I first became aware of my self-destructive nature when I was eighteen years old. It was 1996, my first year of university, and the first time that I truly felt the full weight of my agency – my ability to choose. I was living in the attic of my Grandma’s house. A huge, sprawling room with worn, musty smelling carpeting and a windowseat that looked out over the back garden and the park beyond.
Despite all[...]
Archive for the ‘Self Awareness’ Category
(Previous post removed for personal reasons.)
I’m trying to find a way to laugh at myself today. It’s another Monday-ish Monday, full of weekend mess and mayhem, sick kids, a writing deadline looming, and as the comic implies, an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy.
I wish I were less perceptive. And yeah, that’s kind of a backhanded way to give myself a compliment especially because in many ways I am so NOT. But I can look at my life and[...]
The days are slipping by too slow and too fast and too surreal. Reality is catching up. Soon the c-section. Soon the arrival. Soon the healing. Soon the return home. Months of rest and anticipation are finally coming to a head and it’s dizzying. For so long there has been such limitation. Just one path. Just one goal. Suddenly everything is branching off in a flurry of different directions. I am once again a sizzling bundle of potential with so,[...]
Once upon a time ago I was on my way to a picnic. Instead of keenly anticipating a relaxing afternoon of food and fun, I was rehearsing conversations in my head. This is something I do often, being of a neurotic temperament and all, but the tendency crops up even more often when I’m nervous. And I was very nervous indeed.
You see, on the list of possible picnic attendees was a woman who, while generally a good[...]
Someone intimated in one of their comments that the hard road journey I mentioned in my last post must be a deeply personal one, as I didn’t identify it. They were quite supportive of that, which made me feel a bit silly. After all, most regular readers know that I have NO shame.
I’m not much for keeping secrets. This one was kept out of a desire to say something slightly more poetic than “I’m going to stop being such[...]
Life has become itchy all of a sudden. I feel out of place. Uncomfortable and awkward. I feel like a stranger in my own home, and all things favourite and familiar seem alien and aloof from me somehow. Strangest of all, it feels right to feel this way.
I think I know the source of the feeling. Change. Not change that has taken place but change that is yet to come. Soon to come.[...]
I lost a friend recently. I’d like to say that’s something I’m not in the habit of doing but in all honesty, in this particular friendship, it’s something that tends to happen quite frequently. My friend is broken, you see. And she has been asking me to help fix her. And I’ve been trying. Oh how I’ve been trying. And oh how she hates that I’ve been trying. It only highlights the[...]
Normally when I learn something, I go on and on about it here. I give a bit of background, I ramble, I theorize. I even get downright poetic at times. Today, I’m taking a pass on my usual motif and am going for short and to the point.
Why? Because it was Canada Day today and I spent the day celebrating my country’s birthday instead of making half-hearted attempts at housework. I have a[...]
I have trouble letting things go. It’s something I’ve always known about myself, but as life progresses, that fact is thrown into sharper relief. Because it affects me more and more as the years go by. I still cherish ill feelings against the girls who extorted cookies from me in exchange for “friendship” all those many years ago. My self-esteem still suffers because of the many cruel jibes directed at me in my high school years.[...]
I didn’t used to be so honest. Hard to believe, I know, since I seem to have mastered the art of being honest to the point of making people squirm like an octopus in its death throes.
I often receive comments and emails praising me for how “real” I am, and while these give me a lovely little ego-stroke, they also make me feel a bit awkward and even fake. Because I’ve never once mentioned WHY I’m so blatantly[...]
