here in my head

I’m doing it again – pulling away. Withdrawing. Ignoring the blog, the phone calls I need to return, the friends I haven’t seen in ages. I don’t know why I’m doing it – I’m not feeling particularly sad. The dragon is not breathing down my neck. The days have been uncharacteristically sunny and bright and warm for March (except today which was rainy and wet). My kitchen is somewhat back to rights (just waiting on the granite countertops and the bright backsplash. And freshly painted walls.) We spent all last weekend cleaning, getting the house organized and removing the dirt and dust from the seemingly endless renovations. This weekend was spent with friends and family in celebrations. There is no reason for this withdrawal, at least nothing that I can pinpoint and say “This, this is the reason…”

It’s funny – in some ways I feel like things are moving forward. That we are really progressing towards our goals for our life together. That I am really progressing towards my goals for what I want my life to be. I’m noticing small changes to my muscles and my body that show that my workouts are working. The house is, every day, becoming more and more how I want my home to be. My 6.5 mile walk last Sunday reminded me of why I love long-distance walking, and why I need to do it more often. Two hours alone with my headphones and my feet moving to the beat.

And then in other ways, I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. That it doesn’t matter what I do, because I always end up right back where I started.

I really need to learn the art of goal-setting. Of mapping out what it is I want, really want, and then figure out how to go for it. How to make it happen. How to stop sitting on the sidelines of my own life half the time.

Between Hilly returning to her heart’s home of California, and Chris’ blog post this morning asking us “where are you?”, I’ve been giving some thought as to just where Home is for me. This idea that there is the right place in the world for someone. A vibe or an energy that fits you perfectly.

I think that for some people there is one place in the world that is just for them, and if they’re lucky, they’ve found it. And I think “Home” can be in many places for others. I know I get that feeling from different places at different times in my life, so there may not be just one place where my heart calls home.

I know that our downtown house is far more ‘home’ than our suburban Ottawa house ever was. Even with the upheaval of (seemingly unending) renovations I have never once doubted that this was the right move for us. That this is the right house for us. That we are in the right place for us. And Ottawa feels much more like home to me than many other places I’ve lived. But is it my heart’s home? I don’t know.

I also know when I see the skyline of Toronto from a plane or a train (or an automobile) I get a familiar flutter in my belly of “HOME” – I was born there, it’s one of my favourite Canadian cities, so that could be it. I love the energy of the city, the availability of theatre, music, food, and cute little boutiques that can be found there. I love that some of my best friends live there. But I’m also glad when it’s time to return to Ottawa, and the slightly more laid-back lifestyle here.

I know I feel a peace and a grounding like no other when I’m in the midst of the big sky of the prairies, so that could very well be “home”. Some people think that the flat prairies are boring, but I know better. I love how you can see a storm roll in from dozens upon dozens of kilometres away. I love how such an expansive sky is so freeing – like nothing is penning you in. I love that the city where I was a child – Winnipeg – has world class arts and culture that allowed a geeky, music-loving girl the opportunities to sing with a semi-professional choir, and see amazing theatre and ballet on a regular basis. Some of the people I love best in this world live there.

But I’ve had that feeling in places I’ve never lived too: New York City is one of my favourite places on earth, and when I’m walking in New York, it’s like the energy of Toronto, times a thousand, is coursing through my veins. When walking around the streets of Paris I felt a familiarity, a sense of “Home”, even though I’d never been there before. And I thought Vancouver a near perfect city when we visited on our honeymoon – with the Rocky Mountains to one side and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean to the other. PEI, with it’s beautiful red sandy beaches, was one place I didn’t want to leave on our trip down east. I could also see myself living in Halifax with its rolling hilly roads and amazing boardwalk.

Maybe it’s just that I haven’t found the one place that makes my heart sing in just that way that tells me all these other places are simply mere imitations of HOME. Or maybe there are multiple places in this world that make me feel at home. I know that I do love where I am in life right now, and really, that’s all that’s important.

I tend not to do new years resolutions. Okay, that’s not entirely true. I used to do new years resolutions – I used to be all over new years resolutions. “This is it,” I would tell myself. “This is the year I do THIS”. Whatever THIS was changed from year to year, but it was guaranteed to fix my life. THIS was going to solve everything that was wrong. THIS was going to be the ticket to make everything perfect. Except THIS never did any of what the shiny promises made me think THIS would do. THIS never lived up to its expectations.

And then somewhere along the way in the last few years, I stopped believing that my life was in so desperate need of fixing. I stopped believing that I was lacking. I stopped believing that I was less than and needed THIS to make me complete, full, better, happier. I also stopped believing in perfection. I stopped being all or nothing. I recognized that resolutions were just another way I set myself up to fail. And so I stopped making resolutions.

I still take a few minutes in the beginning of every new year to check in with myself and my goals. Because while I stopped believing in perfection, I did not stop believing that there are areas in my life that will benefit with consistent effort towards improvement. We don’t move forward without challenging ourselves and I’ve spent far too much of my life hiding and playing it safe. So I took a few minutes new years eve, between the ski hill and bounding out the door to a friend’s party, to think about what it is I hope for 2010, and what it is I want to work toward: The continued effort towards good, healthy habits. To not let fear hold me back (downhill skiing anyone?). To reach out more rather than turn inward.

That last one’s a big one. 2009 was mainly a year of turning into myself. I cut off some connections. I stopped blogging (despite some half-hearted attempts to start back up long before I was really ready). I stopped reading all but a handful of blogs on any consistent basis. I kept only in real (and by real, I mean “not facebook”) contact with but a few of my closest friends. For a while it was just simply easier that way – I don’t really remember it now, since I’ve come so far in the last few months, but for a good portion of 2009 I was in a very bad place mentally and physically. It’s only been the last few months where I’ve felt well enough, and enough like myself to really put an emphasis on reaching out again. Of saying “yes” to opportunities, when my mind and my desire to hide out on my couch is screaming “no”. And I’m doing so much better for it. So, my biggest goal for 2010 is to reach out more – to rebuild some of those connections that have loosened and to blog more.

For real this time.

I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around the fact that it’s the last day of the year – that in a few short hours it will be 2010. Usually, by this time, I have lists upon lists of new years resolutions, goals and hopes for the new year. But this year, I’ve given barely a thought to what I want from the new year ahead of me.

2009 was a busy year. A good year, for certain, but a busy one, full of new wonderful amazing things. A brand new niece. A brand-new-to-me (90+ years old) house. Some new, wonderful friends. 2009 was a pretty good year, to be sure. It was the year I learned to downhill ski (albeit it slowly and still, sadly, very fearfully). It was the year I learned how to really drive a stick shift, with confidence, and then did drive stick in downtown Toronto, no less. It was the year I started to really say what I feel and what I want. I’m feeling a lot more comfortable in my skin these days, and certainly a lot happier now that we live in the urban core of the city rather than the suburbs. This move that took up the best part of 2009 – thinking about selling, getting the house ready to sell, finding this place, moving in, getting the house completely rewired, etc – is also the absolute best part of this year. I feel at home here, like a part of me that was missing has now been found. My heart leaps in excitement every time I come down the stairs and survey the living/dining room. Every time, I feel like I have to pinch myself, I feel so lucky to have this cozy, warm, unique home, that is, in almost every way, what I’ve dreamt of for my home since I was young. (A turret and a second bathroom would be all that’s missing. And perhaps a conservatory…)

I am so very grateful for this past year – for the changes it brought and where we ended up because of it. I’m looking forward to seeing what 2010 has in store for us. Sure, I have a few ideas of what I’d like to see happen, but more than anything, I want to hold on to this happiness. This peace. This contented life.

Best wishes for the new year. Cheers to 2010.

I was walking home along Innes this afternoon when I looked down and saw a dead kitty cat lying by the side of the sidewalk. Poor kitty. Poor kitty’s family who is probably wondering where he/she has gone…Made me miss my kitties who are staying with my parents while we sell/pack/move. They are “vacationing” as Mike puts it. “Shared custody” as my Mom puts it. “When are you taking those darn cats back” as my dad puts it. My father is not a huge fan of the cats.

It’s been a busy week – a wonderful week off from work, haven’t missed the job at all. The long weekend at the cabin was bliss – four days with nothing to do but sleep all afternoon, take long walks by the lake, sit with a drink on the dock with friends and play with their almost 9-month-old. I loved it. And there is no running water at the cabin, so that is saying a lot…

Then it was home to pack, pack, pack. I went through all my thousands of books (I’m not exaggerating…) and whittled the number we’re moving down to half. There is simply not room at the new place. Sure, we could have bought a house in the suburbs and dedicated a room to my vast collection of books in the home library I’ve always dreamt of, but I’d rather be able to walk to work. And, besides, they have these nifty little things called ebook readers that allow you to borrow electronic books from the library that return themselves (which has always been my biggest problem with library books – remembering to return them). So, perhaps, I will not need to buy so many books in the future…

We had a garage sale yesterday and sold most of the stuff we don’t have room for at the new place – the 17′ ladder, the lawn mower, etc., etc., etc. I’ve never had a garage sale before, nor have I really gone to many before – they attract some interesting people. People who will fight with you over a dollar for a two-dollar bag of pens, for example. (100 multi-coloured pens, bought for the wedding last year, spent $24, selling for $2, and yet the woman threatened me when I told her she couldn’t have it for $1. Right…) It was good to get rid of some stuff we don’t want or need any longer, and make a little money in the process, but I don’t think I’ll be having another garage sale anytime soon. But, for now, it makes things easier, because…

We move in three weeks! Three weeks! Three weeks until this kitchen is mine!

Granted, it’ll still be a few weeks after that before we’re fully moved in – we have a few weeks worth of electrical re-wiring that needs to be done before we can really move in. The joys of buying a 90-plus-year-old home. Luckily, our weeks of homelessness coincide with a trip my in-laws are taking to visit family overseas…so we will be living in their basement, much like we did this winter over the course of the bus strike. But this time, without them there for most of it, which makes it infinitely better. I love my in-laws. I do. But living with them is a challenge. Just like moving back home would be a challenge. Living anywhere that isn’t your space is never as nice as being home.

But for now, we still have three weeks here, in this house that has been our home for the last five years. I will miss our gigantic basement, and our gigantic bedroom. And our ensuite. And our powder room. Having only one bathroom will be an adjustment. As will having only one closet in the bedroom. Our whole co-habitating life together has been made so much easier by the fact that we have always had his and her closets. Having his shirts rubbing elbows with mine will be weird…But we will have the market mear steps away – fresh produce in the summer, a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker within spitting distance, and I will never have to suffer the commute to work on the 35 bus again! Also, our house is freakin’ fantastic. (See kitchen picture above…)

And, now that I’ve rambled on without any real point, (and, incidentally, finished the bottle of wine I opened to cook dinner with tonight…), I will sign off. A post with no real direction or purpose – I’m back blogging world. Watch out!

So, me? I am a very bad blogger…And, I’ve decided I’m okay with that, at least for the moment, and that I’d rather go with the ebb and flow of my creative impulses rather than fight them. I’ve not been feeling like expressing myself in words lately, but rather visually, or musically instead. I’ve been playing the piano (well, my little keyboard masqurading as a piano) again, sketching and doodling again, all the while, ignoring the blog. I could blame the stress of selling the house, and buying a new one (we move in a month – a MONTH! I will live downtown in just one month’s time!!!!), and that would not be entirely invalid – it was all consuming to our spare time, the search for a new home and the keeping our current home pristine – but in truth, I haven’t wanted to write. Or even read all that much – I stopped visitng all but a few blogs. My head was not in the blogosphere. Until recently – recently I’ve been feeling the pull, the call of the blog, of writing once again. So we’ll see where this leads.

Except, today, I start a vacation from technology for the next few days. My timing is impeccable.

I’ve opened this posting window countless times in the last few weeks trying to find something to write, but instead I just end up staring at the blinking cursor or writing something even more self-indulgent and navelgazing than usual and then deleting it all, because no one wants to read that shit – not even me… I’ve been wallowing in the depression, swimming in a sea of discontent for a few weeks now and finally, yesterday I found myself again. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, signed up for two half-marathon walks in the fall and joined a gym. Because, the time in my adult life that I’ve been happiest was when I was training for the half marathon last year. So I might as well go back to what’s worked in the past…

I feel better now that I’ve done this – and had my first elliptical workout in months. Yes, I’m still having dramatic mood swings, thinking about finding a new therapist (since in the midst of everything else going on, I got an email from him last week telling me he was quitting his practice) is sending me into hysterics and leaving the house each morning is causing anxiety attacks the likes of which I’ve never experienced before. But, in the midst of all that, I’m still making a point of practicing some semblance of self-care. Despite all the hate the negative voice inside me keeps throwing my way, a part of me knows that what it’s telling me isn’t true, and wants to prove it wrong. Wants to prove to me that I’m worth working on.

I’m here. I’m hanging in. I’m fighting my way back to the light. I just might not be posting much lately – no sense dragging you all down into the dark with me…

It’s been a rough couple of weeks and I’ve been increasingly retreating inward as a result. I stopped taking my anti-depressants about four weeks ago, weaning myself off them with the doctor’s okay. I’d been doing really well, and we both decided that, if I could do without them, it would be better for some future plans I have.

However, it appears that I cannot do without. In an almost beautiful dance of symmetry, as the amount of antidepressant swimming around my neurotransmitters decreased, my depression symptoms increased. Work and travel kept me nicely distracted while the slumbering dragon stirred…

I keep telling myself that this has nothing to do with the lack of medication; that life has been incredibly busy with workload increasing dramatically, with trying to get the house in order in case we decide to sell it soon, with drama in our social circle, with the fact that life and fate seem to be conspiring to keep me from my therapist and I haven’t had therapy in close to two months… But, my life has been crazy and hectic all year, and I’ve dealt with it without falling into tears and despair and thoughts of slitting my wrists. Until last week…

I’m doing better today – hours spent the sunshine over the weekend digging up weeds and planting colourful flowers has helped, even if it’s left me stiff and sore. I’ve called my doctor for an appointment to discuss my options. I’ve demonstrated some key pieces of self-care that have been missing from my life lately – I took the time to paint my toes, to sit with me, to arrange some coffee dates with friends to help me avoid becoming so isolated, like I usually do when things get dark. And I’m slowly learning to accept that I function better when taking the meds. Kind of like learning to accept how I feel better when I don’t eat wheat, despite my reluctance to giving it up…

I’ve been working stupidly long hours lately, practically living and breathing nothing but work. But that’s okay. I’ve come to realize something. I actually really like my job. Sure, there are days when I get frustrated or bored or insecure in my abilities and I wonder why I work in a field that I fell into, that clearly I don’t know what I’m doing, and I get dissatisfied. And I forget that while I like to think that this career chose me, I really did chose it. That is wasn’t a mistake I ended up a communicator even if sometimes I fell like I have trouble finding the words I really want to say. That, if I stop to really examine my choices, I could have been doing what I like to think was my ‘calling’, except clearly it wasn’t because I gave it up in order to do this. I chose this career over more school, over working towards that other career, consciously and fully. And then pretended I had no choice. I do that a lot. And it only really hurts me when I do that. I lose out on the pleasure of enjoying what I chose for myself. I miss out on liking what I have. Which is a job that isn’t glamourous and is hard work sometimes and boring other times, but really, in its small way, makes a difference, not only in my life, but for others. It’s aligned with an interest and a passion I didn’t really know I had.

Now it’s just holding on to that, when the dissatisfaction creeps in…

Now that the sun is once again shining, and temperatures are such that I’m mostly (but not entirely) comfortable without a jacket come mid-day, I’ve started walking again at lunch hour. While a nice stretch of the legs, I don’t think I can really count it as exercise, because one of the drawbacks to working downtown is at lunch hour, when the sun is once again shining and the temperatures warm, everyone has left their offices and the streets are crowded. And since many friends work in the same general area downtown as I do, I also will often run into someone I know and have to stop and chat. I’m missing the walking in the relative anonymity of my suburb, like I had last year when I trained for the half-marathon. And so when walking about downtown at noon, I tell myself that when I get home, I’ll go straight to my runners and get outside. But then the bus is late, and crowded, and I get home just before dinner, hungry and exhausted, and once I’m in the house, and fed, the motivation to put on those shoes and go, once again, back outside disappears. Instead the pull of the latest novel on the go, or that germ of an idea for a painting, or the lull of the mindless word games on the internet keeps me indoors. “Besides” that voice inside me says “the sun has set, and the real joy of walking outdoors is the sun and the blue sky…”

So I vow instead to take runners with me to the office, and some walking clothes, and hit the canal at lunch instead of the busy streets.

And the cycle repeats, again and again…

But hey, there is, once again, blue skies and warmer temperatures. And the call of the fresh air at lunchtime…