It Has to Get Better Than This...

It's been two long years since I last made a blog entry. I have spent so much time waiting for something good to happen; something worth 'blogging' about and I have realized I have been thinking and going about it the wrong way. Blogging isn't like other social networking sites where you are only trying to put your best foot forward with your prettiest selfies, highlights of fun social events and public displays of affection so everyone knows how happy and in-love you are.

Blogging is introspection. It is the gritty, real-life experiences that make a worth-while blog and a blog worth reading. It is the therapy of putting (non-literal) pen to paper and mapping out your thoughts and hopefully you open a window for other people to reflect and learn from your mistakes and if your lucky, they might have some useful advice or perspective. My dream was to have a witty, illustrated blog that was fun to read and jam-packed with sarcastic humour. I just don't have that in me right now.

This past year has been the hardest year of my entire life. It has been a year of transition and heartbreak and continues to be a roller-coaster I just can't seem to get off of. For the most part my journey has been partly reflected on Facebook, though it isn't really an outlet for expressing the day-to-day and I try to limit the number of posts because you'll find your 'friend count' decreasing as people delete you for being the annoying user that floods their news feed.

In November of 2012 I used my life savings for Slimband weight loss surgery. This is not something that I advertise and I never planned on making it public knowledge, but considering everything that has happened since, it seems less important and I want other people to learn from my experience. Weight has been a struggle for me my entire life but more than anything, my decision was motivated by self esteem. Slimband promised a permanent solution to the problem of yo-yo dieting and worrying about every meal and every calorie. It was supposed to take the thought out of weight loss so that it would happen naturally and consistently and free my mind up to think about other things. The reality is a very different scenario. We will revisit this in a future blog entry. 

In May of 2013 I ended what would have been an almost 9 year relationship with the person I spent almost every day with since I turned 19 years old. This was the person I thought I would eventually marry and build a family with, however the reality (again) was something very different. After living together for two years and watching my relationship transition into a fraternal bond and more of a friendship, I worried that perhaps all relationships eventually turned into co-dependent friendships. I sought out friends in long term relationships and asked them how they felt about their partners after all the years spent together. The answers I got were inspiring and somewhat disappointing for me. People still felt in-love and attracted to their partners. They still maintained their independence and rejoiced at their time together. Romantic love was still alive in their worlds, while mine had been dead and buried for years. I realized that although we had connected well as young people (still teenagers), we had turned into very different adults and didn't relate well to each other anymore. I saw glimpses of what a real adult  romantic relationship could be and decided to risk everything for a shot at it. Despite fear of the unknown and possible failure, I took the risk of my life and walked out. I jumped in with both feet and have never looked back. I am now living with the love of my life and we have built a really healthy, mutually respectful and loving relationship together. The transition has been stressful and not without its' trials, but I am happy where I am and would choose this path again. We have just moved into our second condo together and are picking out paint colours for accent walls.

On November 13th, 2013 I lost the other love of my life. My almost 10 month old Niece Aspen passed suddenly and unexpectedly while at daycare. She was the first and only baby in my very small family and I cannot describe the depth of this loss . Life has been a constant nightmare, waiting for answers that may never come and hoping against hope for justice. We were astounded by the overwhelming show of support from our friends and family. A service that should have been under 150 people (followed by a public visitation) turned into an overflowing chapel and improvised 'video room' service for nearly 400 people. With no strength for words at the service, we compiled photos and videos into a montage to paint the picture of this tiny life. Everyone viewing was wracked with sobs watching this perfect little angel laughing at books, smiling in the sun and running with her buggy. 

How does a family recover from something like this? The answer I get most often is: they don't. They become empty and jaded shells of their former selves until one day... they decide that life might still be worth living and you trudge on. In the meantime, I still feel like I am in an ocean fighting the current with wave after wave hitting me and not letting me catch my breath. There is no 'How To' guide on how to be a support system to loved ones facing such a loss. It is hit or miss. I struggle between bypassing the issue and offending when I think I am trying to help. I bring it up, only to cause my beautiful and strong sister to break down in a restaurant. I avoid, only to be told I should be in mourning  and should stop acting like nothing happened. I talk about my own struggles and am told I am insensitive or I become too forward and worry I am hurting more than I am helping. 

I know I am not alone in this. My sister told me an anecdote about being in a mall cafeteria with her husband on a Saturday morning. They were eating a meal in silence when my sister looked up and said "it has to get better than this..." in an attempt at morbid humour. Her husband broke down and wept while she scrambled to pick up the pieces. I think every day must be like that. A delicate balancing act between keeping it together and falling to pieces. We're like Jenga puzzles. Say the wrong thing; pull the wrong block and we come crumbling down around you.

Trigger (no pun intended) was my last game changer. The weekend of my Mom's birthday (November 11th) we searched Kijiji and found the perfect kitten for Aaron and I. I brought him home from Peterborough and we were instantly and passionately in love. Trigger was my first pet and represented a 'next step' in my relationship. Aspen died two days later. The weeks and months to follow were a blur, interrupted only by my intuitive kitten licking tears from my swollen eyes and cuddling me through every night and waking me during every nightmare with a soft paw on my face. He turned 6 month old and we made arrangements to have him neutered.

I got the call while I was at work. My vet- "I'm sorry, but there was a complication during surgery and Trigger's heart stopped. We were able to resuscitate him after around three to five minutes, but he still hasn't woken from the anesthesia. We're hoping that if you and Aaron come, he will hear your voices and come around". I hung up the phone and dropped to the floor wailing, while coworkers rushed to my side. My worst nightmare was happening again. The chances of a perfectly healthy 10 month old child's heart stopping with NO preexisting conditions is less than 1%. The exact same thing happening to a perfectly healthy kitten, previously screened for anesthesia allergies is less than 1%. I was struck by lightening twice in less than half a year.Another teary phone call to my mother, another rushed car ride to the hospital. Another broken heart. 

Aaron and I sat by his side while he lay comatose on an examination table for four hours trying to coax him awake. Most cats recover from anesthesia within 20-30 minutes following a procedure. Trigger did not wake up for nearly three days and when he did, it became apparent that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury while he was flat-lined. Aaron and I spent 6 weeks of sleepless nights, IV fluids, syringe feeding, daily vet visits, incontinence and physical rehabilitation before our vet told us that our Trigger would never recover.

 

We opted for euthanasia with broken hearts and shattered spirits until a late night phone call from our equally broken-hearted vet begging us to surrender Trigger to the clinic where they could place him in foster care for cats with brain injuries. We jumped at the opportunity to save the life of our sweet cat that had once offered me so much comfort in my time of need. He needed so much more care than we could offer (being mostly blind and mostly deaf and mostly incontinent), but he still showed promise to live a happy and fulfilled life if someone would be willing to provide him with the love and care he required. The foster family will not allow contact and my heart still aches with his loss, but my vet will text and call with occasional updates and photos and I know he is being well cared for.

Walking back into work in a daze, I did my job day in and day out and over time I noticed my health starting to fade. While I was being handed more work and more responsibility, I found I had less capacity to focus and get through my days. Migraines, nightmares, sleepless nights, vertigo, chronic 'feminine' medical conditions, back pain and an inability to keep down food. I went to my general practitioner and BAM- not cleared to return to work due to medical conditions aggravated by stress. What now?

all people deal with stress and grief differently, I guess. My sister warned that time alone away from work was the opposite of what she needed to cope. Work gives her purpose and sustains her, while her darkest days are the ones she is left to her own devices, alone with her thoughts. These days my thoughts alter between fear of becoming useless and bed-bound and trying to find productive and healthy ways to spend my time. I worry about my relationship. In a single year my fabulous (but relatively new) man has been through the ringer with me. I went from having everything: a perfectly happy and lovely family, a good job, a happy outlook and prosperous future to this. Now we are all broken with our eyes turned towards the past, my balance is precarious (I feel pessimism and often go from tears to anger) and my career is sidelined while I try to heal my mind and body. I hope he continues to stick it out with me, but this is more than I expect any one person to be able to contend with. 

In one year I will be 30 years old. Why is that number so scary? If I could paint a picture of my life, would it look anything like I thought it would? Probably not, but I am not so jaded that I still don't see the beauty in the small things. Just yesterday I went and got a memorial tattoo (my first one EVER) of an Aspen leaf on my foot. The heart-shaped leaf of the Aspen Tree will always remind me that we must tread lightly through life because it is delicate and could be swept away swiftly, as if carried on a summer breeze. As it whistles though the trees, I will look upon my foot and find a quiet peace...

When are you old enough to start feeling haggard? I had a moment the other day when I posted a profile picture on Facebook from my university days and someone commented "wow, you look so young here!". Was it really that long ago? (counts backwards) Hmmm. I am turning 27 in two weeks and decidedly had a moment with my mirror to inspect the damage. I have wrinkles. Smile lines. Sun damage. These things just sneak up on you I guess. I checked for jowls. They're there when I frown really hard, so I will do my best to keep from looking too unhappy...or smiling too hard for that matter. But I am not one of those women that are afraid of aging. I didn't start using anti-wrinkle creams when I turned 21 or using SPF 60 when I go out in the sun. I enjoyed my 20's and now that they're coming to an end, I am looking forward to the next milestones: A family of my own, becoming an Aunt, creating a home with a man that I love.

My sister is expecting her first child and I feel like I have been waiting for this moment for 100 years. I am the youngest member of the Matthews or Humphreys lines (excluding second and third cousins) and my family desperately needs new life to revive it. I know the prospect of having a tiny person that will rely on me has revived ME.

Since it has been so long since my last entry, I will do my favorite short-answer summaries for updates:

My current sorrow:
My best friend has just moved to a different province to pursue a live interest. My social life will suffer, but I am happy for her and I love her and wish her the best.

My current hope:
I am hosting my birthday at my cottage for the first time ever. I am hoping it goes smoothly and the weather is good. My cottage in the rain can be pretty miserable.

My current struggle:
Back pain. I have developed a chronic herniated disk and muscle sprain that leaves me immobile for days at a time. I am in treatment, but it is a long and painful process.

My current success:
I changed my hair. Small miracle it worked, but it will keep me going for a while. Chocolate brown underneath and white on top. Am I too old for this?

My current find:
I was looking through my computer JPEG's and found a CLASSIC Jamie-style paint drawing:

I just thought I would share that because it is much more exiting than my depressing self-portrait from above.

My current loss:

I would like to say weight, but I enjoy my summer patios too much. Oh well, there is always the fall for concentrating on weight loss. For now, enjoy the end of summer and summer sun everyone.

Until next time, loyal blog readers...

My Last Letter...

It’s impossible to know how you will handle the loss of a loved one until you are faced with it. My Grandma’s birthday would have been on Tuesday April 3rd. I think it is possible for people to lose a grandparent and not be particularly affected. Life carries on as it always has and you feel sad for a while because the idea of anyone’s life ending is a sadness, but the impact is minimal. I don’t feel like I have lost the little old lady that I would see on holidays, I feel like I lost my friend and confidante.


Growing up, my sister and I spent weeks at a time living with my Grandma and I attribute a lot of my raising to her. She lavished affection on me (including gifts) but if she thought I was getting too spoiled, she would give away all my toys to a needy family.

She inspired my love of art by fawning over my drawings and taught me to paint pottery. She helped teach me how to swim and dance and fostered my love of big band music. When I got older and didn’t see her as often, she was my faithful pen pal. We sent hundreds of letters back and forth over the years. She was the BEST kind of pen pal because she would put funny little presents in my letters. Stickers, confetti, earrings, needlework, gum, loonies…you name it. When I was at University and having rough time, she sent me a hand sewn handkerchief in the mail. She kept every letter & drawing I ever sent her. Even when the arthritis in her hands got so bad that she couldn’t send many letters, she still tried. The words would be barely legible and slanted down the page, but I loved them nonetheless. And eventually she wasn’t able to fill them with goodies because she couldn’t get out to the store, but she would doodle flowers and happy faces on the pages to keep them exciting.

In second year University I noticed that her mind was starting to falter and so for a school project, I borrowed a voice recorder from my sister and spent several hours interviewing my Grandma about her life and memories and opinions. It was the best idea I have ever had. I have her voice forever etched in stone. I have a true record of her professing her love for me and my family and most importantly, I have her optimistic view on life. She says “You can’t take life too seriously. You can’t spend all your time worrying about being sick or in pain. Life is too short. You just have to be happy.” I played the recording for my family after she died and we sat together laughing and crying at her (sometimes) outrageous comments. We sorted through hundreds of pictures that delineated her life. She was always so happy.

Even when her mind started to fade and the letters stopped, I still faithfully wrote her. I started to put little presents in HER letters. Earrings, loonies, Tim cards…you name it. She would show my letters to everyone at the nursing home tearfully and proud. My last letter to my Grandma sat unsent on my desktop the day I got the news and that is one of my biggest regrets.

My Grandma got to be at my sister’s wedding and it will always be a great sadness to me that she didn’t get to see mine. I still feel moments of overwhelming sadness, like when I look at my dresser and see the funny little gifts I gave her for Christmas only a few months ago. But that’s the funny thing about life. It DOES actually go on. And sometimes you have to grab hold of something to slow it down for a couple of seconds so you can reflect on your losses and remember. I thought my world would crumble when she actually died, but it didn’t. And as Grandma would always say, God doesn’t ever give you more than you can handle. And I think you can’t know true love, until you’ve known loss.

I didn’t get to give her the last letter, but I can give it to you loyal blog readers…

I'm a knife Wielding, Road Rage Conquering, Country Rambo-Chick!

It's amazing how the most unusual things can happen to a person doing the most mediocre of tasks. It's equally enlightening to find out how you would REALLY act in a situation that you have never been in. I didn't surprise myself. I knew I would be kick-ass in the face of a threat. What DID surprise me was the reaction of my partner in crime (or innocence in this case) in all his 6 foot tall, 200 pounds of glory.

We were on our way to pick up some groceries from Bayview Village Lowblaws and we were cut off by a blue minivan leaving the parking lot. Stuart (of course) laid on the horn a little over-zealously and we went on our merry way.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the Blue van had pulled an erratic u-turn and was zooming through the parking lot at break-neck speed in an attempt to cut us off before we entered the underground parking lot. We parked the car and waited to see if the blue hell-van  followed. Sure enough, it slowed and parked a couple rows over. We waited to see what the driver would do, but he didn't get out; he just sat angrily staring out the front windshield until we got out of the car.

We slowly walked to the front of the grocery store and paused at the entrance to see if he would follow. He didn't. At that moment it occurred to me that my car was in danger of having the tires slashed, windshield smashed or of getting keyed. I encouraged Stuart, being the great mediator that he is, to go over to the blue van and try to diffuse the situation and find out what what the guy wanted. He vehemently

 refused to approach the van and tried to convince me to ignore him and go get our groceries.

I decided that I wouldn't do that without getting the license plate of the minivan (just in case). I walked as close to the van as I dared (being nearsighted that was about 100 meters away) and turned to give the plate to Stuart so he could record it in his phone and realized he hadn't followed me. So I shouted the plate numbers out to him (and in doing so) attracted the attention of the psychopath.

"Do you have a problem?!" he asked me, as he slowly got out of the drivers side of his van.

"Ya, actually I do- Why did you follow us here, do you make a habit of following everyone that honks at you?" I asked.

"I can go wherever the fuck I want!" and he started moving towards me.

At that moment I decided it was time I turned into country-girl-rambo and I pulled out my knife (which is completely legal at just under 3 inches of length and is a button trigger- NOT a switch blade).

"You crazy bastard!" I yelled, " I have your license plate number now so if you plan on doing anything to my car..."

"Why don't you go inside and find out!" he threatened.

After exchanging a few more pleasantries, Stuart finally convinced me to abandon the confrontation and go into the grocery store. As I was walking away, the kind man reminded me gently to buy lots of salad while I was in there to combat a potential weight problem (however he may have worded it differently).

Where was big Stuart during this confrontation? Behind me somewhere? Sitting quietly weaving intricate needlework? It's possible. Turtle! That is all I have to say about that.

I didn't report him to the cops because (as Stuart pointed out later) I didn't know the number for the police station and he didn't think the incident warranted calling '911' because it didn't quite fall into the 'emergency' category. I somewhat beg to differ...and when I retold the story at work (at LEAST 10 times) it just kept getting better and better and I am FULLY convinced now that my life was in danger and I am practically a gladiator for standing up to a 10 foot tall giant!

Until next time, loyal blog readers...

A little Perspective and a LOT of Naked

I am an expert at painting naked people.


It’s taken lots of practice and I must admit, I have had my pitfalls. In second year university I took several fine arts courses, one of which was oil painting. We spent the majority of the year painting still life (posed displays of junk- mostly flowers) and once we perfected our brush skills, we moved on to nudes. Nudes every day. We duplicated master-nudes, painted details (small snapshots) of nudes and even had live models come in for days and days to be painted in the buff. Our final project was a large painting of our own subject matter (with the instruction that it must be a nude). Most people chose to paint themselves as a nude (from a photograph that I hope was destroyed after the project). Other people hired models and used rented studio time to complete their paintings. I decided to be original and do something no one else had done. I asked Stuart to let me paint him naked.


(On a side note- if you have ever painted anyone naked, you understand what I mean when I say that nudity becomes meaningless after 3 hours of staring at butts and boobs. People become a sum of parts and you won’t remember why you were giggling at the beginning of class.)


He agreed to be my model and so I set him up in my dorm room. For five days (in 3 hour increments) he reclined in the same position (with some urging and repositioning) on my tiny little dorm room bed.

On the turn-in-day of the project was a ‘class critique’, where fellow students look at your final piece and critique your technique, colour choice, composition, subject matter and inspiration.


It was during this critique that I realized why people don’t paint in their dorm rooms and use the studio instead. My painting had appeared perfectly proportioned mid-process. ‘Surely this was the greatest thing I have ever created’, I thought. Now that I could step back and take a look at it, I recoiled in horror. The perspective was COMPLETELY OFF. I hadn’t had enough space in my closet-of-a-room to step back and check my proportions and perspective. The painting appeared to recede away from the canvas, with Stuarts body far in the background and the point of focus (and the object closest to the viewer) being *gasp* his JUNK!

Unsurprisingly, my critique centred on the visual 'focus' of my painting and my choice of....*gulp* colour variation. I admitted I had mistakenly used an inadequate space with a more than adequate model, (being my boyfriend), whom I named in front of all 25 students without thinking. Granted, he got quite the reception when he met me after class to escort me back to residence. The women seemed particularly pleased to meet him.


Though I have kept much of my art that I created during University, I decidedly threw that painting into the fire during a particularly cold May 24 camping weekend (we were in need of firewood). It popped and sizzled and was consumed by flames torturously slow. By morning, only a single piece of canvas remained in the ashes, perfectly preserved. I don't need to tell you what image remained, except that I felt cursed by the nude-painting-fairy and as a result I was the butt of all jokes for the rest of the weekend.