The I Can't Nation

   This morning I managed to get a small amount of time to myself, I decided to take advantage of this time (on a bus) to listen to music and try and piece together some thoughts that have been floating around my head for the last few days. This is the end result...



   I tend to be a person with a head full of constant thinking. I don't always know what these thoughts are exactly, sometimes they're just there in the background trying to push their way out. I don't know always know how to put these thoughts to words, but I always know they're there. I walk through the day with these half thoughts trying to piece themselves together as I go. I spend time listening, thinking, and occasionally trying to speak the things  I'm thinking, but mostly just listening and thinking. As I go through the day to day, talking to people or listening to conversations people are having I tend to hear one phrase said so many different times on so many different topics. I call it the we can't epidemic. Now I was taught from a very young age, and this may very well be the most important thing I was ever taught, I was taught I can't doesn't exist. I was taught if you dream it you can do it. I was taught if you put your mind to it, somehow there is a way to make it happen. Once upon a time someone dreamed that people would fly high up in the sky, and look at us now. The seemingly impossible becomes possible every day. So in this way, I can't does not exist. People say I can't, we can't, it will never happen.. so much through out the day that I don't think they even realize how much of an epidemic it has become. They say it for the smallest things, "I can't learn a foreign language, I'm just no good at it" to big huge things "I'm just one person, I can't change anything." That last one gives an idea of what sparked these thoughts in my head to begin with.
 
   I was talking to a friend the other day, we were talking about the world. We were talking about greed, religious intolerance, sexual intolerance, racial intolerance, every intolerance and judgement that is passed everyday. We were talking about the me, myself, and I politicians and the I can't Nation, because that is what we as an entire people around the world have become. A nation of I can'ts, we can'ts, it's not possibles. These conversations tend to go the same way every time I have them, with a skeptical look my way, a sigh and a "ya it's a nice thought but it will never happen". The point of this blog, why not?

  I just finished reading "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" for the.. fourth or fifth time. Now I don't really believe in heaven or hell, but this book carries in it some very good messages. The first message comes early in the book and is very simple to grasp. "Strangers are just family you haven't met yet." Imagine the impact of such a simple thought, a simple change in behavior. If we actually treated everyone we met with the kindness we afford to family, imagine that impact? Now before I go further on that, the second message (which is actually the entire premise of the book) ties in with this. Everyone that crosses your path is effected by you, and effects you. Everyone. From people you never talk to, from people you straight up ignore, to people you end up having in depth conversations with. Why? We are all connected. There is a deep connection between each and every person. Something in us that calls out to reconnect with the pieces of itself that it sees in others. I wanted to stop for a minute, and really focus on this thought.

 Imagine you are riding on the bus, you have your headphones in and your eyes cast down somewhere so as not to be forced to talk to anyone. Someone gets on the bus and sits across from you, you don' tknow it but this person is having an absolutely terrible day.. month.. year. For whatever reason they are miserable, they feel invisible to the world, and as if they don't matter. They glance your way, and your first instinct is to look anywhere but at them. To avoid conversation at all costs. Unbeknownst to you, you have just confirmed that persons feelings of invisibility. Now lets imagine you do something different this time. Let's imagine that this time, you listen to that part of you calling out to connect to this person. You smile their way and ask how they are. You, a complete stranger, just transformed that persons day. All it took was a smile and a hello, and you made that person feel visible again. It's a simple example of how we are all connected and how we can all impact each other, but it gets the point across.

  Now to tie this all back into my original point, the I can't nation, our world. Why is it that so many people think it is impossible to make this world a better place, one person at a time? If every person who says "we can't do that" was to stop and say "-I- can do that" imagine the difference? If even one person steps out of their norm and says today I'm going to live as if every stranger I see is just family I haven't met yet, let me treat that person as if they are me, as if they are my best friend, or my favorite aunt, imagine the impact? One person makes an impact on one person, who moves on to make an impact on another person (ya I think they made a movie about this ;) ), the point is.. it all snowballs. It starts to roll down a giant hill catching everyone up in it's path as it goes, becoming an unstoppable avalanche. A lovealanche if you will.

 It's not a matter of, we don't have the power or we don't have the money to make a difference. Love is free. A smile is free. Compassion is free.

"Imagine all the people sharing all the world"

Imagine. Love. Say I can. And the world will  live as one.

It's really just that simple, I'll start.

The Journey of Love

   The last seven months has been quite a journey for me. A journey of pain, heartache, depression like I have  never felt before.. and out of all of that, seeing myself for the first time in a long time. Growth. That is the point behind life's troubling times. The roller coaster that we can experience through out our lives is meant to teach us to grow. We aren't born into knowing. We are born to learn.

     Six years ago I fell in love. I fell hard and I fell fast for the most amazing man. He became my best friend, he became my everything - and I mean everything. I wrapped myself up in him completely and lost myself. The next six years of our lives were filled with hard times. It was filled with money problems, it was filled with trust problems, it was filled with a small amount of resentment from me that I never understood. It was also filled with love, friendship, amazing memories. It was filled with holding onto each other when we had nothing else to hold onto. We were young, we made mistakes, we shoved each other away when we should have sat and as he said to me once "slapped each other silly". We didn't do that though, instead we drifted. We made decisions based on emotions without thinking. We took something that could have been beautiful and we twisted it.

    When that relationship came to an end I was left broken. I was left bitter and openly resentful. I couldn't understand how I had given everything I had - and it hadn't been enough. That is where the last seven months comes into play. Through out our break up we were determined to hold onto our friendship, but neither of us knew how. I wanted to lash out at him and hurt him and I feel pretty confident that he felt the same way. We hurt each other in those first couple months. Then we began to heal. We spent time together, we spent time talking, we spent time.. understanding. In short, we found closure.

  On the way to that closure I spent a lot of time talking to other friends on the topic of love and relationships. I spent a lot of time looking inside myself at what I want and need. I spent a lot of time looking outside at him and what he needed. So the time came, when he found himself in a new relationship. Everyone worries as to how I would take this news, but I am happy. That confused me at first, to know that I wasn't putting on a happy face and just saying the words but I was in fact genuinely happy. For the last year, from August when I left Canada until now we have both been so unhappy. He was drinking a lot and going out a lot and throwing himself into work. He wasn't living healthy and he sure as hell was anything but happy. I couldn't get out of bed some days, it was terrible. It was no way to live. I love this man in a way that I have never loved before. I love him unconditionally and I do not need to be -with- him to love him. It isn't the kind of love where I expect relationship and marriage and life ever after. It is real love, it has no expectations. It has no limits. It wants him to find happiness because he deserves happiness.

 That was the lesson of my journey. Love. Love yourself unconditionally. Love others as you love yourself. Want for others what you want for yourself. When you love, you don't hold someone back, you hold them up and tell them to fly. Every once in awhile you get to fly with them, and that's enough. Friendship, true friendship is love, and love is as the Beatles said, all we need. A line from Eat Pray Love says "We will be unhappy together, but happy we are not apart" that .. is the worst future I could ever imagine and I am glad that that, was not my future. I am glad that that was not his future. It should be no ones future. When we cherish love, respect love, and put love first what we get is a life full of amazing friendships. This is the lesson, this is the journey to love and to finding my best friend.

Love freely, love without fear, love without expectations.

"But, I never intended to hurt you"

   So, I know I haven't written in awhile. The few people who read this know I've had quite a lot going on and I just haven't been able to sit down and put thoughts into words at all. Everything I want to say seems so bitter or jaded, and comes out one sided and unfair. So I've decided not to blog about the break up. Not directly anyways, not about the circumstances or the who did what, there's no fingers to be pointed or blame to be laid, we both made mistakes and it isn't about who made bigger mistakes or more mistakes. I am going to write about a few things I've been thinking on, that probably came to me due in large part to the break up and any slight bitterness I may or may not (okay am) feeling.

 First of all, I was thinking last night on something that I think we hear a lot. A small statement that is seriously over used and misunderstood in my opinion. What statement you ask? "I would never intentionally hurt you" or "My intentions were good.." or other statements involving ones "intentions" and how they've gone wrong. I have a few problems with these things. First of all, intent is defined as a purpose or anticipated outcome of ones actions. So it comes to mind that when you are intending to do something you are generally thinking about what you want to do, how you want it to pan out, what you want the end result to be, see a pattern here? you you you. When someone says "I never intended to hurt you" it's often said after something incredibly insensitive and not thought out has occurred, so the real question here is.. what did you intend? How often are these statements -genuinley- made? How often is it said after someone actually stops and puts thought into their plan of action, stops and thinks about how what they do will affect the people around them? I'm no scientist, there isn't any numbers or facts to back this up, but I would be willing to put money on the fact that more often then not this statement is made after a rash, spur of the moment decision was made - not after someone actually thought about what they were doing. So, in a way you're right - your intentions weren't to hurt a person, because you never really thought about what your intentions were. A more accurate statement would be "I didn't stop to think about how it would affect anyone"  I realize that all sounds a little jaded, but I still stand by it. In order to be able to say you never intended to do something, or that you wouldn't intentionally do something, you have to be willing to actually think through intentions.

 Another saying that I find to be fairly annoying right now ... "It is better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all". I have to wonder if the person who said that has ever actually had their heart broken. I would never wish to take back the last 5 years of my life, I would never call them a mistake, I would never call loving him a mistake, or wish that I hadn't happened. That said however, this feeling.. this empty pit in the bottom of my stomach, this almost constant feeling like I'm stuck at the bottom of a giant lake of depression, the putting a smile on my face everyday and pretending I'm okay, the feeling like a 600lb man is sitting on my chest and I just can't breath, the thoughts of "huh, this must be what detox is like" and comparing love to drugs, all of it and the stabbing pains I randomly feel inside me when I realize my life isn't what I thought it would be... I'm not really sure it's better to have loved and lost and end up feeling like this - then to have never really known what love felt like. When you're in love you fly so high, you think you can touch the sky, you see the world through these ... everything is so grand and amazing rose colored glasses. Then when you lose that love, when you make a mistake and you fall from the pedestal that you were placed on, when someone realizes you're fallible and you're going to make mistakes, and they take their love away from you.. you crash hard and fast to the ground. It's like falling from the sun to the earths surface. Your body is left feeling broken, your heart feels like it's in a very strong mans death grip, and you just don't even see any light at the end of it all. It's a shitty sucky feeling, and I don't think that the person who said "it's better to have loved and lost..." .. had ever really felt what love detox feels like.

 I spend so a lot of time wishing things were different, wishing we could go back, I wish on stars, I wish at 11:11, I wish on every superstitious teenage wish making thing there is in existence that this reality wasn't my reality, but nothing is going to take me back before it all happened, nothing is going to change how things are now, and nothing is going to change the things we've done. So I'm left, fighting the bitter, fighting the jaded, and trying to accept that sometimes.. sometimes maybe the universe knows better then I do. That maybe there's a reason some wishes don't come true. Trying to remember that this isn't the end, just a new beginning.

Jack and Jill

(written half asleep at about 3am hastily in a blackberry notepad, I'm not inclined to edit at the moment)

In a perfect world there's me and you
The dream come true, the ever after
But in reality, there's Jack and Jill
Standing at the top of the hill

They've got their pails of water,
Ready to throw, to push us down
As they come tumbling after,
Their bellies filled with laughter

They whisper words into our ears,
Play upon our greatest fears
They splash out our spark,
And leave us scrambling in the dark

As Jack and Jill go running off,
Can we light what's almost lost?
Reach out and find each others hand,
Look a the hill and take a stand...

        Climb back up... Hand in hand

Society and Parenting

   I know I haven't written in awhile, I don't want to say I had writers block because it isn't entirely true. I did a little, but also I've just been busy! So today, while making a status on facebook I was hit with a second of guilt for what I was writing and with that, I had an idea for my next blog.

  The status in question was actually something really simple, about Michael, homework, and how much I don't enjoy doing it with him. The feeling of guilt I spoke of? Because there is something about being a parent that I don't enjoy. Now, I know most of my parent friends totally get this. Still though, that guilt feeling is there. We're conditioned, more or less from the time we're old enough to understand anything, that as women we're going to grow up and have children. Even in this "new" age of independent women, out at the work place doing their own thing, they're still being pressured by a friend, a relative, the looks they get if they say they aren't interested in having kids "at least not yet".  We're conditioned to do it and love every moment of it. It's what we're made for after all right? The view is, that we should be so thankful to have the blessing of little people in our lives that every single moment should just be an amazing adventure. Talk about rose colored glasses.

  I am thankful for my three little miracles of life don't get me wrong, I appreciate that I have them, I cherish them, I enjoy most moments with them. Then there's the moments I don't enjoy, the temper tantrums, the bratcapades (as I like to call them), the having to clean up their puke when they're sick, the late nights when they can't sleep, the getting peed on when a tiny one with a too small for her body bladder crawls into bed with me and has an accident, the doing homework with my 8 year old headstrong son. There's these moments that are just not fun, and every time I think that I would rather be doing anything but dealing with one of these not so enjoyable moments I'm hit with guilt. I look around in the store to make sure no one saw me obviously frustrated at my 3 year old's temper tantrum, I cringe as I think that I really can't stand doing homework with Michael, and so on. I feel guilt for the perfectly human part of being a mom, because let's face it - it's only human to not enjoy these things. So as I posted that status on facebook, and was hit with the feeling of being ungrateful for being allowed to sit here doing homework with this amazing but frustrating little boy, I realized that it's okay to feel these things. Will that stop me from the occasional pang of guilt for not enjoying parenthood's sucky little moments? No, probably not, however I will stop myself and remind myself it's okay to not enjoy them... Right?

Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin eater!

Okay so no one is eating any pumpkins, but about a week ago the kids and I had a "Pumpkin Festival" all on our own, I painted their faces and we did some arts and crafts adn then.. we did pumpkins! The kids had so much fun, and it was great to see them enjoying the day so much.

Bits and pieces of ramblings from my head, and other blogs I may never write.

(DISCLAIMER READ ME FIRST: Any negative comments posted on certain subjects in this particular blog will be deleted)



1.) The kids are taking turns being sick, they were nice enough to do this while I was sick - to distract me
      from my own sickness I'm sure?
2.) Alhanna's birthday party was last Saturday, one person was nice enough to rsvp and show up.
     More then a little disappointing but a lot of fun regardless.
3.) Michael won his first soccer game on Saturday, he's telling anyone that will listen. He makes my heart
     smile!
4.) I'm gearing up to be one of those super busy soccer mom types. Michael in Soccer, Alhanna is going
      to be signing up for dance, and Logan will sign up for something at the YMCA (or maybe also do
     dance for a bit!) until the next round of ice skating lessons start (gotta get him ready for hockey!).
5.) Brendan came to visit the kids yesterday, once Alhanna warmed up she enjoyed it. Michael was, as
      always very excited about the entire thing. I wish he'd visit them more, they need it.
6.) I need a car... I need a car... I need a car.... I was going to buy one today but the woman is being
      flip floppy and isn't sure she wants to sell it now so, I'm not buying her damn car!
7.) For a country that claims to be "land of the free" we sure do have a lot of laws restricting our
      personal freedoms, and yet no one wants the laws that would enhance our freedoms and basic
      rights (such as health care for all, equal educational opportunities for all, equal opportunities for life
      in general to all). We live in an ass backwards society and it's actually a pretty scary place at times.
8.) The US, a land I love and grew up in, is heading for a scary place. I'm actually surprised with all the
      fear mongering fox news does that Obama has survived this much of his presidency, his secret  
      service must be very busy keeping him alive (thankfully). Between the republicans, deomocrats, tea
      parties, and people who are just sick of them ALL, things are really going to start to get ugly. It's a 
      fight of maintaining the status quo of typical, hate filled, religious bible thumping, ancient minded
      America vs the moving forward, changing, evolving, accepting America and I think it's going to get
      a lot uglier before it gets better.
 9.)  I need to write a blog about the women hating culture that surrounds us, I just haven't gotten around
       to it yet... someday though... someday I will!
10.) Last night my 8 year old asked me a question I was totally unprepared for. He asked me what sex
        is, and I realized I was wholly and completely unprepared for this question, I evaded and promised
        to talk about it at a later date. I then googled something along the lines of "talking to your kids about
        sex"... at which point I was informed by both planned parenthood and parenting.com that I am a
        slacker mom! I think I'll write an entire blog on that subject too...
11.) I really want this camera , in fact I might even be willing to beat someone up for it! Okay not really,
       but I'd like to take some photography classes next year and that is the camera I want to have when
       I do.
12.) I'm incapable of putting foundation on the left side of my face without doing the right side at the same
        time, yes I know it's weird but I noticed it this morning.
13.) I'm closer to 30 then I am to 20, I realized this the other day and I'm not really sure when that
        happened! Well, I guess logically it happened the year I turned 25 (that is after all when numbers
        start rounding up not down), but I just don't know where the last 8 years went!
14.) I'm not really sure I actually have a number fourteen but I don't like the number thirteen so.. there it is!