Eye Heart Ewe

I was out walking the dogs last night (and no, that is not an euphemism) and realized that in addition to my heart-shaped sunglasses, I was wearing a white skirt with blue polka-dot hearts and a BFF necklace with not one but two little metal hearts dangling on the chain. I had to ask myself, was this an intentional bid to surround myself with love? And then it hit me, Carrie Bradshaw-style, I am surrounded with love. I feel like a complete unappreciative jerk-face, here I am whining about crappy friends when, shit yo, I don't need them! I don't need them because I've got better friends and I've got a huge amazing family and I have to stop pining for something that is unattainable and take full advantage of the love that is being shoved, lovingly, down my throat not to mention give some love back. Recently I had the honour of seeing my name in the acknowledgments of a friend's new fiction book so I figured that although the scale is much, much smaller I'd like to thank the following people for their unwaivering support or for reconnecting with me when I needed it the most or for just being someone that could make me laugh and momentarily forget my problems; I'll just come out and say it, with every cell of my being I love you all.

MB. Shaun. Dave. Pops. Pam. Troy. Mimi. Keat. Barber. Pa. Crys. Auntie B. The extended Struthers clan. Leah. David and his Beyer Brood. The Greasy Fingers: Gary, Rebekah (GB), Derek (Poppa Corn), Kevin (K-Dawg), Andrew (Eagle) and Stephanie (Fat Ma (don't let the name fool you: she's neither fat nor a ma but she does look like a composite of me and GB)). Kendra (nickname undecided). James. Erica. Fjola. Crystal. Ethan. Damara. Sacha. Shaughnessy. Wes. Laurie. Laura. Claire. Nolan and Mina and baby Alex. Emily. Geoff. Jeff. Pat. Kris.  Catharine. Chris (C-Dubs). Lesley. Gillian. Ken. Kyle. Liane. Neale. Puneet. Sandi. Sarah. And all my Indigo peeps (you know who you are: Leo, Sour Cream and Onion ect.! Haha, I'm soooo funny).

I'm sending lots of love via the magical internet.

To New Beginnings

Having moved my blog over from Tumblr to Blogger, I am going to treat this as the spring of What Fresh Hell is This? and start fresh. No more morose, depressing posts; no more tears -- there's no crying in blogging! No crying! -- no more weepy, woe is me, come on everyone slit your wrists with me now kinda writings. Not to say every post will be like traipsing through a field of daffodils but I will do my best to veer away from the essay equivalents of a Velvet Underground song; it's time really start living by my new mantra (courtesy of my bff, Dorothy Parker) you might as well live.
So, I propose a toast to new beginnings: let us all bask in the sunshine of spring, of moving forward and of hope.

Wah Wah

I don’t know how to get through this. I’m trying, I really am, but, not to sound like a quitter, it’s just so fucking hard. I no longer know where the depression ends and I begin, like a whiny, mopey Ouroborus. Even my best friends have grown weary of my tears and the constant ups and downs, offering little more than an exasperated “I don’t know how to help you”.

I was doing so well. I had started jogging and doing yoga. I was writing again. I had gotten in touch with old friends and even made plans to get together them. I started exploring my city a bit more. I found out I was accepted into the classics program at the University of Toronto for the fall semester. Things were really comin’ up Alex. But with every step forward there are two steps backwards.

Slowly, I have slipped back into familiarity; I am an addict and my drug of choice is gloom. 

Despite my staunch atheism, I feel as though I must have done something wrong to deserve this and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out what that was nor can I even begin to figure out how to fix it. 

I feel like going all biblical on this shit and ripping my clothes, tearing out my hair and crying out “why me, God, why me?!”. All I want is the chance to try and turn this frown upside down but every time I start to more shit gets thrown my way. Someone’s gotta be having fun on this roller-coaster because I am not fucking amused.

Or am I doing this to myself? We are each responsible for ourselves; our attitudes; our behaviours. Why should I be any different?

I want to be the best person I can be. I want to be the pillar of strength for everyone around me and I want to be a joy to be with and I want to be missed. I want to be important to people who are important to me. No matter how hard I try to be that person I always come up short. Whether I am expecting too much or whether I am letting people down, there is no reprieve from my failings.

I am so far from perfect I want to die. I make huge mistakes in my romantic life, the kinds of mistakes that if you are quiet in Vancouver you can hear the chorus of “I told you so(s)” from Toronto; I am giving to the point of ridiculous and I expect the same in return; I’m lazy and petty and stubborn, I procrastinate, I am quick to judge, jealousies wreak havoc on my psyche. I have more flaws than space will allow and all of those flaws have played such a powerful role in this depression that it is hard not to imagine them causing it in the first place.

 So, am I selfish and pathetic and weak and stupid or is my life some sort of cosmic joke — a Greek tragedy of good intentions meeting fatal flaws? 

There seems to be no ready answer so I suppose this is going to be one of those cliff-hanger, “tune in next week” kind of deals for you, dear reader, and for me. I know I’ll be waiting with bated breath.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I moved out of my beautiful apartment today. My beautiful apartment with exposed brick, dishwasher and washer and dryer, big backyard with a big deck. My beautiful apartment that my best friend and I had decorated with peacock wallpaper, horse paint-by-numbers, and hundreds of books arranged by colour. My heart is broken.

Our lease is not up for another three and a half months and despite the whole not living there, I will continue paying rent. I’ve made the decision to leave because it was becoming more and more clear that to stay would be putting my mental health and ultimately my life at risk. 

When I moved into the apartment I was doing so with my two best friends. Visions of happy dinners and legendary theme parties danced in my head. There were certainly times of laughter and harmony but unfortunately one of my roommates and I spent most of our time fighting. 

For two years our relationship has oscillated violently from wonderful to horribly dysfunctional. Each time the pendulum swung the effects were much more devastating; that a loving and passionate friendship could in seconds devolve into vicious, rage-fueled confrontations began to erode my own self-worth and shake my confidence. 

How cruel that I must make important decisions now when I cannot even be trusted to keep myself alive. How unfair to my other roommate that I have played a part in filling our beautiful apartment with tension. 

God, I am so angry. So fucking angry. I have tried so hard only to be thwarted at every turn. I wanted to live out the summer eating the tomatoes from the garden and throwing barbecues for all my friends and drinking homemade sangria. I wanted to get through this depression with my relationships intact.

Without the anger I am overcome with debilitating sadness. I am fully responsible for my own bad behaviour; for the role I have played in fracturing my home. I will mourn the loss of my home, of my sanctuary and I will mourn the death of my roommate family.

I want to think that I am being proactive, even brave but all I feel is failure. Couldn’t I have tried harder? Or adjusted my reactions and expectations? I’ll never know but what’s done is done and now I must look forward and take the lessons I’ve learned from this ill-advised partnership. But with the hard-learned lessons come happy memories that one day I’ll be able to look back upon fondly. 

I will miss my friend dearly and even now, after yet another knock-em down brawl that resulted in name-calling and yelling, I can’t imagine life without them. Every person that enters our lives leaves an imprint and there is now a hole in my heart, in my soul that will never be filled.

My Mum Rocks my World

When I was in the sixth grade, I made the high jump team. There were, I think, six or seven girls and I got the last spot. This was a huge accomplishment for me because while I was generally a good athlete and made all the other teams handily, I was terrified of high jump; I had landed one too many times with the bar crushed into my lower spine.

Making the team proved to me that I could overcome my fears and accomplish anything (well, anything an eleven year old could accomplish) so when Colleen Nowatzki beat my winning height three days later after missing the tryouts due being sick and bumped me off the team, it’s not a stretch to say that I was devastated. 

The next day, my mother came to calmly discuss the situation with the gym teacher; not to get me on the team but to alert him to the hurt his decision wrought. And by came calmly to discuss I really mean flew in like a bat outta hell. Poor Mr. Bailey was never the same.

Two things happened that day, I got back on the high jump team and Mama Bear was born and nobody fucks with Mama Bear’s cubs. My brother, sister and I came to expect to hear the high-healed furious clicks down the hallway whenever we had been wronged. 

Mums are great. A good mum is like nine hours of deep sleep or the first hot, sunny day of spring — there is a feeling that anything is possible. I, like all others who have been graced with an amazing mother, have a billion and one stories of kindness, of protection, of selflessness like the time she had to stay up with me all night on my nineteenth birthday making sure that I didn’t have alcohol poisoning despite having to start a new job in the morning. 

But, like I said most people have those kind of mum stories and I need something more to up the ante. There was my sister’s sixth birthday party. My mum had always put huge effort into our parties; themes, homemade pinatas, treasure hunts, costume parties; but for some reason Shauna’s sixth was way more low-key and at one point the party threatened to slip into antsy chaos. So what does my darling mother do? She got out her old saddle and gave all the kids rides. On her back. Now, that is dedication to a cause.

Growing up there was very little money; we were poor, yo; and were never able to go on any sort of vacation that didn’t involve going to our grandparent’s cottage. One Spring break, I think I was eleven or so, my mum decided  that we would have a stay-cation (this was waaay before stay-cations were hip or stay-cation had even been coined). We packed our bags, drove around the city, picked up a pizza and came home to “check-in”. The four of us spent the week sunning on her bed, pretending we were on the beach in Southern France. 

My mum taught Dave, Shaun and I to punch. She would line us up and hunker down and we would take turns punching her in the shoulder all while she gave us pointers. 

My mum used to sing me to sleep every night. Her song of choice: Taxi by Harry Chapin. “It was raining hard in Frisco…”

My mum calls us Snides, Shaunstress and Allerd; her purse — Percy Bysshe Shelley (Percy Shelley for short). Instead of swearing she says “buzzard beak” and when she’s cold she says that she’s “chill the bill”. 

My mum introduced me to Modest Mouse back in like 1998. I’ll never forget my brother and sister, age ten and eight, dancing around the living room to Trailer Trash.

My mum had me when she was twenty. She finished her BA when I was four. She started taking courses again about seven years ago; getting her sign language certificate, then her Post Bach.. She finished her MA in education three weeks ago. I am so proud of her for everything she has accomplished. I know from watching her overcome such great odds that I can do anything. 

My mum has made three trips to Toronto in slightly over two months simply because I needed her; waking up in the hospital after overdosing, she was there. She has held me and listened when I needed her to listen; talked when I needed to talk. 

My mum is brave, she is loyal, she is generous. My mum is fierce and kind and strong and smart and so funny. 

Every good thing about me, every positive attribute is mine because of my mum. If I am a tree, my mum is my roots.

I’m sure all of your mums are pretty awesome, but my mum broke the mold. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama Bear.

Silly Daydreams

I want to be Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep (circa Deer Hunter) living in a Tom Waits/Nick Cave collaboration featuring Nina Hagen in a giant snow globe filled with water and sparkles.

I will eat ice cream and Indian food all the time and drink wine and micro-brews and talk about art and music and books and David Lynch. I will watch spaghetti westerns and samurai movies and Down by Law over and over and weep at the perfection of Jarmusch.

I’ll be surrounded by my favorite people: Rebekah, Derek, Kevin, Andrew, Stephanie, Justin, Kendra, James and Erica, Fjola, Crystal, Shaughnessy; and my family: David, Shauna, Pam and Troy, Mimi, Keaton, Crysler, the Beyers, Leah, my parents, my grandparents.

Miraculously Dorothy Parker would be there and Flannery O’Connor and I will chase butterflies with Nabokov. Wayne Coyne would fall in love with me and write me song after song; of course he would have to fight for me with Seth Bullock and a very young Dennis Hopper. I would be pen pals with Amy Hempel and she would read my stories and love me for writing them and I would make Amy Poehler and Tina Fey and Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig giggle as much as they made me.

Lilacs would be in bloom all year round; every tree would be strung with white christmas lights.

Song birds, otters and horses; bunnies, kittens, puppies and baby foxes.

Everyday would be an occasion to celebrate. With the smell of the sun still on our limbs, we will all dance and laugh all night early into the morning; intoxicated with love for each other, for life, for all the beauty in the world. 

Breaking Bad Habits

What will I do when suicide is no longer my fallback plan? The weight of responsibility is crushing. As terrifying as it may sound and not to downplay my own anguish, the thought of ending my own life is a sanctuary of sorts. When I am low, I become absolutely fixated on my own inadequacies and so will never be able to accomplish anything. The fear of failure is greater than the fear of death.

As I recover (fingers crossed!), I will have to begin facing those anxieties of underachieving without a light at the end of the tunnel. But how? Wanting to live despite sure heartache, failure and disappointment requires breaking the bad habit of entertaining the idea of just opting out. 

When my mum was trying to get me to stop sucking my thumb she painted my nail with some sort of vile tasting polish. Hmm, so what then will be my vile tasting polish for this bad habit? 

Working in a bookstore for four years I have avoided the self-help section like the plague. The section astounded me; thousands of books all geared towards self-improvement. Flipping through the table of contents of any of them lead me to two conclusions: positive thinking is the key to happiness and that the self-help industry has been built on the most head-slappingly, simple obvious advice. Think good thoughts and your life will improve! Earth-shattering! Cats and dogs, living together!  

But alas, I’ve lost my natural instinct for positivity and so my Olympian-like proclivity for daydreaming is a thing of the past. 

Although a severe depressive episode usually cannot be helped and is so debilitating that to focus on anything other than the depression requires Herculean strength; negative thinking is a dangerous byproduct. And once that negative thought weasels in there the next low is that much closer. The key seems to be focusing on the not-so-low times and squeezing some happy thoughts between unhappy. I need to force myself to daydream again.

I’m not going to be making a vision board or anything but I’ll give positive thinking a shot.

So, getting back to my original quandary of what to do when suicide is no longer my fallback future, well, instead of killing myself I’m going to get a dog and name her Dorothy Barker. I am going to work on reading a book a week. I will keep writing this blog and try my hand at writing fiction again. My best friend and roommate is moving away so I will find a new apartment, a beautiful little one-bedroom with a big sunny kitchen and vine covered balcony. I applied for university and I will get my BA studying the classics. I am going to run everyday and maybe even try my hand at a marathon. I’m going to save up money and go visit my darlings in Edinburgh and Albania (?!) and my brother in Denmark. 

There is so much for me to look forward to and knowing that right this moment when I am relatively stable is all the more important because I’m not out of the woods yet. The darkness will fall upon me again but until then I will fortify myself with my dreams .

Stuff Outside the Window at 2am

There is a man across the street standing in front of the vegetarian roti place. He is at a forty-five degree angle from the wall and not moving. It is weird and I wonder why he is there. Oh geez, I think he’s peeing. Yep, definitely peeing. And he’s moving on. Why the forty-five degree angle, though? Why wouldn’t he just face the wall? Hmm, curious. Now he’s gone and there’s no one else - wait - a guy in a white shirt and black pants just walked by rather briskly for two in the morning. Ok, now there’s no one else. Quiet night on London Street. This was a dumb idea. 

I'd Pan That River for Gold... That's What She Said

Oh, my fucking god, I have fallen in love. Head over heals, goofy, can’t fall asleep, tingly love. I actually feel a little like throwing up and, what’s this, I’m smiling; there’s probably even a twinkle in my eye. Wondering who the lucky gent is? Don’t, it’s not a gent at all. Not a lucky lady, either. Now, keep in mind I’ve been depressed (am depressed?) and just be happy that there’s a skip in my step, the object of my affection is a TV show (ah, it feels so inadequate a description!), Deadwood. 

There should be no surprise, really, despite the whole not a person thing, Deadwood does share a lot of characteristics with most of my previous loves; scruffy, alcoholic, dangerous, sensitive but tough, mean, incredibly sharp and kinda dirty with one hell of a swagger. And totally unrequited but let’s not go down that long, dusty, foreboding road.

If Deadwood were a man, I’d swim a thousand miles in freezing water just to watch him take off his shirt. 

I’ve had a thing for the wild West for some time now thanks to Cormac McCarthy and Wallace Stegner (shout out to Blood Meridian and Angle of Repose, yo) not to mention Clint Eastwood, so I was drawn to Deadwood for the setting if nothing else. There is something so romantic about the frontier; about the violence and survival and bravery and lawlessness; it’s all so primal. Whew, I’m giving myself goose-bumps. 

So, Deadwood: Wild Bill Hickock? Check. Calamity Jane? Check. Drunken gold miners? Check. Sassy whores and grizzled saloon keepers? Check and check. Alright, looking pretty good but that doesn’t exactly equal unbridled passion so throw in the rest of the motley crew; there’s Doc Cochran, angry, bitter and heart of gold; the mayor, E B Farnum, conniving, sniveling and slimy; Jewel the crippled cleaner who teaches Doc Cochran how to dance; Wu, the Chinese opium dealer who will feed you to his pigs; and Sol Starr, co-owner of the hardware store who is so smitten with Trixie the prostitute (she’s got tricks, see?) that it hurts my heart. And as if that weren’t enough there is Al Swearengen, who runs a whorehouse and all things illegal.

A man after my own heart, Swearengen turns swearing into an art; he talks fast and despite the wit you know he’d cut your heart out and send it to your mother. Some of his amazing lines:

In life you have to do a lot of things you don’t fucking want to do. Many times, that’s what the fuck life is… one vile fucking task after another.

…

If I bleat when I speak, it’s because I’ve just been fleeced.

…

Here’s my counter-offer to your counter-offer: go fuck yourself.

…

I’m declaring myself conductor of this meeting as I have the bribe sheet.

…

Dan, don’t you agree that truth, if only a pinch, must season every falsehood, or else the palate fucking rebels?

…

Over time, your quickness with a cocky rejoinder must have gotten you many punches in the face.

What’s not to love about this guy? But really I’ve been saving the best for last: the sheriff and co-owner of the hardware store, Seth Bullock. Sweet baby Moses, that smoldering glare, the way he tears off Alma Garrett’s petty-coat, the sorrow in his eyes as he held his dead friend, how his muscles ripple while he…does anything. I don’t even want to imdb the actor for fear he’s married. Sad? Yes, but at least it’s not depressing (ba dum ching)!

This is just a perfect fucking show and all you cocksuckers should rent it or I’ll cut your collective throats. Man, it’s just not the same when I say it.

Grin and Bear it

I wish I had another disease. A beatable but taxing disease; I don’t mean to trade up. Just something I could fight stoically and be praised for staying positive. If I have to struggle then I’d at least like to inspire. I want to write a funny but touching memoir all about how turning that frown upside down helped me live life to the max (in my head, to the max was said in a demolition derby announcer voice — try it!).

Instead, I’m stuck with depression; a disease that has stripped my coping mechanisms and destroyed any buffer I once had between what I feel and what comes out of my mouth. My emotions have gone up against rational thought and kicked the shit out of it; now rational thought doesn’t even bother showing up.

I have always been rather volatile and passionate and I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve but now I’m a hysterical mess. My perception is distorted and I’m so sensitive that any tiny, miniscule injustice, real or imagined affects me like acid to the face. I will lash out and bite your fucking head off.

Yesterday, I sat upstairs, fuming, while my sister and my dad threw my brother a birthday dinner because my dad’s girlfriend’s kids showed up for a free meal and beer. And when I found out she made the chocolate cake my recently deceased grandmother made for every single birthday I stormed out in tears.

Would I have been irritated if I wasn’t depressed? Probably. Was it in bad taste to bake a cake using the recipe of a woman she’d never met? YES. Do I want her kids to be my bestest friends forever? No. But, if I were in my normal state of mind, would I have ruined my brother’s dinner by acting like they’d all burned down my house and then kicked my dog? Definitely not. 

The dangerous part comes after an outburst when it dawns on me that perhaps I over-reacted, misunderstood or imagined conflict. I retreat into an impenetrable shell. I will slice up my hands and wrists with whatever sharp tool is at hand; I cry so much that I pee dust; I hate myself and miss myself in equal measures.

After I left my dad’s I drove over to my mum’s home and the whole way over I was overcome with such sorrow over my reaction that I wanted to drive off the bridge. Tears streamed down my face and the self-loathing weighing on my soul felt like a thousand tonnes. 

These ‘fits’ last from fifteen minutes to two hours; it usually depends on whether I have people around me or not. Being with my mum snapped me out of it that time. I hate being so dependent; I feel as if I’m just needy or desperate for attention.  

I’m scared that I am going to ruin all my relationships by acting like a crazy person then playing the depression card. So far, I’ve lost one close friendship and I will grieve for that friend for a very long time but I have to believe that my other relationships are stronger. That from those who love me I can be given patience, compassion and empathy while I struggle to get better. 

In return, I will try and try and try to temper my reactions, to check my perceptions and to get back to passionate instead of tempestuous. 

While I may not ever inspire people with my story and attitude, maybe I can manage to come out of this with all my friendships intact. That would be way better than writing an Oprah approved memoir.

Catch-22

I am terrified of getting better and terrified that I won’t. I’m terrified I’m not actually depressed I’m just dramatic. Haven’t I always been a tad sensitive? And surely this paranoia business is not new. Maybe I just need a change of scenery and then all the emptiness will wash away. When I am at my lowest I am convinced that all I have to do is think positively and the fact that I can’t incites rage and frustration and serves to deepen the depression; truly a vicious cycle.

Already a person drawn to extremes, the depression has taken all of my personality traits and exaggerated them; blown them up blimp-style so that even my good attributes have been mutated to monstrous proportions. Remember the Stay-Puff marshmallow man from Ghostbusters? That’s me. That’s my generosity. That’s my loyalty. That’s my selflessness. My humility is about to crush your car. 

So imagine what it’s like to give up control of my mind to a disease.

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to take responsibility for my actions; this has to be something I’ve brought on myself so there has to be something I can do! That my brain is attacking me seems like something out of a sci-fi movie, a bad sci-fi movie, something starring Sharon Stone.

I have to take others’ words for it that this is not me, I am not a Godzilla of emotion and that I am in fact suffering from depression.

Slowly I’m getting the hang of it and to be honest the relinquishment has been kind of nice. It’s exhausting fighting to get healthy while denying that I am sick to begin with.

Unfortunately, with this comes the terrifying notion that maybe I’ll never get better. I don’t want to have to work this hard forever. There is a person that I want to be, that maybe I once was, and the thought of never realizing her is almost as bad as thinking that I have destroyed her myself. Almost.

Still Life

Today was a hard day, hence the bleak entry. I don’t want this blog to be all gloom and doom so I’ve posted one of my favourite happy-songs. Maybe listen to it while reading the post to lighten the mood (plus the juxtoposition of happy music and sad content could be very Lynch-like). 

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There is a picture of me that was taken at a concert. I am dancing with a couple of friends in the crush of the crowd and my face is red and I am glistening with sweat and my hair is frizzy and untamed but it is the expression on my face that catches my attention: unadulterated joy.

Like an amnesiac (or at least the amnesiacs on soap operas) I am revisiting the past so as to find my way to the future; a sort of retracing of steps; photo albums are the bread crumbs on the trail home. It is just too surreal that in less than two years I have gone from doing my best to enjoy life no matter what to dreading waking up. Physical proof might be the only thing that could convince me that I haven’t always been prone to crying at Sylan commercials. Besides, I also need some motivation to get better; knowing that a pretty alright person is lurking in here somewhere might inspire me to fight this.

There are the pictures from a road trip I took with six of the greatest people on earth, my best friends, and from years of summers at the cottage, hundreds from the parties that I used to love throwing and even more of me posing with my sister or hamming it up with my brother.

I scour the photographs, anxiously searching for something familiar the way you scan a crowded room for a friendly face but I just see a grinning stranger. A stranger surrounded by my loved ones, living what I so desperately want to be my life. 

How could that be me? The contrast is jarring and completely demoralizing. That person is in colour and I am a palette of gray. Those eyes are bright, smiling; mine are tired and dead. 

Even worse are my baby pictures. God, I was a cute-ass baby; a blonde little cherub with big blue eyes and a sweetly shy smile. I look at my mum and my dad and my grandparents, aunts, uncles and they are starring at baby me with adoration and pride and all I feel is guilty for having let them all down. 

Far from bolstering hope, I feel painfully sad. All the reminders of fun are daggers to my heart. I am uncertain whether I will ever be able to experience happiness again and whether the same things will give me joy. Will I love to read? Will I be able to see shows again or even appreciate music in any capacity? What about cooking, writing or playing squash? Will I be able to carry on a conversation, rant and go on tangents or engage in witty banter? I loved banter! Will I ever again sit on the dock at dusk and want to weep from the weight of peace? I can’t imagine laughing until my sides hurt or just smiling and meaning it.

I grieve for my past because it seems as lost as a dinghy to the raging sea. With nothing to anchor me and nothing to look forward to I am forced to exist only in the present and that present is often lined with broken glass.