Category Archives: Uncategorized

Word Power

So I have been thinking about how I keep using the word crisis to describe my current state of life. It is nagging away at me because the word is just so extreme and not at all accurate for how I really feel. I feel so bratty and ungrateful every time I write it.

Because all over the world people are experiencing real crisis. The millions of Syrians fleeing violence and destruction. The wonderfully kind people of Istanbul who are under increasing threat from ISIS suicide bombers.   The guy I went to high school with who told us on my facebook that his wife died this morning. The little boy with terminal cancer that the community is fundraising for.

I imagine any one of them reading this blog…I cringe. Poor me. I hate my pores and I don’t want to wear a bra anymore. BOO FUCKING HOO. I am basically a monster.

I have learned in the past how powerful words can be. A little while ago my bank card was compromised. I had to reset my PIN number and I froze up at the pin pad and said to the teller “HELP”, I didn’t think about this! I don’t know what to make it that I will remember!” And then, I was inspired by the very words I had just said and I made my pin# 4357 which spells HELP. I use my bank card for everything. Several times a day. The more I used my bank card, the more pathetic I felt. It took my a while to clue in that my PIN # was seriously bringing me down. When I finally realized it was negatively impacting my life  I changed it again. To 4673 which spells HOPE, and all of a sudden I was being uplifted throughout the day. It made a remarkable difference for me.

(FYI my card got compromised AGAIN. So I changed it again. Don’t try to guess.)

Part of my job involves periodically proof reading the work of my team, normally proposals and final reports, sometimes emails.  One of my talents is wordsmithing other people’s writing.  (My own…Meh. Not so much.) I hunt out insecure words like I just, or I think, inserting confident words and partnership words. Replacing words like Challenge with Opportunity.  I absolutely love transforming the tone of business writing to better reflect the values and culture of our company. I want the reader to have a positive experience, feel inspired, know they made the right choice to work with us, and keep working with us.

In a million years I would not let a document out the door that contained the word crisis (Actually, in the context of climate change I do allow it, but that is another conversation) so why would I allow myself to throw it around so casually in relation to myself?

When I met my husband he was using positive affirmations every day and it totally worked out amazingly for him, after all, he found the woman of his dreams!

I know a few other people who have testified to the power of positive affirmations. I myself have never really gone there…I really suck at talking to myself. I can’t even thank myself for giving my body the gift of yoga at the end of class when the instructor suggests it. Maybe this is something I need to work on. Here, I’ll try right now:

 

 

Nope. And No. Not there yet. Maybe not there ever. Maybe it is the cheesy posters that I can’t get behind?

Here is my personal truth. My affirmation for today.

I am blessed. I have so much more than I need. My body mostly works great. I know all the best people (yup, me and the Donald). I have a loving husband and healthy children and a beautiful extended family and the best friends a girl could want or need.

To even suggest something is out of sorts feels profoundly selfish. But yet, something is out of sorts.

Bottom line is that even if technically I am having a midlife crisis, it is not sitting well with my to call it that. To repeatedly say that makes me feel desperate and sick and sad instead of just searching.

So if not a crisis what?  A midlife scavenger hunt? A midlife transition? An awakening? An adjustment? A conversion?  Renewal? Shift? Transformation?

When I figure it out I will let you know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering 38

My crisis (when I realized I was not really being true to myself) started right before my 39th birthday. I remember the exact moment. I was shopping with my youngest son who was 6 at the time. He was looking for a birthday present for a girl in his class and he had observed that she had her ears pierced and he wanted to get her earrings. It was actually one of the sweetest times I have ever spent with him because he was SO thoughtful about it and so little. I had to pick him up to see into display cases and his cheeks were still pudgy and his hair was so soft. And it was just so much fun to shop for earrings. I told him that I thought he was getting her the perfect present and that I love earrings so much.

Because, I did and I do. Love earrings. So why, in the heck, did I not have my own ears pierced?

I desperately wanted them pierced as a girl and I begged for it. One by one my friends were getting earrings. It was agonizing.  It was just simply not allowed in my house. Because  “If Jesus wanted you to wear earrings you would have been born with holes in your ears!”.

Of course now I have a hundred come backs. Like maybe he wanted us to have a choice and oh, hey, what about my brother’s foreskin THAT HE WAS BORN WITH. Didn’t Jesus want him to keep that and not have it cut off for no good reason whatsoever? (So sorry to my brother for dragging him into this no longer existent debate and outing him as circumcised – Q: Is this a big deal? Do I have to get his permission for this? Can he sue me?).

I was told that when I turned 16 I could make my own decision. By the time I was 16 I was literally the only person I knew of that did not have pierced ears. I was a curiosity. I felt cool about it. People actually said things like “You don’t have your ears pierced? That is so cool”.  Later, when I got other body parts pierced, the fact that my ears were not pierced was even cooler.  I was legit cool. But that era has long past.

Case in point… my older son asked me one day a few years ago why my belly button looked weird, so I told him because when I was a teenager I had it pierced and I used to have a ring in it and it looked really cool. His response? “Having your belly button pierced is pretty much the opposite of cool”.

(Note to self. He must NEVER know about the nipple ring, and how both of my babies favoured that boob because milk squirted out the holes on the sides too.)

So at 38 … who was I being cool for? Um. Not a soul. Actually I was being totally uncool to my own soul. Because, as it turns out I never stopped wanting earrings. Actually, there are lots of things I never stopped wanting. Lot’s of denial. Lot’s of choices made for the approval of others, when really, what matters is being true to myself. It is starts with small steps, and it is a marathon, but one day I will get there.

On my 39th birthday I got my ears pierced. And I love wearing earrings. And I love when my sons buy me earrings.  I love that I have perky ear holes from waiting so damn long. Some of my friends complain that they can’t wear danglers anymore – but not me! Bring on the danglers!

 

 

Message from the Heart

St. Patrick’s Day, otherwise known as the day I kissed my husband for the first time. FIFTEEN years ago.

The way time flies by totally freaks me out. I know everyone says it and it is a huge cliché etc. I just can’t get over it. I guess I thought I would be young forever, and well, I guess I thought I would be turn out to be immortal or something. You know that song Forever Young by Alphaville? That is like my personal anthem. My grandmother always told me she felt like a young girl inside and that looking in the mirror never stopped surprising her. I get it. I totally, totally get it.

If I could have one superpower I would freeze time, or maybe go back and just relive certain moments. Like the time we let our youngest son drive a golf cart when he was 5. His joy was a bigger joy than any joy I have ever seen. I could live in that moment for eternity.

I would go back to the last time I nursed each of my babies, and read them a story book at bedtime, and to the last time they napped on my chest or crawled into my bed with a bad dream. Just to savour it, to make sure I recognized the significance and sweetness of the moment and to store it in my memory (why not to their births you ask? Cause that shit hurt!!). I would go back to many of my teenage and 2o something days… to quite simply being that carefree. I would go even further back to my elementary school days when we hiked in the forest and ate our lunches by the river. I would definitely relive our wedding again.

Most of all, I would go back to today 15 years ago. The day that I kissed my husband for the first time. We had just spent an exhausting day together at a video shoot with his band. I held his hand that day during a break during a crowd scene because he had a groupie that would just not leave him be. I was helping him out of a bad situation and it felt good.

Just days before at my birthday party at a bar downtown I had tried to set him up with not one, but two of my sisters. I told them was a sweet and gentle man he was, I sat him right in between them. One of them wisely inquired… “If he is so great, why aren’t you dating him?” I had a myriad of excuses. What it boiled down to was that I thought I needed to be alone. I had JUST ended a really toxic relationship and felt damaged, sad, and uncertain of myself and thought I needed more time to get over it. I thought being alone was what one did under those circumstances.

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The Souvenir

He came home with me in a taxi after the shoot, just to hang out, to smoke a joint and relax. There was a little souvenir viewfinder of Vegas in the shape of a camera sitting on the seat so we kept it. (It sits on our kitchen window sill).

We were on the sofa, chatting and I could see all over his face that he was gearing up to kiss me. Inside of myself I completely freaked out. Because I knew that he was a very unique man. A serious man with morals. It would really mean something to him if I kissed him, so I couldn’t take it lightly.

I didn’t want to lead him on, or hurt him in any way, but on the other hand I didn’t want to embarrass him by not kissing him (and besides I wanted to) but I didn’t want to make him think we would have a relationship because I really wasn’t ready and I really needed to be alone. Didn’t I?

Something happened then that I can’t adequately explain, but that was a near to a religious experience as well, my religious experience (more on that another time). It was like a voice whispering to me, but from within. Perhaps how it would feel if someone was telepathically speaking to me. It was as clear a message as I have ever received. I had absolute complete belief. I had absolute peace and surety. The essence of the message was…

IT IS OK. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO HURT HIM. KISS THIS MAN.

(I don’t think the caps really gives the right impression. It seems harsh, and in reality it was the opposite of harsh… Maybe italics will be better?).

It is okay. You are not going to hurt him. Kiss this man.

(Yup, much better)

And so I did.

And it was HOT. We stood in the hallway of my house making out for  a long time. Then he left and I went back into the house and when I saw my roommates I told them, because I was more sure of this than I have ever been about anything, that he was THE ONE.

And so he was.

I know I can’t re-live it…the time I was the most sure of something. The time I knew a thing without a single doubt. I hope that I get the chance to be that confident about a decision again in my life, but for now…

Happy kissing anniversary Charlie! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hair Woes

Personal Truth #6 I want to go full Britney. Yup, I am THAT crazy.

My husband had a dream last night that all of his hair fell out. He worries about losing his hair a lot, as do most men I think. The fact is, he has a nice head full of hair, but his hairline is ever so slowly creeping back. I mean…EVER. SO. SLOWLY. But I get his anxiety. We express ourselves through our hair, our youthfulness or lack of it, and what sub culture we belong to. He is a professional musician so his image is a critical part of his work, and his hair is a critical part of his image. One thing that I really envy about him is that he can do whatever the hell he wants with his hair – grow it long, get a hyper stylized cut, dye it crazy colours. He has no limitations. Unless it all falls out. That would be limiting. So I guess his dream was really more of a nightmare. His hair represents so much more than just his hair.

Anyways, this blog is about me and I also have a preoccupation/obsession with my hair. Every month like clockwork, for the last 22 years or maybe longer, I have coloured my hair back to its original very dark brown, almost black. The white hairs started coming in my mid teens… and never stopped coming. I don’t know what my real hair looks like. If my roots are any indication, it is all pure snowy white. When my roots come in, I look like a skunk.  Obviously (or I guess since you don’t know my personal financial situation it might not be obvious) I can’t afford professional upkeep so I am a DIY hair colourist.

A few years ago I developed an allergy or sensitivity to PPD the main ingredient in permanent hair dye. Like my entire scalp got scabby and my hair started falling out in clumps. Then a hairdresser/colourist told me she had to quit her job because she was peeing blood and that hair dye causes bladder cancer. So I researched alternatives and switched to henna colour.

If you are like me, and your hair is white but you present as a brunette, this is shitty solution. First of all, it literally takes about 5 hours from start to finish. So kiss a whole day goodbye every 2-3 weeks. Second of all it smells like sewage. Third of all, it fades fast to a very unnatural looking colour in a gradient, so you need to use it OFTEN. On the plus side, zero chemicals. Hair gets healthy fast. I only stuck with it for a year.

Finally I found a decent product, sort of natural, no ammonia, no PPD, none of the harsh stuff. I can only find it in one store in the entire province, half the time it is out of stock, it is expensive and I need to use it every three weeks (and that is stretching it by using mascara on my roots for a few days). I have to call and order it and really plan ahead or I am SCREWED.

I feel like a slave. I am a slave to my hair, and to my image. Because I don’t want to look old. Because I don’t want to look like a skunk. I just don’t know how to be free.  I don’t even know what hair I actually have! But know that right now I don’t have the hair I want – The same way I can’t wear ripped jeans and flip-flops to work, I can’t show up with purple hair (most of those vivid gemstone colours are vegetable based!!), or even better NO HAIR AT ALL. I totally get it. Why Britney shaved her head. To have freedom from her image.

I can’t shave my head, but I want to. I want a fresh start. I want to see what is really under there. Maybe it is really nice and I won’t look old after all. When I was in high school this guy’s mother was famous for her gorgeous head of white hair that she wore swirled up into a messy bun. She had a young face. Everyone thought she was so hot. I want to be the cool white haired Mom. Or pink haired Mom. Instead I just keep dyeing it. Wearing it in an ok but not great style. Growing it longish and parting it in the middle because someone told me that is supposed to make you look younger. Contemplating bangs because I think dramatic bangs look cool and edgy but still conservative enough. Wondering if it is too late and I already have bladder cancer but that the silver lining is that the chemo will make my hair fall out and I will be forced to start fresh without being perceived as crazy – if I don’t die. Very fucked up shit right here. OVER HAIR. Talk about first world problems.

And just now as I type this I am having a sad kind of revelation.

Our 9 year old son has extraordinarily long and really beautiful hair – by anyone’s standards. He hasn’t cut his hair in about 3 years. The reason he stopped getting his hair cut is because the result never quite matched what he hoped for.  At 6 years old he decided would rather never cut it all and deal with people constantly misgendering him, than be disappointed with his image. He is a person who avoids negative feelings at all costs. Not liking the way he looked profoundly affected him. I always wondered why he cared so much about his hair at such a young age…and now….

DUH. Fuck. Shitty, shitty, shit.

If I was queen of the world I would smash EVERY. SINGLE. MIRROR.

 

 

 

All That We Need

So when my sister asked me at dinner last night how I spent my birthday, I told her all of the truth.

Spectacular breakfast in bed. I mean really. The door burst open and a pile of balloons filled the room. There was a tray with a beautiful hydrangea, and this cupcake…it had candles, it had a sparkler, it had a giant swirly pile of icing, it was elaborate. The boys were singing.  I am so truly blessed.

Then we went to tour the Princess Margaret Home Lottery Grand Prize Showhome to decide if we wanted to buy a ticket.  The best part about having a ticket is daydreaming that you live in the house and knowing that you just might be able to. It is a spectacular house. I mean, any 3.7 million dollar home is going to be. This particular one was not for us. It had a mini hockey rink in the basement – come off it!! I might be the only Canadian, besides my kids, that don’t even know the rules of the game. Plus, the decor was not to my taste. There were these giant gold statues that looked like Oscar’s doing yoga poses. There were so many useless rooms. It totally grossed our younger son out. He is 9. He said “I think we should leave. This is making me SICK”. Sick because of the excess. Sick because this house was the smallest house in a subdivision. Row upon row of 8, 10, 12 thousand square foot homes. (How come there are so many super rich people? Where did they come from? What are they doing for a living?)

We were just in Mexico where we visited a 2 room school house that would have easily fit in master bathroom of this house. Where we met a family of 17 lovely happy people that live together in small apartment without hot water or an indoor toilet. Where our kids finally realized that all the times we have said “you don’t know how lucky you are!!” it was a real thing that we weren’t making up.

We all agreed that this was not the neighbourhood for us and that we are not the kind of family that wants to live in a mansion. We bought a ticket anyways, because, well, charity. We can just sell the house if we win.

Anyways, all if this is totally beside the point of what I am writing about. Because after telling her all that junk, I told her I started a blog and that I did it because I think I am having a midlife crisis, or maybe just a plain old garden variety crisis. Because I there are things I need (or maybe just want) to change and I need the accountability. Because maybe other people are going through it and this will help us all. Because I have things to say and why not say them to the entire world wide web?

Of course my sister demanded to see it right away and to my horror my mother read over her shoulder. Didn’t think that possibility through when I published the post. They both audibly gasped at the same time. I think it was during the part when I say I was doing drugs. My mother peaced out right then and walked away (So, that is a good sign right?) but my sister read on. At the end she said, it is relatable, but I really think you have much more to say. Then she pointed at my left boob and said “that is the bigger one right?”

Right. And also… I do have more to say. But I am going from the outside in with this. It is a bit safer and maybe easier for me to start on the surface and peel back the layers. Not to diminish the surface…there is a lot that starts there. Body image stuff. Self esteem stuff. How we present ourselves to the world. I, like most people, have a lot of insecurities tied to how I look and how I want to look.

Not 20 minutes ago I impulse bought a product that promises (I know it is a lie, but I can’t stop hoping) to diminish the look of my pores. I have ridiculous gaping craterish pores on my face, and have battled acne on and off since puberty. I always kinda worried about these pores of mine and secretly hoped I was the only one who noticed, but 20 years ago I met a tourist in Toronto (who was here from what country in Africa I can’t recall but one where they do not hold back what they are thinking and tell you what they observe in a really benign and non judgy way) and he studied my face for a while and kindly said “you have very large pores”.  So there you have it. I legit have crazy ass pores. What I wish, and what I hope for, is that I can come to a place where I don’t fucking care. Caring about my pores is not knowing how lucky I am. It is living in a beautiful house but wanting to win a sickening mansion, while 17 lovely people are perfectly happy to sleep three to a hammock and go outside to use the toilet.

Look. Do me a favour. Next time you see me please don’t stare at my pores –  or my boobs for that matter. Just gaze over my shoulder or something.

 

42

Happy Birthday to me!

All signs indicate that I am in the throws of a classic midlife crisis. Those signs being my 12 year old son and the internet telling me so (because 12 year old boys know everything and those buzzfeed quizzes are never wrong). And probably other people might agree if I asked them. (Question, how do you close comments on this thing?)

My hours of research for a cure have been simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. Reassuring is the fact that I am NOT crazy, even though I feel a little bonkers, restless, and reckless. Even though I have spent several hours on the internet looking at full torso tattoos of cherry blossoms and pricing them out, or googling shit like “How to disappear without a trace and start a new life”. Just kidding. I didn’t do that last one. But I did start doing drugs again. Sort of.

By doing drugs, I don’t actually mean I have been doing real drugs. I was being dramatic so you would be more intrigued.  I mean I have been eating these pot laced lollipops (not technically drugs, at least here in Canada) someone gave me that were made for cancer patients and hardly have any THC and instead of being fun and enlightening it makes me either obsessively reorganize my cupboards, or lie in bed slightly paranoid and very drowsily hiding from everyone. Yup, crashing and burning in a spectacular fashion over here folks.

Back to NOT being crazy. It turns out all of those classic symptoms are a really healthy signal from the soul that I am not “living my personal truth” and it is time to get real. Which brings me to the terrifying part. What is my personal truth? And how do I live it without blowing our lives up to smithereens? And where do I get the courage to do that?

So now, on my 42nd birthday I am going to start a list of things that are true about me, but I don’t live them. Yet.

***Spoiler alert. Not starting off too deep here. That will come later. I think.

1/ I want to sing Karaoke but never have because am completely ashamed of my singing voice which is truly awful. But fuck it. I want to do it.

2/ I don’t want to wear bras anymore. I have tiny boobs and they are holding up ok. Not great, but ok. One is visibly larger the other, but still, technically I don’t need a bra. I have been wearing stupid push up bras my whole bra wearing life, that make me appear to have super nice symmetrical boobs two cup sizes bigger than they actually are. Like, I feel so stupid!!! Make my boobs look terrific, so a dude will want me, only to discover the great deception, and not actually care. I locked Chuck in to the situation 15 years ago, and so who is the push up bra really for? I wear metal and padding on my chest for society in general? It is so fucked up. I just feel like if I stopped now people would be shocked by the real me and it might be scandalous. Plus nipples. They aren’t in right now. UG.

3/ Speaking of wearing things… I want to wear clothes I actually like every day of the week. I am a business woman with corporate clients, and even though business is fairly casual these days…still. I can’t wear yoga pants or ripped jeans to work. Doc martens don’t work with a dress the way they used to back in the day.  And flip flops. Am I right?

4/ Coffee. I want to drink coffee anytime of the day or night instead of just one in the morning because if I have more than one or drink it after noon I am awake all night long freaking out and counting down the hours I have left to sleep and then I don’t and I can’t function and do my job the next day. Friday is my favourite day for many reasons but a biggie is that I can drink coffee in the afternoon. This needs to not feel so special. It is just sad. I guess the bigger issue here is that I have a bedtime. I HAVE A BEDTIME. I don’t want to have a bedtime guys.

5/ I hate winter. Like a lot. My whole life. It is soul destroying for me. Enough with this shit!

Today however the weather is GORGEOUS. Like perfection. So I am leaving it here for now and going outside. My goal is to keep adding to this list and hopefully start making some good progress towards living my personal truth. Stay tuned!