Love Will Keep Us Alive

That's the name of a song by the Eagles, a song that my dinner music group sings when a couple in the Mercantile is celebrating an anniversary. It's a lovely song, if a little out of my range, and couples seem to like it, gazing at each other over their plates of dessert while we croon.

Today we were called back to a room to sing for a couple and so we naturally assumed that's what the occasion was. We began the song, and the couple smiled at us. By the second verse, the gentleman's eyes were misting over and by the bridge they were both sniffling into their napkins. I wasn't sure what to do. Sometimes crying is a good thing but they both seemed so sad. I locked eyes with my dinner music partner and we sang the duet as if we were in love. When I looked back I noticed that the couple were holding hands over the table, tears slowly trickling down their faces. I choked up and could barely finish the song.

They came up to us later. The gentleman told us that they were crying because they are madly in love but the lady is being called back to Quebec by God and so they will be separated for a while. Her story was actually amazing - as a child she saw the Virgin Mary in a vision that saved her life, and now she is moving to an apartment on the same street that she had the vision on. It was a very touching story and I can't capture it here, but to know that they are in love and yet must be separated put me into a bit of a blue funk.

Seeing people in love usually puts me in an introspective mood anyway. I end up watching all these elderly couples and wondering.

Will love really keep us alive?

My romantic nature hopes so.

Procrastination

I am supposed to be working on my Faith and Art final exam right now, but I don’t feel like writing short essays on subjects like ‘Creativity’, ‘the Artist as Servant’, or how I plan on living ‘an integrated life as an artist’.

I’ve been procrastinating all day – this afternoon I dithered about checking my email and then I spent time with S. before his show. When I came home I played Diablo II for an hour. I actually feel a bit sick from being at a computer so much today, so playing games is out now. I feel like having a nap.

I keep telling myself I have the weekend. Three whole days until the exam is due…then I remember that I haven’t done any of the journals for this term either and perhaps I should do them…and I have rehearsal for a final project that I’m stage managing on Sunday and Monday. A groan escapes my lips and I sigh and try to turn to the exam.

No luck. I can’t focus my thoughts, and everything I remember from the entire year of discussion in class escapes with the lyrics of the next song to play from the collection of music that is randomly singing out from my laptop. It routinely amazes me how well I remember music I’ve only heard a few times, but I am able to sing along to Chris Rice as he sings “Everything’s Okay” and I gamely buy into the message. I look up from my computer as I sing and notice the book of stamps behind the Coke can on my desk, which reminds me that I haven’t sent away my student loan form yet, so I pick it up and finish filling in the information, which means I have to fish out the Quick Tips form from my garbage so I can calculate how much they should give me (although they won’t because for some reason I’m only eligible for 60% of what I need, which is why I’m so grateful I got approved for that line of credit, which reminds me, I need to phone Dad and ask him what his card says and see if they issued him a card for my line of credit in which case he shouldn’t use the card or I won’t be able to pay my tuition)…and the final exam is successfully erased from my mind.

Until the form is in the envelope, licked and sealed and I realize that one of my roommates is on the phone. Then guilt creeps into the mix. I told S. I’d be doing homework tonight, and for some reason that makes me feel like I should. It’s not like I don’t have enough of it, too. My marketing portfolio was due a month ago, and I have a huge annotated bibliography that needs to be started, which means a lot of reading...but then an Iron & Wine song starts and I get distracted again.

I really like that song – about a Mexican boy named Jesus.

When I turn back to the exam, I focus on inane details. What does this bonus question mean? ‘How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?’ I don’t remember talking about surrealists in class! Perhaps if I look up surrealists and answer the question as a surrealist would, I’ll get the extra credit. Of course, if I put that time into the actual exam, I will probably get the same mark, if not a higher one.

I feel like I felt every time I knew I was supposed to be working on my play. So easily distracted but not sociable, restless but with no desire to do anything. It’s a horrible affliction and I morosely muse on how I am the only one who ever experiences this sensation. Such is the life of a writer, I drone in my mind, melodramatically, like one of my friends, a musician and musical theatre actor who has come to Rosebud to have his ‘schmacting’ broken out of him. He is the moodiest person I know – the stereotypical artist, feelings easily hurt and ego easily bruised, and everything is always about him. In spite of that, I like him quite a bit. He’s got some growing up to do, but don’t we all?

I mean, I started an exam 45 minutes ago and all I’ve written is REL 321: Faith and Art at the top of the page. Not exactly mature responsible adult behaviour.

Oh, a John Denver song that I haven’t heard in ages! I think I’ll sing along…

Hunger

I was sitting on a deck, letting the sun soak into my face and feeling the Chinook wind blow around my legs, listening to the dripping of icicles and the screaming of gophers. Among so much beauty, I was trying to figure out why bad things happen to good people. I was in the midst of telling God what is wrong with his world when someone walked by and asked me what I was doing.

I’m telling God what is wrong with the world, I said.

Things shouldn’t happen to people to make them jaded and cynical.

He stopped and pointed at me. That is so true, he said.

We shared a moment of silence.

Some people don’t ever get cynical, he said. My mother was one of them.

Then he went on his way, leaving me with that tiny bit of extra hope in a world that was screaming hope and life at me anyway.

Something disappointing happened to S. last weekend. He lost a role that he had earned fair and square because the director changed his mind about casting at the last minute. It’s rough – it’s hard enough to lose a role fairly, but to have it given to you and then taken away is just not fair. It happens here sometimes, although I’ve been told (and I agree) that it’s pretty unprofessional.

I’ve never had this happen before. I’ve discovered that it is unexpectedly difficult to feel the disappointment of someone I love, and to be saddened for them, and to know that there isn’t anything I can say or do that will make it better.

I hate feeling helpless in the face of injustice.

So I spent half an hour outside in the beauty and straightforwardness of God’s creation, talking to him about what isn’t working down here. Sometimes free will is a bitch, particularly when it’s someone else’s free will but you have to deal with the consequences.

At the end of my ponderings and talking, I realized that I am very naïve. So many people have broken themselves down from the pedestals I placed them on – I keep being disappointed when people I respect make choices and treat people in ways that contradict the person I thought they were. I suppose I should learn to stop putting people on pedestals. A part of my soul cries at the reality that in this fallen world I will find no one who will not let me down. Is that naivety, or is it hope, or is it what is left of Eve before she ate the apple?

I can see why it seems intelligent to become hardened and cynical. It protects people from being disappointed by life, by other people, by this big, old, awful sick mess of a world.

I don’t want to be hardened though. I spent too many years as the cynic. It takes so much negative energy to live in that world. As risky as it is to choose the softness of a snail without a shell, I want to hold on to hope. I want to keep believing that there is good out there, that there are people out there who do choose to live according to what is right.

Madeleine L’Engle is one of my favourite authors. Her stories are full of the knowledge that the world is bent and broken, full of hurt and wrong and injustice. Her characters are aware that the world is not how it should be, and they have a passion to see the world whole and healed again – but they all come to a point in their journeys where they have to choose to fight for what they instinctively know is right. It is never an easy choice. They are overwhelmed by the darkness sometimes. They are filled with despair that the world can ever be whole again. And they choose hope, they choose to fight for that little, tiny, almost invisible spark of light, against impossible odds. They fight even though they know they will lose. They fight even though there is no possible way that the world can be saved. They fight because they have to.

Sometimes I feel like my purpose in life is to keep fighting for that miniscule speck of light and hope, like I am here in this life just to keep that tiny light alive, and if all I can do in my life is keep that light from going out, even if I can’t make it any bigger, even if I can’t win the fight, even if after all I do the light goes out – as long as I’ve done all I can to fight for it, that is all that matters.

It hurts. Sometimes it feels like I’m losing, like I’m losing my will to fight because it seems so impossible. I know there is no way that I can win. The dark, the brokenness is too big and too overwhelming and there is nothing I can do to make things better. But the pain of losing that light is so much greater than the despair of never winning that I just can’t give up, even when everything is telling me I should cut my losses and just join the dark winning team already.

I just can’t do that. I just can’t lose that hunger for the light. I hope I never do. It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, but it’s the only thing I can do. It’s the only thing that feels right.

I can’t bear to lose that wild, fierce hunger.

All I can do is hope that I never do.

Hurtin' Unit

My youngest brother came to visit me this weekend.

He is on an extended leave of absence from work following a mental break-down. At least that gave him the freedom to catch a ride with a friend and spend two and a half days just hanging out with me at my home.

He has a lot of pain and it isn’t hiding very well behind his shields of cynicism and bitterness. The chip on his shoulder is so big I wonder how there is any shoulder left. I can see the roots, deep inside his broken heart but I don’t think everyone can. The perks of being a sister I guess.

We had some good talks, about our brother getting married and how happy we are for him. How good D1’s girl is to him, and how we think they’ll make it. How we wished we had been better siblings to him and how we hope we’ll be able to continue to repair those cracks we made.

We talked about relationships. He hung out with S. for a few hours and said he seemed like a good guy, that he trusted my ability to choose a man. He said it must be nice to have a relationship that our mom didn’t have a problem with, where I didn’t have to fight with her to have my adult choices respected.

He spoke of his girl, of their life, of where they might go. I asked him if he thought they’d be together forever and he said they might be. We have problems, but who doesn’t? he asked. She loves me the best she knows how, and she’s learning how to be better. I wanted to ask him if that’s all he deserves, and if he loves her as best as he knows how or if he thinks he needs to learn to be better too, but I didn’t. Instead I listened as he talked to me.

I don’t know if I remember a lot of the words he spoke to me. I do remember how much pain there was in his whole being. He’s like a dog that’s been whipped, L. said. In his whole body, in his attitude, everything about him looks like he’s been broken and hasn’t been put back together yet. I nodded and held my own pain inside.

We went for walks and talked about life, me walking upwind so that the smoke from his cigarette would blow away from me. Watching him smoke was hard for me. It made him seem hardened somehow, like the thug he played as a child had come real. Like he didn’t give a damn, like his pain was all there was and he had no hope that it would ever change.

We spoke of how confusing it is when peace comes from a source that we were taught was wrong. How confusing it is when we learn that something we were told was out of bounds is completely within our grasp. We talked about how things can be right for one person and wrong for another. About how God is bigger than the mistakes of our parents and the church. I learned how cynical he is towards church and pastors.

We talked one evening about our mother. He used some of the exact phrasing that I had used in counselling three days before. It was a comfort to us both that we have the same problems with the same woman. It helped us to see that it isn’t in our heads. That the problems are real and solid because someone else felt them too.

It was a comfort to me to see that counselling has actually helped me to grow and learn to deal with my anger, pain and frustration. It filled me with calm to see that I used to be where D2 is now, full of pain and anger that I didn’t know what to do with, but I’m not anymore. It filled me hope to see that a person can learn to keep acknowledging the feelings, to put the responsibility for them on the right people, and to let it go and move on.

I told D2 that he should seriously think about going to counselling. He agreed with me. I hope he does it.

I have a lot of hopes for him. I hope that his choice to move back in with my parents is a good one. I hope that he can get what he needs from them, especially my mother. I hope that all of his pieces get put back where they belong and that he won’t always look so beaten down.

I hope.

Maybe with enough hopes behind him, his pain will become easier to bear.

Themes

I just realized that the last few posts (excluding the happy one about my brother) have been rather negative.

Maybe I'm going through a phase. Huh.

It bears some thinking about, that perhaps it isn't all the people around me, and maybe it's me.

Although I'd rather it wasn't.

Frustration

I am so frustrated with school right now. Not with the work – that feels quite manageable for once. No. I'm frustrated with the institution itself and the people who are running it.

It feels like the Educational Directors are on a warpath and I don’t know why. It’s sudden, too. One day I’m going along my life, making my own decisions and organizing things my way, and the next day the phrase ‘mandatory’ gets thrown in my face and I have to abide by a new set of rules. Rules that I haven’t been aware of for three months now, but that apparently have to be added to my life for this last month of school or the world will come to an end.

The thing I really don’t understand is that the class they are raising Cain about is dance, which is a fucking audit for me. I’m not getting any credits or being marked or evaluated in any way. I didn’t get the option of choosing this class – if I had I would have turned it down. It’s exactly the same class that I took last year and since I passed, I don’t see why I have to take it again. But suddenly I have to attend and catch up on what I’ve missed so that I can participate in the presentation that is happening in three weeks.

They say they want me to stay in practice with dance and I can understand that. But the majority of the class time is spent warming up and stretching. I do that on my own every morning. I lead a deliberately active lifestyle. I keep my tools ready to work. As far as the idea of keeping dance moves fresh in my mind…the way I see it, if I ever go out for a dance audition I’ll be doing it cold. Taking dance classes outside of school doesn’t interest me. I know that I learn basic choreography at an average speed. I’m not a dancer, but I can learn choreography. If this class taught me how to pick up choreography quickly I’d be there in a heartbeat, but instead we spend 85% of the class time warming up to spend 15 minutes going over and over the same dance moves – dance moves that I’ve never seen used in musical theatre anyway. It’s a waste of my time.

The whole ‘mandatory audit’ thing is really just the tip of the iceberg. Recently the Student Life Advisor sent an email to all of the students who are living in student housing, reminding us all that a) we aren’t allowed to have alcohol in our houses and b) boys aren’t allowed to be in our rooms past midnight. I know these rules – well, I knew the alcohol one. I knew that technically we weren’t allowed to have boys in our rooms unless the doors were open but that rule has never been enforced so I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I certainly didn’t remember that they had to be out of our house by midnight. When S.’s schedule means that he isn’t free to come visit me until 11 o’clock at night it seems ridiculous that he would have to leave after an hour, particularly if neither of us has anything the next morning, but fine. We’ll hang out at his house if it’s really that big of a problem. It pisses me off that I can’t live my own life in my own house.

I’ll admit I was breaking the letter of the law on the alcohol thing. I had a bottle of wine in my closet. I had no intention of drinking it in the dorm – I am waiting to open it until R. and I move into our new not-student-housing suite. I didn’t think having a bottle of wine in my closet would be a problem but after I got the email I moved it to S.’s house. He lives in a private residence and is allowed to make the adult decision to drink or not to drink. I can’t wait until I live in a house where my landlord will actually assume that I can act my age (23) and where I can make my own life choices – where all I have to take into consideration is whether or not I’m being respectful to my roommates and whether I’m taking good care of my house. That is what an adult, living on their own, should have to think about. I shouldn’t have to worry about whether my lifestyle is meshing with someone else’s moral structure, but thanks to the nature of student housing that is my reality. I hate it.

It’s made me realize that I have control issues when it comes to my room. The email stated that members of the Educational Team would be conducting random house checks, looking for alcohol and asking whether guys were staying over. The idea of having someone go through my stuff in my room, looking for non-existent alcohol, asking me about aspects of my life that shouldn’t be their business in the first place, makes me instantly angry. Unreasonably angry, in fact. I thought about it a lot and I realized that my bedroom has always been the only area of my life that I have had complete control over. I have always controlled my room completely and implicitly. I have been anal-retentive about who comes in and when, the contents and where they go. I rule my room and no one else has any authority therein. It has always been that way, and I just can’t let that go. I’ll let them in my room if they must check it, but only if I’m there. I’d prefer it if they could just take my word for it that there’s no alcohol in there. They have to take my word for it that S. isn’t sleeping over, after all.

Another big part of my frustration with the school comes from scheduling conflicts. This year has been the worst year for students being double-booked into things that anyone I’ve spoken to has ever seen. Students have been expected to be in two or three places at once, and when they choose which one of those places they are going to go, they are informed that they have to make up the other classes on their own time. It’s bullshit! I understand that the schedulers are human. I’m not asking for perfection. It would just be nice if when the problems are brought to their attention they would try to rectify them instead of shoving them off on the student.

Right now I’m stage managing a classmates’ final project. Part of this requires me to try to make the schedules of the various team members match up. It is not an easy job. I thought that the school would be helpful with this whole process. The Educational Team approved this project, after all.

I’ve since realized that that was a little too optimistic of me. There have been several ‘mandatory’ classes added to our schedule that are in direct conflict with rehearsals. I don’t understand it. They approved the fucking rehearsal schedule. They should know it, and if they foresaw problems with it they should have said something back then. Instead they approved it and are now kicking up a fuss about the classes that I won’t be attending.

I feel really angry about all of these things, and what makes it worse is that I feel like I’m not being heard.

I know I’m not the only student feeling this way. There are important things that the Educational Team isn’t hearing when we say them, and what can we do about it?

Nothing.

It pisses me off half the time and fills me with a horrible old feeling of resignation the other half. It makes me feel like closing up every time one of them talks to me. Why should I listen to you if you aren’t going to listen to me, I want to ask. But instead I sigh inside and try to be receptive.

How can I expect them to listen to me if I won’t even try to listen to them, after all?

I keep listening.

They keep ignoring the problems they are creating.

And so I am frustrated.

Congratulations!

That is to my middle brother, who asked his girlfriend to marry him.

She said yes. Otherwise this would be a sad little post, instead of a happy one.

I am really excited for them, and can hardly wait to welcome her into our family!

Congratulations, you two. Lots of love and best wishes your way.

Resentment

Our household harmony is vanishing. Fast.

It started with the breakdown of the System. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly little resentments will pop up when the dishes aren’t being done. As soon as the dishes remained piled on the counter with loud declarations of “they aren’t mine and I won’t do other people’s dishes” everything else went to pot.

Secret resentment number one: I would put dishes here, but I’m not sure that dishes count as a ‘secret’ resentment since the entire household has articulated this one multiple times. And in reality, if M. would just do her damn dishes, this post would be over already.

Secret resentment number two: It is tech week for the Opera House show, which means that L. (who is the ASM) is under stress. To help her out, L.’s fiancé, K., has been here cooking for her so that she doesn’t have to worry about preparing meals during her short breaks. It’s awfully nice of him, but it does add another person to an already crowded kitchen. But hey – he washes the dishes he uses. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed by the extra person in our kitchen but I’ve been dealing with it. I have S. over often enough, after all. M., however, is tired of having ‘the boyfriends’ over here all the time.
She doesn’t go speak to L. about this though. No. She talks to me, like I’m going to fix it for her.

Secret resentment number two: M. has been watching seasons one and two of Grey’s Anatomy. Not a problem until you realize that she has watched the entire two seasons over four days. While she watches film after film and episode after episode, she uses the upstairs bathroom – the bathroom that C. and I supply with toilet paper. Our supplies are vanishing almost as fast as the household harmony.
M. has always spent every spare moment of her life sitting in the living-room watching movies at high decibel levels, and while it has been getting on everyone’s nerves for a long time, it has reached a snapping point. It is understandable that we can only handle so much noise in the only common area in the house, and when you combine that with watching her sit there while her dishes pile up in negligent sloth, you get a fairly volatile situation.

C. decided that taking the RCA cables away would solve the problem. It didn’t. It just made things worse. When M. came home and discovered that the television didn’t work, she felt like she was being punished (which she was) and accused C. of mothering her. To her face, which I must admit I was quite shocked to learn.

That brings us to secret resentment number three: M. treating me like I’m her personal intercessor. After raising her voice to L. when it was pointed out that she needed to do her dishes, and then yelling at C. for mothering her, she stalked up to my room and proceeded to fill me in on the entire afternoon in a highly controlled and angry voice.
In my bedroom. My private retreat from the entire house, the only private place I have in the entire town.

I had removed myself for a reason. Apparently that was lost on M. While she spouted off about how the entire house was treating her like a child, all I could do was stare at the top of my dresser and wonder why the hell I let her do this to me and wonder why she can’t seem to learn that her actions affect the people around her. She is very much like a child.

I felt like I couldn’t even tell her what I wanted to because I had to stop her from going and having it all out with L. right then and there. In the middle of tech week. This is the worst week in any show, particularly for L. M. has no sense of timing.

I wanted to tell her that none of us wanted the full-time job that mothering her would be. That we aren’t trying to mother her – we are only behaving like roommates behave when someone in the house isn’t pulling their weight. That pulling your weight means not only cleaning up after yourself (which she isn’t doing) but also pitching in to pick up the slack that is left when six people live together. That if she had a problem with somebody in the house she should go talk to them instead of dragging me into every fight she has. That she can’t come into my room. For any reason. Ever.

It irritates me that M. can’t recognize her dishes; that she doesn’t speak to the people that are angering her; that she can’t seem to realize that her problems aren’t my problems or my business; that she also has no sense of timing; that she can’t remember to be considerate of the people living around her; that she can’t see past what she wants and what she feels to the desires, needs and feelings of the people she has lived with for six months.

I am getting very tired of living with her. I know I said I could suck it up for another month and a half…but I think I was lying. A little part of me harbours a secret resentment against our student life advisor for placing her here in the first place. If she didn’t live here, my life would be so much easier.

And while the household harmony vanishes into the ether, I cling to the hope that somehow in all of this I have become a better person.

Because otherwise this was all a significant waste of my time.

The System: or, Flex Before Somebody Snaps

In our house we have a System when it comes to dishes. It’s quite simple. You do your own.

The System works pretty well. It’s the only way we’ve been able to keep the peace with six women using dishes in the house. It isn’t perfect though. It breaks down when someone doesn’t do their dishes for a week or when people forget which dishes are theirs. Confusion over ownership wreaks the most havoc on the System, and unfortunately the dishes are the ones who suffer, sitting unclaimed on the counter wallowing in their filth until someone breaks down and does them.

It wouldn’t be such a problem – or a topic for my blog – if this house wasn’t filled with such stubborn women. Let me introduce them to you –

First, we have L. L. refuses to do dishes that aren’t hers because she is of the firm belief that the dishes piling up belong to M., who she doesn’t really like and with whom any excuse to like her less is a viable reason to make life difficult for everyone around. She doesn’t see that aspect of it, but it’s true non-the-less.

Then we have the infamous M., of whom I’ve written before. M. is tired of all the extra dishes being blamed on her and likewise refuses to do any extra dishes – although she does tend to forget what she has actually used and blame her work on others, particularly L. and C.

C., the first one of us to live here and who thus lays claim (subconsciously or not) to the title of Alpha Bitch, has a good memory as to what she has and has not used for dishes. She rarely is a culprit when it comes to over-flowing counters. She usually has to play the role of dish-Nazi (the one who makes others do their dishes).

J. doesn’t do her dishes upstairs, and so has excluded herself from the System – although when a dish disappears for a month it’s usually because it has been wallowing in her sink downstairs.

R. adheres to the System. She does her dishes with OCD-like attention to detail, and thus avoids the perennial conflict when it comes to arguments of ownership.

I occasionally leave dishes and have been known to forget which ones are mine. However the System is so ingrained in me that when I was home for Christmas I used a plate and then washed it immediately, ignoring the pile of dishes from the previous meal (much to my mother’s irritation. She doesn’t understand the overwhelming influence of the System). I also will wash other people’s dishes if someone else will put them away – I hate putting dishes away but washing them doesn’t bother me. Much.

In this latest uprising of plates and cups half of the house was absent, leaving L. and M. to battle out the ownership issue. I had been observing the dishes and knowing their eating habits, I was pretty sure that they were the result of an even split between the two of them, but neither of them were willing to budge an inch to do any more than what they believed was their responsibility. Fuck, I hate legalism.

I finally got sick of the whole mess and took out my frustration at the breakdown of the System in the most passive-aggressive yet positive way I could. I did all of the fucking dishes and then cleaned the kitchen to boot.

I did receive gratitude in the form of lip-service, but that evening again I witnessed the strict adherence to the System to the exclusion of mercy or grace.

I think I hate the System too.

The problem is that I know that the System works. It isn’t the System that is broken. It’s the understanding of the System. There needs to be a bit of flex room, a place of grace where each member of the house will accept doing a few extra dishes now and then to help out a friend (or to stop an argument that will overflow onto friends – or the floor). There needs to be an understanding that no System works without flexibility to work outside the rules.

I discussed this with R. when she returned from her study break. I got quite worked up about it (the swearing in this post isn’t gratuitous; it accurately reflects my feelings on the subject). R. sensed my pent-up rage and asked me if we needed to have a house meeting. I said I thought it would be okay. I am the queen of taking deep breaths and taking things in stride. I can hold out until the end of term, when M. is leaving and L. will suddenly remember what it means to help out the people around her instead of doing her own fair share and letting everyone else take up the slack.

If this situation rises again before the end of March, though, I’m going to fucking flip out and it won’t be a pretty sight.

I just wish we could all just remember to have some flexibility within our Systems. Maybe then our lives would run a little more smoothly.

At least I’d have to find something else to snap about.

22 - The Year of the Firsts

I had my birthday this week. I turned 23.

23 feels a lot older than 22. Someone told me it’s because 23 is closer to 25 than to 20. Perhaps that’s why.

I think the reason I feel older is because I am definitely an adult now. There is no way that a 23 year old is not an adult. I have no excuses now for any of my childish behaviour.

Maybe that should make me sad, but instead it makes me stand straighter, smile and look to the future.

After all, you can’t stop getting older. I think you might as well embrace it.

That said I’m not negating the difficulty people have in aging. I am sure that in spite of my best intentions I’ll find some years hard. Which ones I’m not sure of yet. After all, I wouldn’t have thought that turning 20 would be hard but it kind of was.

But whatever. I’ll accept the difficulty and still never lie about my age, no matter how hard I find it to be old. When I am, I mean. I’m still young, so it’s easy to have this ideal, but I am determined to keep it. Not everyone gets to be old, even as old as I am now, and I will not belittle the gift of life by denying how many years I have had it.

This last year has been one full of life, too. I experienced quite a few firsts – first leading role, first degree, first time ASMing, first boyfriend, first kiss, first time falling in love, first time making out, first time getting paid to sing in public, getting my first role in the main season, first close friend getting engaged, first time really fighting with the student loan people, first time getting drunk, first hangover, first laptop (thanks Dad and Mom!), first time acting in a final project, first time traveling overseas, first time seeing London, England and Wales, first time being sniffed down by a drug dog and being randomly checked by airport security people, first time being really, really late with the rent (and tuition…sigh), first play written and read publicly…not all in that order necessarily, but all this year.

I can’t help but be excited about next years firsts…along with continuations of this years discoveries, 23 should be a pretty good year.

Five Things You Might Not Know About Me

1. On the side of my Outlook Express account, there is a list of tasks that I make for myself. They range from the dull (Homework) to the bizarre (Be the Broccoli...don't ask) to the sublime (Kiss S.) Upon completion of this post I can tick off the "Meme - Five Things" task that has been there for months, annoying me.

2. I despise honey. I cannot abide the taste, smell, texture or sight of it...ugh. Even thinking about honey can make my stomach turn. I have no reason for this detestation, but it is sincere. S. was quite smug with himself when I ate a meal he had cooked that had a minute amount of honey in it - but I'll get him back someday. He has a bizarre dislike of cinnamon, after all...

3. All of my close friends live in this hamlet. I have no close friends from my childhood unless you count family members. This is something I don't tell people. I am ashamed of this, although it really wasn't my fault...I was a pretty isolated child. Still. It makes me feel like a bizarre aberration of nature.

4. Sunday will be the first day that anything I've written, and finished, will be shared with people that I cannot choose. It scares me and thrills me. It strikes me as strange, thinking about it now, that I have been writing for most of my life and yet haven't shared my writing with more than a handful of people - because I'm afraid, of course. Perhaps that isn't so bizarre after all.

5. A movie has to be really, really terrible for me not to get sucked into the story. Even a terrible movie will keep me enthralled - it's like the screen has a bizarre ability to hypnotize me within thirty seconds. This annoys me, because if a television is turned on I have a very difficult time focusing on the people around me. I would rather put my attention on the people, really - but it is very hard for me to do, and I'm not sure why.

6. I know this is supposed to be five, but yes - I did intentionally use the word bizarre in each one of those points. Ha ha!

Out of the Dust

Years ago, one of my aunts gave me a book called "Out of the Dust" by Karen Hesse. It is a story told in poetry and it is beautiful. I remembered that I loved it but I had forgotten how heartbreaking and perfect it was.

...and didn't notice how lonely she was
until she met Daddy and fell into the
big hurt of his eyes.

This sentence leaped out at me and almost made me cry.

Story really is a vital part of our human experience. I sometimes forget this.

I'm glad there are stories out there to remind me.

I'm back...

...and extremely jet-lagged.

But London was fun - if filled with smog that turned your nostrils grey after a day of sight-seeing (although that could have been all of the second-hand smoke...almost everyone there smoked but that could have been to protect themselves from the smog...it's a vicious circle).

I'll write all about it when I get my brain back from whatever magical land brains go to when they travel across time-zones.

But I would like to say that making me change to Beta when I'm so incoherent is extremely unjust.

At least I think that it is.

An Observation

People are incapable of stability.

Waiting for them to achieve stability is an exercise in futility.

Up, up and away!

This time Saturday I'll be flying to London.

I probably won't post much (if anything at all) while I'm over there...but I'll be back - and jet-lagged - on the 17th, so you'll hear from me for sure by the 21st (which is when I imagine my brain will be functioning again).

Pray for safety for me and my classmates. This is a school trip. Almost everyone who is important to me (outside of my family) is going to be along, which is cool.

I suppose along with a prayer for safety for me, you could add a prayer for peace of mind for my mother.

I am here...

Life feels like a big question. I’d like to know where the answers are but I suspect they lie at the end of the journey. I’m not ready to be at the end, so I guess I’ll find them like every other mortal – by living my life and making my mistakes – but that seems so hard right now.

I find myself writing "Rebecca was here [insert date here] and she was [insert emotional state here]" on walls, on floors, on pieces of set around the town. I don't know why, but it helps somehow.

S. shaved his head last night. I like it a lot…he’s even more distracting than he was before. I love it when you rub someone’s head and it feels like it’s covered in velvet. Plus it looks really good. Mmmm…

I’m listening to music on an iPod, which is a new experience. I’ve been instructed in the use of the little thing, which is a wonder to me. Five buttons and a little dial and that’s all you need to listen to hundreds and hundreds of songs. Weird. It’s S.’s iPod so it’s all his music. It is both educational and interesting to listen to and see where our tastes meld and where they take sharp departures.

I should be working right now – but I thought I should also put something on here to let myself know that I’m still alive and capable of creating something independent of school work, even if it’s small.

That feels like an answer. An answer I needed.

Rebecca was here January 22nd 2007, and she was comforted.

That's enough for now.

Brighter days

I'm not feeling quite so overwhelmed now. I still don't have time to write more than a paragraph, but at least my soul doesn't feel like it wants to escape my body anymore...and I don't feel as stressed out...

Ashes

I feel like I am holding a monster at bay with a crucifix that I have only just realized is made of popsicle sticks.

Eventually the monster will realize I have no real power backing me up...

Marketing...

...is a monster that devours your soul.

It certainly devours your time, anyway.

Random Thoughts for the New Year

My youngest brother broke up with his girlfriend last night.

This time I think it might stick.

This is a first for our family, which continues youngest brother’s fine tradition of being the first one of us to do anything. It’s a little embarrassing as the oldest to have him constantly beat me to the finish with things, but then again there are some things I’m perfectly happy to watch someone else do them first so I can learn from their mistakes, or, even better, simply avoid doing completely.

I saw them together a few times over the holidays and they seemed okay but I knew from talking to him that things were pretty rocky. I’m not surprised they broke up, although I’m a little surprised that he did the breaking.

xxxx

My holidays have been pretty eventful, I suppose. I didn’t do a lot. I stayed at home for the most part, used the computer, burned myself some CD’s…did a bit of shopping and spent some time with family members…went to two family gatherings…went for a very long walk by myself…talked to S. on the phone…wrote…memorized lines…realized that I haven’t done any of my Faith and Art homework (sorry, Steve)…and I learned a lot about myself. Things I can honestly say I didn’t learn willingly. I’m egocentric and arrogant. I’m wilful and territorial. I also have a healthy dose of aggression.

I also came to the conclusion that two adult women who are related should never share a house for more than a week, and that if anyone uses the phrase ‘co-dependant’ around me again I may very well unleash some of my aggression on them. But both my mother and I are still alive so I would say the holidays were a success.

I think I can safely say that I have never been such a pain in the ass as I’ve been these holidays. I’ve been argumentative and in such weird moods. Even I don’t know why. I think it is a good thing that I’m going back to my own little village tomorrow – as much as my mother might miss me, she’ll be glad to have a break from me for a while.

xxxx

I bought a laptop in December. It was supposed to be here by now but Purolator lost it somewhere, so now Dell is looking for it. If they can’t find it (and I’m not sure how they will if the Purolator people can’t) then they are going to build me another one. I’m very impressed with Dell – not very impressed with Purolator. At least I’m still getting the computer, even if it will arrive two weeks later than it was supposed to.

xxxx

My cat has vanished again. When it gets cold he goes to his second family for better treatment, which I understand but it does mean that I don’t see him for months on end. He hasn’t shown his whiskery face the entire time I’ve been home. Instead, Mack (an orange stray) has been sunning himself on the deck. Emma, my dog, has been here and happy to see me. S. sincerely prefers cats to dogs – he thinks that dogs are useless – but Emma was here when Felix abandoned me for creature comforts.

I’ve been considering getting a kitten, and now I won’t feel like I’m betraying Felix quite so badly.

Interesting, for a non-morning person...

"You are Sunrise"

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary.You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You're often cooking for friends or buying them gifts.All in all, you know how to love life for what it is - not for how it should be.

http://blogthings.com/whattimeofdayareyouquiz/ is where I got this particular quiz. Thanks, troll.

My New Year's Resolution

Spoiler Alert

I just read a book called "The Pact". I found it to be a very upsetting book and I'm not sure why. I mean, there is a lot to be upset about. The girl, Emily, is molested when she's nine, that taints her experience of her sexuality when she's older because she never told anyone and she never dealt with it...and she is pushed into a life she didn't choose, pushed like many children are pushed by their parents’ blind unspoken assumptions – and this life includes a romantic relationship with a boy, Chris, who loves her to death (literally) but whom she sees more as a brother. But because she can’t be honest with him or anyone else, she enters into a sexual relationship with him and she gets pregnant. Her whole life is built on these lies so she doesn’t tell anyone this big thing either and decides the only way to solve these problems is to kill herself, and because Chris is young and stupid and in love, he helps her, which is where the title comes from – the appearance of a suicide pact.

None of that was necessary. The whole story could have been avoided if she had told the truth. I know that if that was the case, the book wouldn’t have been written. I know that drama is made of these sorts of situations. But a part of my soul still cries out that she could have told the truth and avoided so much pain for so many people. She could have told someone what happened when she was nine, and gotten therapy. Or she could have been honest with Chris and told him she didn’t love him that way. Or she could have told him she really wasn’t comfortable with having sex. Or, she could have been honest and told people, especially him, that she was pregnant. And then she could have been honest and said she didn’t want to marry him. Dammit! But because she let her fear rule her, she lied and lied and lied and then, to escape the lies, she killed herself and put two families through a lot of shit that quite honestly was more difficult to deal with than the truth would have been.

Maybe it upsets me so much because I know that I’ve lied to people I love because I’m afraid that I’ll lose them or scare them away or that they’ll be angry with me. Perhaps I find it so upsetting because I don’t know where I learned that. I spent the vast majority of my life believing that I was an honest person and that my family was an honest family with no unspoken secrets and no unspoken lies, but if that is all true then why did I decide that if I soften the truth, my life isn’t as scary? Somewhere I learned to lie to keep myself safe, and I don’t really know why.

I hate that about myself.

I hate that I soften the truth as a natural way of dealing with people. I can count on one hand the people I don’t think I’ve ever lied to in any way…r., T., and J. I think that’s it. Three people in the whole world that I have never softened the truth for. Three people that I believe will see through my façade, three people that will be honest with me, even brutally so, three people that I trust will stay anyway, so I’ve never even bothered trying to lie to them.

But everyone else in my life? I’ve altered the truth to everyone else at least once. And I hate it.

Thank God I can see that I want to change, and that I am getting better – even if it seems to be taking place on a geological timeline. It is so hard to learn to trust people, especially the ones that I think I should trust already. Especially the ones I think I should trust already.

It is so much easier to focus on the fact that I ‘should’ be trusting this person or I ‘shouldn’t’ have a problem being honest with that person than to focus on the simple truth, which is that I don’t trust, and deal with that.

T. laughed once when I went to him in tears about living with M. He said he thought it was kind of funny that a girl with trust issues and a boy who hates being betrayed would end up dating each other. At the time I just laughed, albeit shakily. I didn’t see the extent of my trust issues then. I have the sinking feeling that I am only touching on the tip of them now.

But I guess there is a silver lining. My life isn’t built out of lies. I am trying to be honest with the people I love (don’t ask about the ones I don’t. One thing at a time, people, one thing at a time). I have cleared the air the last three times I hedged around the truth, even though it was very, very difficult to do, and I found out it isn’t such a horrible thing – it’s actually quite a relief. It’s been almost a year since I consciously decided to stop making excuses to shield myself from my own bad choices, which for me was a huge way that I was dishonest with people. And I don’t have a suicide pact with S.

I guess if I was going to make a huge discovery about a ‘bad habit’, now is the time to do it, huh? Just in time for New Years, the time we make pacts with ourselves.

So here I go.

This year, I vow to tell the truth, however scary that might be.

And, hey...at least I know I can live by this promise.

10 Things I Love About S

Okay, so that is a little misleading. This isn't actually all about S., the person. It is a list of 10 things that I love that begin with the letter S. Antony at www.tothequiet.blogspot.com started this one - well, I guess he didn't start it exactly, but since he's the one who gave me a letter I'll give him the credit.

(I think the letter S is a most appropriate one for me.)

1. S. Of course. Although it scares me sometimes.

2. Snuggling. There is something so comforting and relaxing about being all cuddled up to someone (and by someone I mean S.), all warm and cozy. I love being held, and I count myself lucky that S. likes to snuggle while we watch t.v. or talk or listen to music, or just hang out.

3. My senses. Being able to see colours and shapes, like the ones that filled the art show that the first year students put on before school ended for the year or the ones that God fills the sky with every morning and evening. Smelling food or the first wild rose of the year, so sweet and delicate, and the smell of S. when I hug him. The taste of autumn air, filled with fallen leaves, and the taste of homemade iced tea, which brings me instantly to my grandparent's house. Hearing the spaces in between the notes of music, or a finely tuned choir singing in polyphonic majesty, or birds chattering while my friends walk down a sidewalk with trees whispering above. The feel of snow melting in my hands, of chocolate on my tongue, of lips on my neck... the senses are pretty fantastic.

4. Snow. Call me crazy, but I really enjoy snow. It was cold in my little village for quite a while before it snowed, and I complained with the best of them about the weather - but as soon as the ground was white, the temperature ceased to bother me. If there is snow, then I like the feeling of my nostrils freezing shut as I breathe, my eyelashes turning white with Canadian Mascara as my breath condenses to them, my glasses fogging up until I can't see a thing but frost. Snow crunching and squeaking underfoot, snow covering every mar in the landscape, snow that reveals the midnight dances of mice and small birds - I think it is beautiful.

5. Stories. I hold story in such high regard. My whole life is a story, and I mean that in a good way, not a 'I'm living a lie' sort of way. I really resent that the word story was ever used to describe lying, because stories are such a key way for us to communicate truth to each other. I have learned more important things from stories than from any other thing (except actual life experience, I suppose...but it is probably a much closer race than I even realize). The stories of Madeleine L'Engle, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, Orson Scott Card...there are too many people to list here. God's story. My story. Stories are so important. Perhaps that is why I want to devote my life to telling them in one way or another.

6. Which leads me to the stage. I do love the stage, although it scares me sometimes too. There is life there, like the life I find in stories, because it is where the stories come to life. An empty stage is potential incarnate.

7. Spirituality. I am glad there is more to this world than what I can experience with my senses, as much as I love them. The mystery that cannot be explained by anything, but that the spirit understands. The fear, the peace, the love, the wonder and trembling awe.

8. Secrets and surprises. I have, to my surprise, become a keeper of secrets for a handful of people that I would never have expected to become a secret holder for. It makes me wonder. I don't think I mind, but it can be tiring sometimes. Other times it makes me so happy because some secrets are wonderful - and those are the ones I love. And really good surprises, like the one I managed to pull off for S. (I wrote about it in an earlier post)...those are wonderful too.

9. Second chances. I don't know that I love them, but I am extremely grateful for them.

10. Singing. I didn't know how much I love to sing until this year, when I really started to use my voice properly and with confidence. Voice lessons have been a wonderful thing for me, and performing music in front of hundreds of people has helped my confidence immensely. I am so glad that I was given the gift of a beautiful voice. I love the feeling of my voice soaring out free and clear and bigger than I ever thought it could be. Music is beautiful. I'm glad God invented it.

And that brings me to 10. I didn't even touch on a sense of humour, or sunshine, stars, sweetness, salt and spices, savouring experiences, or sexuality. When I started, I wasn't sure I'd be able to find 10 things that began with s. It turned out to be surprisingly easy.

And now for another s-word I love - sleep. Too bad I have no one to snuggle with tonight...

Surprise Me

“So, what did you get me for Christmas?”

This question has hit my ears many, many times this December. In the middle of a conversation, while cuddling, in the midst of kisses, while we are making supper – any time S. thinks my guard is down, he asks me what I got him. Every time, I say, “I’m not telling you!”. I’ve got years of experience in resisting curiosity. I have my mother to thank for that – if you can surprise her, you can surprise anyone.

S. and I have different mentalities when it comes to gifts. S. doesn’t care about being surprised as long as he knows he likes what he’s getting, and that he isn’t going to get multiple copies of the same thing. It’s a practical, pragmatic approach to gifts that is almost completely foreign to me.

I like being surprised. Of course I like getting things that I like, but if someone has gotten me something that I didn’t expressly tell them to get me but they thought I would like it, that matters more to me than what the gift is. The fact that they put thought into what to get me is what matters to me – and if they know me well enough to risk like that and get me something I like too, then, well…then you’re golden.

S. is golden. He didn’t even ask for a list. He just went out and risked, and his risk paid off. He got me a gloriously soft and fluffy and big bathrobe and a Sam Roberts CD, both things that I mentioned in passing, brief comments that he made mental notes of. I am very pleased and touched that he remembers things like that. I mean, I knew he listened to me when I talked, but it is always nice to see that proven.

Although S. liked surprising me, he didn’t want me to surprise him. But I stuck to my guns – no matter how many times he asked, no matter how distracted I was when he asked, I refused to tell him what I got him. I did a lot of scheming and I wasn’t about to crack.

However, I do need to spill the beans here or the rest of the story doesn’t make sense. Let me take you back to the end of August, 2006. S. and I were going to go and watch a movie for his birthday. He was eagerly anticipating going to see Lady in the Water. We phoned the local movie theatre. It wasn’t playing but we weren’t surprised. It’s a small theatre. We phoned theatres in Calgary. Every single one of them had the same thing to say. Lady in the Water wasn’t playing there anymore. It was very disappointing and irritating.

Within days I had a brilliant thought. What if I got him Lady in the Water for Christmas? That might not seem so brilliant until you know that every New Years the technical people in this theatre town set up a projector and a huge white cyc (which is a screen, basically) and watch movies. It’s like being at a movie theatre. What if I got the projector set up earlier so we could watch it on a big screen? It would be like I brought the movie, and the theatre, to S. Brilliance indeed.

So I did my research. I discovered that Lady in the Water was about to be released on December 19th. I talked to the tech people and got the projector set up. I phoned S.’s family and told them what I was getting him, and swore them to secrecy. Then, when the release date arrived, my friend R. and I made up an excuse to go to town by ourselves, and I bought the movie. I secreted it away in my underwear drawer and kept on misleading S. into thinking that not only had I had his gift for weeks, but that it was hidden somewhere he’d never find it. And I told him I wanted to watch a movie on the projector – so what did he want to watch?

He went and borrowed some movies that he thought would look good on a big screen – King Kong, Monster House and X-III. “I wish Lady in the Water was out,” he said with a sigh. “That would look good on a big screen.”

“Yes, it would,” I said with my best actor face.

After supper, R., L., S. and I went to the Studio Stage where the projector was set up. I had the movie in my backpack, hidden under a blanket and cans of pop. R. and L. were in on the plan – but apparently the technical people were not, for when we arrived we found the cyc, but not the projector.

“I thought B.G.G. had set this all up,” I said.

“Maybe he just meant the screen was up,” S. said. “It doesn’t matter, we can just watch a movie in Lola’s.” Lola’s is the student lounge. It has a nice television at least – but I was somewhat disappointed. Whatever. Plan B, phase 2.

I went to the washroom and extracted the film from the case, hiding the case in my backpack again and holding the disc carefully by my side. I walked back to the lounge, where R. and L. were serenading S. on the piano while he organized the couch and wiped down the tv screen. R. looked up when I entered. S. had his back to me, so I frantically mouthed, “Distract him! Distract him!” and showed her the disc.

R. is one smart cookie. “Hey, S., are the lights still on in the set shop?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Where are the switches?” R. knows exactly where the switches are.

S. looked at her with a puzzled expression as he explained their location.

“Okay.” R. and L. walked down the hallway to turn off the lights – and S. turned towards the movies. Great.

Then L’s voice came down the hall. “S., we can’t find them!”

S. shook his head. “Frick!” he said and he got up and walked down to help the clueless women. I quickly opened the DVD player and inserted the disc. Where the hell’s the remote? I thought. Do I just push play and hope for the best? I could hear them coming back. I pushed play and stood up.

The screen turned black just as S. entered the room. “What are we watching?” he asked. “A movie,” I replied.

“You can’t just pick a movie for all of us,” he said, going over to the stack of full DVD cases. Dammit!

“Well, I just did,” I said, as he began to open the cases to see what we were watching. I grabbed the only one he hadn’t opened yet.

“X-III? Okay, fine…” he said. He went over and picked up the remote from its hiding place on the shelf. The sound of water came over the speakers, and the image from the trailers, of Paul Giamatti looking down into the pool, came onto the screen. “This is what I want to watch,” S. said.

As the words left his mouth, the image arranged itself to be the DVD menu. S.’s brow furrowed and his mouth opened. “What…?”

“Merry Christmas,” I said with a very smug grin.

He blinked and gave his head a little shake. He looked at me and back at the screen.

I laughed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so confused or surprised in the two years I’ve known him. “Come sit down,” I said. “Let’s watch the movie.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Thank you, sweetie,” he said, and he gave me a kiss. “You got me. It’s hard to get me.”

I giggled and kissed him back.

I’m glad I kept the secret. I think my way of doing presents is much more fun.

And I think maybe now he’d agree.

Break time!

Well, school is over for the year and I am enjoying a well deserved break. I have finished my show, finished my homework (except that damn character biography for Juliet that really doesn't interest me but that I should probably complete to build my own character...rrrr), have found a way to get out of student housing (yeay!) and I've almost finished my Christmas shopping. I am spending a great deal of time doing whatever I feel like doing, which amounts to hanging out with friends, making out with S., eating Russel Stover French Mint chocolates, and spending time alone. It has been marvelous, and it's only been two days.

Of course, next term I'll be busy again. I get back just in time to begin the intense workshops referred to as Intercession (perhaps because we need the saints to intercede on our behalf in order to survive them), and to begin another rehearsal process. One of my roommates is in the midst of producing her final project and I got cast in it. I was thrilled. I've wanted to be involved from the moment I heard she was doing it. And then I'll have classes and a trip to London. It will be a busy year, like every year here in this valley town.

And the most exciting news of all - this summer, I'll be in my first Opera House show! I was cast in "The Good Doctor". I found out about both this role and the other one on the same day. It was a very good day for me...it isn't often in an actor's life that they get two roles in one day.

The only note of sobriety was that some of the competition for those two roles are my friends. It is very hard to be happy for oneself and sad for ones friends about the same event. There are aspects of this career that suck, and fighting for work with people you love is one of those sucky things.

I'll be using some of my alone time to write so hopefully this blog will have more new material than it has for a while. I had every intention of writing something profound and meaningful (or at least brilliant) but I've used all of my creative steam finishing some homework and journalling assignments so the brilliant post will have to happen later in the week.

But never fear - it will arrive. Sooner or later.

After I've had another little chocolate break.

Etymology

S. must think I'm a very strange person sometimes. I can get so passionate about things that he has no interest in.

Case in point - yesterday we were talking about Christmas, and he asked me what sort of things I liked. I started where I always start - books. He took a deep breath, so I got specific. I somehow ended up waxing eloquent on the amazing qualities of etymological dictionaries. I would love to have an etymological dictionary - one of those hefty tomes that seemingly has every word, where it came from, and every meaning it has ever had. In close second comes the huge set of Oxford English Dictionaries...a set of dictionaries! They need more than one book to give you the whole alphabet, with meanings, a small etymology, and a pronounciation guide! Did you know that some dictionaries don't even have phonetical pronounciation guides anymore? It's pathetic. But I would hope the etymological dictionary doesn't make that mistake. Oh no. It is lovely and thick, and practically perfect in every way. And very, very expensive. I probably went on for 10 or 15 minutes about dictionaries, with S. just watching me in wonder. Finally he broke in with, "You would like a dictionary?"

"Oh, yes! They're amazing!"

"Why?"

"Because...all the words!" I was almost drooling at this point.

"But you can't read a dictionary."

"Oh, yes you can. You don't read it from cover to cover, but you'll be looking up a word and you see a word you haven't seen before so you read the definition, and then the word under that catches your eye, and then you realize that you were looking for something specific, so you look that up and then the word across the page from that calls out to you and before you know it you've randomly read 20 definitions and you're late for your next class."

S. raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, you don't. I do. I love randomly reading the dictionary, if it's a good dictionary." At this point I realized how crazy I must sound. I suddenly felt shy about it. "Just in case you were thinking I was normal or something," I said, looking at him through my hair.

He smiled. "I love you."

Just out of the blue, just like that. No dictionary required.

Three simple words - I don't think hearing them will ever get old.

Unreasonably happy...

Because he told me he loved me.

Tech Week with Benefits

Nothing quite makes the tech week experience complete like getting your period, getting an almost migraine, and getting the flu. Combine that with half of the female cast and crew also getting their periods and the emotional tension of tech week being upped significantly by that and then the fact that I’ve spread the flu around as an early Christmas present, and you have the recipe for a smash success on your hands.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, tech week for “The Way of the Wolf” is in full swing, which for this particular show means that we have one more two-hour rehearsal, another run of the show with a preview audience and a notes session and then we open. It’s actually not that bad except for the added bonuses mentioned above. This show is a lot of firsts for me – my first student show without production elements (yeay!), my first show with idiotically fast costume changes (gah), my first time singing solo in a show (which I like), the first time doing rehearsal with the flu (which I didn’t like), my first experience doing fight work (cool), and my first time of getting my period at intermission during a rehearsal run (not so cool). Also, I’ve never played a raccoon or a nighthawk before. It does seem like every show I’m in my character has either a near-death or full-death experience, so the fact that the raccoon dies isn’t that new to me…but getting shot and falling off the mezzanine is a new, cool thing I’ve never done before.

I’m probably so chipper about the whole thing because I’m actually pretty much over the flu, and getting my period doesn’t really phase me that much – and the almost migraine is a thing of the past. I’ve opened shows before, and I’m not worried about this one. We’re ready. Whether everyone else in the cast feels that way is open to question, but I know that we are and if there are some opening week hiccups, I’ve had those too. They come, they go and the show goes on.

Having the flu was actually not that bad of an experience this time. I never did throw up, and being achy and feverish wasn’t so bad with S. there to make me tea and watch movies with me, and shower me with concern and tenderness. My mother will be happy – every time I get sick she wants to come and baby me until I’m better, so the fact that somebody else did will be music to her ears. All the TLC may have actually gotten S. sick, in which case I intend to reciprocate the attention and make him tea and tend to his every need – where my schedule allows. I got sick on a weekend, so that made things a little easier. I suppose I could always get my mom to come down and take care of him.

There is an old superstition that bad things come in threes. I just realized that I got all of my opening night bad luck out of my system already. If that isn’t a good omen, I don’t know what is.

Benefits, indeed.

Learning

It has happened.

My boyfriend and his ex have been paired up in class to perform a scene together.

I'm glad I thought about this possibility before I agreed to date him - but even with that, it has presented challenges that I don't know what to do with.

The scene? It's from "The Taming of the Shrew", with S. playing Petruchio and M. playing Kate. Petruchio is wooing Kate to be his wife, and Kate is resisting his every move. It's a pretty physical scene - at one point S. sits M. down on a chair and straddles her.

The strange thing is, watching them perform doesn't bother me. Knowing that they are rehearsing doesn't bother me. No. What bothers me is seeing the slight hesitation in M.'s body, the tension she obviously feels when they touch. It bothers me that as soon as they finish the scene, M. looks to me to see if I'm okay, if I still like her, if I'm having a hard time watching her be physical with my boyfriend. She is so insecure in this work that it is rubbing off on me and I hate that.

I just wish she could relax and be professional about it. S. is being professional. That tension doesn't read in his body. As soon as the pairings were announced, we talked about it and we both recognize that we have to be professional about it. There isn't any other option in our minds. But M. is having such a hard time doing that, and it both irritates me and makes me mistrust her around S. A part of me wonders if she is having such a hard time letting work be work because she still wants to be with him.

And because she talks to me about everything, I know that she still has feelings for him. She told me when we started dating that she didn't, but since then I've learned that was a lie. She is still going through the whole grieving, ending a relationship process and dammit, as much as I want to trust her, it is very hard.

It's a very good thing that I trust S. or this would all be so much worse. I know that nothing will happen - I'm not feeling jealousy - but there is this horrible unease that I don't know what to do with. And the thing is, I know the unease is valid. It's grounded in her insecurity and the fact that she hasn't found closure yet - and at the same time, I know that S. has. So what am I supposed to do with this? I trust him, I don't completely trust her. I know nothing will happen, and I'm uneasy. I am trying my best to be professional about this, and she keeps looking to me for reassurance - and it pisses me off and I don't know how to respond.

I guess it's just another glorious learning experience. I'm getting tired of learning. It takes a lot of work and sometimes I just don't want to have to deal with another new thing, figuring out how to be healthy and whole in a new situation. And I am not content to be stagnant, so my own will pushes me to take these learning experiences and use them.

Dammit anyways.

Hair, hair, look at that hair

All I can say is that it is a good thing I'm not Sampson.

Before I go further, I need to say that my hair is very long. It reaches half-way down my back in waves of a reddish-brown. In fact, it is too long. I can no longer really do anything with it. If I put it up it gives me headaches, and if I leave it down it gets everywhere - in my mouth, my eyes, tangled in my glasses or my buttons on my shirts. However, it has always been long and that is how I am used to interacting with it.

Well, as of next Thursday, it will be short. It is getting cut for a show - being in theatre means I can no longer control my hair. This is something that I have mentally prepared myself for ever since I decided to follow this crazy passion of mine. However, it will be short! The longest parts will be at the top of my shoulders, and the shortest bits will be by the tops of my ears, I think. I haven't had short hair for a very long time. In fact, I don't know what to do with short hair. I am going to have to spend a day learning how to do my hair all over again.

I'm a little uncertain as to what I think about this. I am tired of how long it is. I think the new cut will look cute, and I think I'll like it. But so much hair is going! It will be an adjustment, and every so often I freak out a little inside about it.

But, as my mother says, hair grows. It will grow back if I absolutely hate it. It will grow back if I absolutely love it - either way, this is not a permanent state.

Just a very new one.

I just have to remind myself that I won't lose all my strength when my hair lands on the floor.

Jericho

"How can a person go from liking a person to not wanting to have anything to do with them in less than three hours?" I asked one of my friends the other day. He shrugged. I wonder what his response would be to my new question - how can I explain going from not liking M. to being able to say that I love her in less than three hours?

I don't know that something like that can be explained in any other way than to say "It's a God thing." That's all it is - I certainly didn't find some hidden store of love that I chose to shower upon M. It was like God reached down and gave me a bunch of extra love and that spilled over onto her and it's sticking like toffee to carpet, only in a much better way than that.

And all because I didn't let up on her about her dishes, and then one of my housemates told her that she was only in the house on a probationary measure, and so she snapped and her walls came down. It amazes me how being able to see someone in their vulnerability and weakness makes them so much more human, lovable, understandable...I am able to see her as a person now, and I can extend grace and mercy towards her in a way that I strove for before but failed at miserably.

I learned a lot last night - about M., about me, about living together with my boyfriend's ex and what that means for both M. and myself...and about the attitudes my housemates and I have been carrying in our auras, for lack of a better way to describe it. We really have been unmerciful and judgemental, and M. has been picking up on that so clearly, so much more clearly than I realized.

It is so hard. It is so bizarre - all I can do is shake my head and laugh. God has such a strange sense of humour sometimes. I am her ex's new girlfriend, and somehow I've ended up one of her closest friends right now. I am the one in our house with the most reasons to hate her, and I am the one in our house who has suddenly found myself in a place (God given, granted) to love her the most. And I have the most reason to close myself off to her, and I have had my eyes opened to see the negative attitudes of the rest of my housemates. And I don't know what to do about that.

I don't want to take up M.'s cause against my friends, and at the same time I see that they really aren't giving her much of a chance - and that is their prerogative.

So what do I do? I have prayed to be able to love M., and now I have been given that ability and I want to share it with the rest of my housemates but I can't, and it isn't my place to anyway. It's something that God can show them - if they want to be shown.

And I want them to want that so badly, and there isn't a single thing I can do about it.

Unless I march around them for a week, blowing on a ram's horn...that worked for Joshua.

It could be worth a try, at least.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

A few days ago I was pulling my own little rain storm around by a leash. A very short leash too, I might add. I was irritable, grumpy and bouncing from emotion to emotion, and I didn't like it at all. All because I was a little bit sick, mildly hormonal, and very, very lonely.

All of the people I usually vent to about the little things in life are now on a schedule that perfectly opposes mine. I've written about this before, but it is still affecting me a lot. So much so that when my mom gave me the very matter-of-fact "Emergency rooms are not for colds" talk (one that I have given myself) I burst into tears and was a blubbering mess for half an hour. It was so good to talk to her. I was able to get out all of my minor frustrations and some of my big ones as well, and to just cry into the phone. It was exactly what I needed.

It means that today I am bubbly instead of blubbery. It is a nice change. I enjoy being happy. That isn't really a profound statement, but it is so true. Being happy is much nicer than being irritable and upset. It means I can take the little things in stride again. I'm back to what feels more like my normal self again. I like this a lot.

Plus I just got some good news. I wasn't sure I'd be able to go to the opening night of this show that has stolen my friends away - but now I can! That, and I just got my evaluation for my performance as an Assistant Stage Manager and it was a good one. And I'm not feeling as sick anymore, and the hormones are back on an even keel - and the weekend just ended, so I've actually gotten some friend time in. By Saturday I'll be feeling the loss again, but today - nothing but sunshine.

It's a good feeling.

Make New Friends, Keep the Old...

...one is silver, the other gold.

I've always liked silver better than gold, but I am finding that a difficult thing to maintain now that most of my friends are involved in a rehearsal process without me. The people that I have hung out with for the last two years are all busy when I'm not, and when they are done I have to go to a rehearsal of my own. I've been joking about not seeing them until their show is up, but it's turning out to be true and that isn't funny anymore.

And to make matters worse, it's only been two days. How am I supposed to tolerate this for another three weeks? It sucks. I'm okay with not being in the Christmas show. I'm not upset that I am not going to be on Main Stage - but it is hard to not be in on the process that all of my friends are in on. They will get their own set of rehearsal jokes, their own memories that I will not be a part of, and I won't see them much until November.

I've been owly for the last two days, and though I've blamed it on being sick, at least a part of it has been this feeling of disconnection I have from my class and my friends. I guess I'm going to have to get over it, or else spend the next month being a gold medal grump.

Wouldn't that be a good way to make new friends?

Tea Talk

A good friend came over last night. I had just fallen asleep on the couch and was a bit disoriented but since he brought both tea and good conversation I forgave him.

We ended up talking about relationships and the spirituality of sexuality. I told him things were not as cut and dried as I had once naively thought they were, and he agreed. He said it was scary when you thought about it, because the spiritual aspect lifted sexual behaviour beyond self-gratification and brought a bunch of responsibility to it...and that the lines that people lay out for you in Sunday School aren't neccesarily the way things work in real life.

"You are in a moment, and you know not to go any further, and then the next time everything feels right, and you push against the boundaries and they are still there, but they are a lot further out than you expected them to be. Suddenly you're swimming in water that is far deeper than you thought it was but you aren't drowning and it is all still right and you are still okay."

I kind of butchered what he said, but I think I got the spirit of it. It stuck out in my mind because it put into words exactly what I have experienced. It was good to hear that I am not alone in this strangeness...and I always appreciate it when others can put into words something that I cannot.

We also talked about God, and how life is a gift. That everything in life is a gift, and some parts of life aren't meant to be explored all at once, but that the gift itself is still good even if the moment isn't right. That hope is always there and is so hard to kill. That as long as you are alive there is equal potential for good or evil. That the body is a strange thing. That the spirit is unexplainable. That acceptance of pain can be good or so wrong. That it is a miracle that pain can not only be healed but that great beauty can come out of it. That sometimes it is supposed to hurt, and that when we stop fighting we can find a way to heal.

We didn't talk about it, but good friends are gifts too.

I thank God I have so many of them.

Adulthood

I have really good friends. I have been reminded of that this week, and I am very grateful for them.

One of my best friends, R., and I have spent a lot of time talking this weekend. I needed that more than I knew. I’ve been dealing with some big things – my sexuality, boundaries, living with the old girlfriend, my changing relationship with my parents – and it is so good to have someone to talk to who can relate and listen and share my life. R. is very good at helping me to articulate things I am feeling but have no words for, and at listening and giving me perspective on things that seem overwhelming.

I thought that I had licked this whole parent relationship thing. I really did. I thought I had figured out what it was supposed to be now. I’ve started figuring it out, that much is true, but it is still in process. It’s not easy. The problem isn’t my parents. It’s me and my response to them, my perception of them and of how they think of me, even though that perception may be skewed. I don’t know why, but it is so easy to fall back into habitual behaviours, the way I was when I was 16, and so hard to be my adult self around them. I am still trying to find out what it looks like to be the adult child.

It’s hard because I am still learning which voices in my head are my own and which ones are theirs. The hardest thing is that sometimes when I do figure out which messages are coming from whom, I can’t trust my own voice because it is in direct contradiction to the voices of my parents. And maybe my voice is naïve, but I just can’t follow their voices anymore. Even if I’m wrong, I have to figure that out myself and I can’t until I listen and am honest with myself.

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a big sticky web, with my parents and mentors as this big spider trying to keep me there despite my fighting hard to get out, to breathe, to become my own person and get the web off of my skin. I know that it will be a good thing to get free – and I know that yes, that will mean that I can get hurt and yes, that will mean that I might make mistakes in a big-person’s arena, but dammit, I am a big person now. If I can’t make adult mistakes than I will never become an adult. It sounds terrible to put it that way, but it feels true. I cannot become an adult if I’m being protected from adulthood. I need to be able to make adult choices, to have adult freedom, and yes, that means I’ll have the potential to make adult mistakes that will leave adult consequences.

My parents love me very much, and I know they just don’t want me to get hurt. I can respect that and at the same time I don’t want protection anymore. I am an adult and their time to protect me is over. If I haven’t gotten the tools to survive in an adult world by now, it is too late for them to give them to me.

I love my parents very much as well, and I respect them very much. They have been through a lot, and have been faced with situations and decisions that I have never had to deal with – and hopefully never will. That makes this hard too. I don’t have a map for this. Relationships would be so much easier if they came with maps, but they don’t and all I can do is trust God and go forward in the way that feels best.

I just want to tell them – You have to let go of me and my choices and my life and let me live, breathe, make mistakes, get hurt, find love, create joy and learn my own path. I will be okay. You are my parents, yes.

But I am not a child anymore.

Social Mixer

As I sit and type I feel like I am on the ocean – the wind blowing the leaves of the trees outside, the sound like the tide lapping, my stomach quivering as if it is going to leap into the sea with or without me.

I am not really sick. I don’t have any good reason to feel like this – no flu, I’m definitely not pregnant. No, instead my reason is that I am inexperienced in the ways of drinking and thus mixed three different kinds of wine last night.

Yes, friends, I am currently experiencing my first hangover. It’s quite mild, just a little bit of an upset stomach, but I’ve been told it still counts as a hangover. I’m not sure what I think about it. I didn’t get drunk, so I feel like I’m being punished for something I didn’t even do. I only felt a little off balance last night – which is apparently known as tipsy – and I was coherent enough to stop when I noticed I could get out of hand. I wasn’t coherent enough to follow my friends’ advice and drink tons of water before going to bed, though, so I woke up feeling like if only I could empty my stomach my life would be wonderful again. No headache, thank God, but definite waves of nausea.

A sign of my naivety is that I didn’t even know what was wrong with me. I mentioned that I felt a bit sick and L. calmly informed me that I was a little bit hung-over. Well, she actually laughed at me. She thinks it's quite funny. I was shocked. A little bit of dizziness last night and now I want to puke.

I haven’t thrown up. I’m kind of proud of that fact. Of course, I didn’t drink very much either. I avoided the tequila, for instance. I don’t understand why anyone would want to drink something that vile. And I knew enough not to mix different kinds of liquor anyway – but why didn’t anyone tell me that you can’t mix different wines? I was in a very experimental mood and tried a dry red, a sweet white and a raspberry merlot that went down like candy – and all within an hour and a half.

Huh. When I think of it that way, I'm really quite lucky. I should feel much worse.

And no doubt it helps that I left before they got out the spiced rum…

Dad

My relationship with my father hasn’t always been a good one. It hasn’t been terrible. For most of my life it just wasn’t much of anything. Growing up, my memories of him are mostly of where and when he wasn’t. He worked away from home or on shifts that made him sleep the day away. It seemed to me that money and bosses were more important that I was, and for a long time I accepted that as the way things were supposed to be. When I realized that was a lie, I got angry. I spent several years being quietly very angry at my dad. Angry that he wasn’t there. Angry that I wasn’t a priority to him. Angry that he thought he knew me when he didn’t.

Several years ago my dad injured his knee and was unable to work. He spent a year and a half, pretty much, staying at home and completely changing the schedules and lives of the rest of the family. It was quite disruptive at first. At first I didn’t like it one bit. I had my life organized, thank you, and this was upsetting all of my carefully built walls and orders. But, like many things that I find upsetting, it was the beginning of something necessary. Something good.

I was forced to decide whether or not I wanted a relationship with this man who had helped to give me life. I had to decide whether I wanted him to know who I was now, the woman I was becoming. At first I wasn’t sure. I didn’t trust that he would stick around – he hadn’t before – and I didn’t want to invest in something that was going to end in me being abandoned yet again. I was angry and resentful and had more than my fair share of grudges.

I’m so thankful that I chose to begin a relationship with my father. I have discovered so much. I knew that he didn’t know me – but I didn’t know how much I didn’t know him. I had been told all my life how much wisdom my father had – but I had doubted or simply taken it for granted. I didn’t know how much I need his voice in my life.

When my dad taught me how to drive, he sat in the passenger seat and cleaned his fingernails. He was so certain that I knew enough of what I was doing to keep us both alive and on the road. His calm was infectious and gave me the confidence I needed to remain calm and relaxed myself. He’s still like that about the things I face in life. When I first realized that I loved S., I freaked out. I called to talk to my mom but she wasn’t home, so I ended up talking to my dad. His voice was the one I needed in that moment. I needed to hear that I wasn’t crazy, that there was no such thing as a time schedule when it came to love, that love was scary and that it wasn’t all supposed to be rainbows and pastel clouds…that me crying about being in love was okay. He told me that emotions can be overwhelming and can come out in bizarre ways – that crying for happiness wasn’t stupid. He told me that my instincts for physical lines were good, and put into words the things I am trying to achieve in the physical aspects of my relationship.

He is so calm, so trustful that my own instincts and abilities will kick in when I need them to. He is so sure that I will hear God’s voice and obey it. That he doesn’t need to be God’s voice for me. That I will figure out this crazy thing called life and love on my own. And at the same time, he doesn’t take a backseat to my life and keep his wisdom to himself. He still wants to be involved, to know where I’m at and what I’m dealing with. He wants to share his life with me.

My dad has been so open with where he screwed up as a father. He has heard my pain and anger and accepted that it is his fault – and cried with me. I have seen my father cry with regret at the things that he didn’t do. I have seen my father cry with the pain of loss, the pain of being hurt. He has shown me that it is okay to cry. It takes strength to cry.

My dad left a safe job and followed a calling. He didn’t give up when every logical voice told him his dream was unattainable, that he was causing his family hardship. He didn’t give up even when he began to believe those voices. He stuck it out – and is now working at a job he loves. He has been such an inspiration to me. When I could have followed the safe path, chosen a career that would have promised a steady income and constant work, his example helped me to take the scary leap of faith and jump headlong onto a path that I love, a vocation instead of a job, a journey that will be hard and won’t make me rich but that feeds my soul like nothing else I know. His example and his support have made it possible for me to do this – and have kept me from quitting when it all seems impossible.

I love my dad so much. He has shown me how not to live – money isn’t everything and family is so much more important. He has shown me that anyone can change – it is scary and it does hurt but the rewards are great. He has shown me how to love. He has shown me how to run. How to fight and how to laugh and how to cry. How to see God and that it is okay to rage against Him. His journey has been so integral to my own, so influential and eye opening and humbling and joyous. I don’t know how I would be able to live without him there, quietly and proudly supporting me, his daughter whom he loves.

I love you, Dad.

Don’t you dare go away from me yet.

Long Time, No See

It seems like an eternity since I last posted anything here. I've been busy - the usual excuse - and now that I have a moment of time I'm not sure what to write. There was something I wrote almost a month ago that I think I'll post here now - something that I intended to put here and then chickened out on and never did. I believe I wrote it August 15th.


Discovering that you have fallen in love is probably not supposed to be a horrifying realization. Most people, upon realizing that they love someone, probably don't stare blankly ahead and say 'Holy shit'. Most people probably don't wonder what the hell is wrong with them when they realize they're in love.

I'm just guessing though. Perhaps I am a completely normal person, experiencing completely normal responses to a completely normal phenomenon. Perhaps the vast majority of people out there are scared shitless by the mere suggestion of something more than 'like'. Maybe most people fall in love because of absolutely ridiculous things, too.

In case you missed it, I have now experienced the marvelous sensation called Falling In Love. Like any other kind of falling, there seems to be a feeling of weightlessness. A lack of air. A startled feeling in my chest where my heart should be beating. Unlike other kinds of falling there is also happiness. A certain delight. A settledness.

I am scared too. What else is new, really? When I read my journals and blog posts I am astounded that my nickname isn't Chickenshit. I love someone who doesn't have to love me back. He's not like my family. He can cut and run at any time. He isn't neccesarily there for good.

People aren't supposed to fall in love after only 2 months, are they? I've never fallen in love before but this seems so quick. Granted I've known him for 2 years. But still - this was so unexpected.

Especially because of what pushed me over the edge. He was drunk at a party and he turned to me and said, "This is why that song (Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace) describes me so well. It doesn't matter where I am, what social situation I'm in or who I'm around, I'm the same person inside. This is who I am." He looked so hopeless. I saw through masks that I hadn't realized were even there and saw hurts that I hadn't known exsisted. Why on earth would I fall then? Why did that get me when all the sweet things he's done, all the respectful, romantic, charming stuff didn't? I don't understand, but I suddenly loved him. In that moment. Even as I fell, I was thinking I can't change him. Loving the shit out of someone doesn't work. I know this and I fell in love with him anyway. In spite of that. Because of that.

It doesn't hurt that he treats me with respect. That he asks where my lines are and doesn't cross them. That he wants me and wants to spend time with me, that he likes talking to me and listening to me. That he looks like an angel when he sleeps...when all the masks are down and he looks like he is at peace. That he holds doors for me and cooks for me. All of that certainly doesn't hurt.

Not like this could when - if - I hit the bottom.

Holy shit.

I've fallen in love.


I still love him, I still don't understand why. It still causes me pain and makes me very happy. It is sobering to realize that I love someone and I always will, even if I don't end up making my life with him. I didn't expect this to happen - this relationship went from a fun thing to have to something I care deeply about in a heartbeat. I went from a 'me' to an 'us' and I don't know how.

I'm not as freaked out as I was when I wrote this. I'm not as worried that I'm moving too quickly - I've learned that things happen in their own time and that there is no normal. I'm not as scared, even though I'm realizing that I've opened myself up to a whole new level of getting hurt. What fun.

It has been interesting to see what is true about love and what isn't. Being in love does cause joy and distress at the same time...those young lovers who wail and moan and complain about love while they are obviously not going to leave it behind are being honest in a very dramatic way. Love isn't blind, though. I can still see all the things that irritate me about S. quite well, and they still irritate me too. I just have more patience. Love is patient, kind and long-suffering. Love is a mine-field. Love is very complex, wonderful, and confusing.

Those of you who read this and pray, keep me - and S. - in your prayers. Guidance seems like the thing that we both need in this new landscape, this new world I've fallen into without a map.