns out it’s been inner conflicts I’m not used to experiencing. I have been feeling unimportant, unreliable, manipulative, annoying, self-obsessive and disappointing to those around me. I feel like a friendship of mine has the potential to fall apart, that I am not meeting family expectations, like I am a horrible person for being human. I feel crushed. Not in a defeated way, but as if compressed down to a size that fits. I don’t want to fit. I feel as if the world has turned its sharp edges towards me, in an attempt to cut me down into something more comfortable.

I know a lot of this is not true, however. That they are only exaggerations that began as ideas and were then overthought, but these exaggerations are in my head now and I want them out. But loud music doesn’t seem to be working this time, and solitude isn’t helping either. I feel like I need to be around people, but being around people is part of the reason I feel this way to begin with. Although that’s not exactly true either, because all of this is me.

And who am I? I’m not exactly sure. That’s a question you wish someone else could tell you the answer to, but it doesn’t work that way. Isn’t that the grand prize to life? The secret at the end of the game, the three heel clicks, the drink me potion that brings you back to reality again? Sometimes I wish there was a template or an average set of guidelines people could reference from time to time, to see if you’re going at the right pace or not, but to be honest, I’m not sure if this would actually help.

I told myself today that I am not a waste of space, and the reason it caused me to feel the way I did and spew out this messy array of syllables is because it was the truth: I am not a waste of space. I am not a waste of space because I am made of space, of stars, of magic, and people recognizing this does not take anything away from me, nor do they suddenly become the source from which I get it from.

I am my own person. A human with bad skin, who laughs at herself and eats all of the chips at a party, and watches shitty movies made for TV because she finds them oddly relatable and rightfully funny, and stares at the moon and the stars the same way she will undoubtedly the one she loves. And none of that did I take from anyone. And none of that can be taken by anyone, because I am here. And I am not a waste of space.

My Pen

I have lost myself

the day I sat down my pen

and told It I would not be writing anymore

 

It could not understand what it had done

although I told It

again and again

that it were not the one to blame for our unfortunate departure

(in terms of friendship)

that all good things come to an end

and so mediocre things must end also

if ending is what’s cool these days

for the Good to want to do it

 

It expressed to me in the simplest of language

(though colloquial and so not that simple at all)

that it did not want me to go

We had good times, It said

Great times, even

We have laughed and cried

and have made others laugh and cry as well

and that says something

We were good together you and I, It said

Why do we have to say goodbye?

 

And I made fun of It for rhyming

we don’t usually do that you see

And so I sat It down even closer

and told It the truth

 

I’m not done writing really, I said

(though how I wish that were the truth)

I have merely taken up typing

I have to be with the times you see

Nothing printed can be published anymore

and printing is all we know how to do

and yes signatures are important

but they don’t really count

 

It cried and cried

It’s blue ink somehow smearing onto everything I own

and I let it

for one day I found my pen had dried up

and without too much guilt

I threw it away

ran to my keyboard

and wrote this

Watchmen

Today is May 23, 2017. It’s a Tuesday. Summer weather, although I’m wearing a sweater out of comfort and habit. I went to the Warf with Toni. We people-watched a young couple, and then an old couple, and then a man with his dog I thought looked like a Bella but was actually named T.J. We asked.

We said the young couple looked like a Becky and Sean, that they had been long-known acquaintances but now they were actually getting to know each other.

“Look at how she’s touching her hands, her face, her hair.” Toni had said. “I was doing that when I sat here. I know what she’s thinking.”

But I was listening to his laugh, because I had done that before so I believed I knew what he was thinking. The way it was a little higher, a little more polite, not as obnoxious as I’m sure ours sounded to the men on their boats nearby.

Then Becky and Sean got up and walked away, comfortably, at magic hour. We watched them go just as they had watched us arrive.

“There they go.” Toni had said. “Walking off together into the sunset.”

“What if this is their spot.” I had went on. “And we’ll know it’s their spot, and we’ll watch their relationship grow and prosper and fall in love, and then disastrously fall apart and come back together again like some romance novel. And we’ll be like, ‘There’s Becky and Sean.’ And then one day they will hear us talking about them, and they’ll be like, ‘What are you talking about? Our names are Amelia and Brett.’ And then we will apologize and they will be incredibly creeped out and we’ll never see them again.”

She had laughed at that. “Amelia and Brett.” She giggled. I had laughed too, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty for some reason.

I have been struck, again, with the realization that there are a significant amount of people in my life that I will never see again. Why haven’t I been studying them as closely as I had Becky and Sean? I can still recall what they were wearing, the way they sounded, the color of the travelling paper cups in their hands. There are times where I find myself terrified, completely overwhelmed with anxiety over the idea that I will forget how people look like when not framed by the shape of my phone. As if by them leaving, I will no longer recognize them if I were to be suddenly bumped into in a line at Walmart, or a Chapters, or for an expensive cup of cheap coffee. That the way they hold themselves, or subtly fidget with their hands, or glance upwards when entering a new room will be wiped from my mind, and it will be these things I notice now that would make them unrecognizable to me then.

I don’t know if I have the fear of losing people, but as of the moment I’m not sure what else to call it. Maybe, too, it’s just the fear of growing up. Or letting go. Or both. Or all three. Because apparently I have to be excessive that way.

Hospital Rooms

To those few followers who don’t know me personally; I am a Type One Diabetic and have been for about two-thirds of my life. I feel like this is something worth reading about, and if not, then at least worth writing about. I was diagnosed when I was six years old. I consider this an unfortunate thing, being so young, but then I look at my sister and realize she was only four. I have the vague memories of Before which she doesn’t even have. We were in the hospital three weeks from each other. I remember the ocean-themed room in the midst of being painted, and after I was done crying through the needle work on my arm I was honored with choosing the color of the octopus, which stood like an unfinished coloring book on the wall. Purple, was what I said. When I finally left, I peeked my head in to see the finished room I felt I was now a part of. Low and behold, the octopus was pink. It was probably the most upsetting thing I had experienced that week.

Around this time last year, my grandmother and I were talking in the kitchen of my aunt’s house. It was a conversation about mental health, attitudes, and the power of positive thinking. She ended up saying, “You could easily be depressed.” I agreed with her, even though my cousins did not understand why she would say such a thing. Diabetes has taken control of my life because it has to. Otherwise, I would not be here. It is like the child who constantly wants attention, or the annoying ex you just cannot get rid of. It can easily sneak up on you and break you down if you do not look after it, which is excruciatingly hard to do some days, because it is just not fair.

If I didn’t want to be a female anymore, I could get an operation. If I hated having brown hair, I could dye it. My eye color can change through contacts, my environment can change by moving away. My life can change if I stop being lazy, and tolerate the suggestion that wellness isn’t just for health freaks and yoga fanatics. But this? This I am stuck with. No matter what I do, or how much I try, it doesn’t get easier. If anything, the build up of scar tissue makes it harder, and you get to where you don’t even feel like a person anymore. So what do you do then? Doctors and hospitals are suffocating. People tell you how to live your life when all they see you as are numbers. My body is dead tissue under skin, and it’s no wonder your blood sugars are yo-yo-ing because I don’t want to do it anymore. 

If I had of told six-year old me this, she wouldn’t have understood. Hospitals are fun! She thought. Walking through the halls with the suitcase she never had the chance to use before, coloring pictures for the nurses to hang on their walls, room service, free toys, a view of the city lights at night, what wasn’t to like? To be completely honest, I don’t remember any of the bad parts, the scary moments from those first days. I remember making a cloth doll in the toy room, playing with fake food, squeezing stress balls, being incredibly jealous of the boy with the shoes with wheels that would roll on the floor. I remember eating out for the first time since being in the hospital, and walking back in like I owned the place. What I don’t remember is saying what my mother can’t forget; “Today was a good day, except for the bad parts.” The truest sentence I think will ever fly out of my mouth.

Six-year-old me was wiser than 17-year-old me. “Today was a good day, except for the bad parts, ” is the attitude you should have going into every single day. No matter how horrible your life seems in a moment of frustration, or when you are overwhelmed, today can still be a good day, and that is something not just diabetics should remind themselves of. Your outlook on the world you live in affects everything you do, think, and feel. A second of positivity in a moment of darkness can change your entire day. Sure, life sucks shit, but those mantras are tiring and old now. Life is what you make it, and if you want a happier one, or, like me, you want to kick Diabetes where it hurts–just smile. Even when you don’t want to. Smile until you don’t know what else you could possibly be doing. Smile until Life smiles back, because it will, and you’ll both love it.

 

 

(Fun)draisers

Saturday began our first fundraiser raising money for grad year. Being at school for noon on a weekend was not as horrible as I originally thought, but it was still a fundraiser. A canteen where we sold cheese goop on chips and steamed hot dogs to a gym full of exhausted parents and sweaty teenage boys. Two hours well spent.

I know most everybody goes through the same reactions, and I, too, will be one of those “Can’t believe it’s my last first day..” people when the time comes around,  but it is still bizarre. So it begins,  is the only phrase I can use to describe this weekend, for it’s the beginning of an end. An end to childhood, to high school, to an ignorance of the outside world I have yet to realize I have. So much yet nothing at all is this life right now. In the grand scheme of things, the years spent dwelling in the halls of public school are irrelevant and usually not thought of, so why is it that parts of you are scared to leave?

I am excited to start the life I will lead after graduation. I am not excited to graduate. Ceremonies are long and emotional. There is so much in one person, and when faced with leaving a close-knit group of 52 persons behind, it is overwhelming. It feels easier to just not do it, but that’s not how things work, thankfully, otherwise nothing would change and change is important. Everything changes. Everything has an end, and everything has a beginning. It’s true, what Scott Fitzgerald said, about the crisp, new beginnings of Fall, but I am ready for a real beginning. One with new environments filled with strangers, and rooms screaming to be filled with personality. I am excited for an independence I have yet to experience. I am looking forward to the person I will become after I graduate, and all I can do right now is hope she will be more than cheese goop on chips and steamed hot dogs.

Stems

I have been a busy person my entire life.

No, I have not always had a place I needed to go, or work that had to be done. I only went through my day-to-day encounters with the idea that everything needed to be done quickly. I must get to my next class quickly. I need to take these photos because they are needed quickly.  I would move from one project to the next, completing them frantically or not at all, in an attempt to jump to the next thing as fast as I can. As if it is an accomplishment, somehow. As if maybe I am trying to prove myself capable. Of what, I’m not sure. Life? Life is the only thing that comes to mind.

I use to glorify busy. It made me feel important, so much that I placed it into every aspect of my life. I was wrong. There is nothing glorious about rushed behaviors. It is only exhausting. Numbing. I have developed into a state where slowing down is considered both boring and dangerous, as if I will miss everything in the extra minute I take to just breathe.

I am trying to break this habit. It lacks presence.  I feel like I am not even here, or scratch that, I do not feel. Your mind is racing, your heart is racing, your body is racing, and you’re out of breath. I don’t feel. I do not remember to breathe.

It’s this busyness. This rushed pressure pushing you to get things done because you only have a short amount of time to do them, which is a lie. You have all kinds of time, and the only thing you need to do is buy milk, do the dishes, and finish your homework. Or walk down the hall, up the stairs, and into class.

I once read an article from a Colorado online magazine about grounding. In yoga, you visual the four corners of your feet meeting with the four corners of the Earth, and you hold on to that, using it to become grounded where you are.

Today I went for a walk to drop clothes off at my cousin’s. On my way back I realized how fast I was walking, as if determined, or in the process of being late. I stopped. I closed my eyes. I visualized the four corners of my feet meeting the four corners of the Earth. I remembered to slow down. I am here. I thought. I am here. I am here. 

I thought that, if I were to recreate this moment, what details would I need to know? I felt the coolness of the air biting at the tops of my cheeks, the wind curling around my fingers and hair. The sun, filtered dim through the trees, warmed nothing, but danced across the left side of my face. Small, needled branches dotted the path before me, and besides the crackling of the forest around me, the world was quiet. I walked in the middle of the road on my way home without the busyness of thought. Without busyness at all.

Authors note: The original copy of this blog post did not save properly and it took me a long time to rewrite this based on my faulty memory. I almost decided not to post, but I did. I just thought it was important to point out that the words you just read, or are currently reading and you decided to skip down from, had more potential. I might come back and edit this later. I hope I do because the beginning of this disgusts me, but oh well. Computers for you, eh? (Too Canadian?)

 

 

It Was Fall

The first time we said goodbye was in the fall. I’m not sure if it was the letting go the season does imperfectly that was used as inspiration, or maybe, more like the leaves, I could feel my stems breaking. It wasn’t your fault. Though I’m sure the leaf does not see the tree in this way. I was unhappy and you were miserable. We both cried, in secret. I didn’t tell you I wasn’t sleeping but you figured out, somehow.

I remember you were saying how pretty New York was. You had gone hiking for over four hours, a walk filled with rejuvenating reflection. It was fall. The sites were beautiful. You told me how much I would love it the same moment I broke your heart. You cried in your hotel room that night. You didn’t have to tell me, but when you did I had already guessed.

I cried well into the snow. I wrote poems; about you, about us, about the nothingness that strayed after the nothingness we were, but somehow we claimed to be something. You wrote poems; about me, about us, about the futures you dreamt but never told anyone. Not even yourself. Only the paper knew of your reveries.

The second time we said goodbye was in December. You had written me a letter that had made me cry after I thought I was done crying, about you, about us. You claimed you had taken something from me. You wished me happy birthday. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I replied and regretted it, thinking my words to be what broke you. You wrote me a poem in January, and eight more in February. I wanted to let you go.

Then it was fall. I hadn’t heard from you since March. I had stopped looking for you in the things I believed to be unrecognizable, only to look closer and find you. You had a job now. Something that took you near the rivers, the sea. I know this because of the pictures you sent to no one in particular. They came with your words, saying how you still thought about me, about us. It was fall. A year had gone. I didn’t reply to your poem. Knowing if I did, you would want me to stay.

I wrote to you in secret. Only the paper knowing of the things I wished to tell you. I had been angry, sad, upset. Emotions I no longer felt towards you, towards us. The entirety of our nothingness that somehow turned to somethingness now irrelevant. I had school, we had had summer two summers ago and now last summer was distant in my memory. Though I still find myself searching for the books you have recommended me. And the songs you sang but never titled. To think of you now leaves me feeling odd, and lonely for something I don’t understand. You once told me you were the only coffee person you knew. I wonder if this has changed.