one year

09Feb10

Today is an anniversary of sorts … not one I’m keen on remembering next year or ever again for that matter but a one year marker that I can look back on today for personal and selfish reasons; a stark comparison of weak, broken, angry vs. strong, whole, soft.

The whats, whens, whys, whos are wheres are no longer important, that’s not what it’s about anymore.

What it’s about is this time last year and the feeling of absolute worthlessness and wanting to die, the daily destruction, the self torture and the continual digging of that grave. The sanity I didn’t want to fight for, the depression I didn’t want to medicate and letting myself fall softly into it’s comforting arms, dancing together for ten long, dark months.

Ten months of bathing in hopelessness, dread, fear and anxiety.

Ten months of alcohol abuse.

Ten months of lies to myself.

Ten months of not caring.

Ten months of hate and loathing.

In July I left/lost (depends who you ask) my career because I could not physically or mentally hack it anymore and there I was right where I began: a mother who spends her days at and around the home picking up after children. It was exactly what I fought to get out of for years and there I was, knee deep in it again. The drinking started a bit earlier each day, the numbers on the scale crept up, the anger came easier and more fierce … all the while telling myself that I was totally normal.

Awesome even.

One year ago today I thought I would probably die.
One year ago today the floodgate to millions upon millions of tears was opened.
One year ago today I felt shattered.

And one year ago today, not in my wildest dreams, did I think I’d be writing this post a year down the road.

So in honour of ‘one year’ here are some things I’ve learned in 365 days:

~ You won’t die. No matter what has happened in your life and how much you’re physically hurting in your heart and stomach and your soul feels dead, you will not die. You’re feeling. Feeling pain is human and it helps not to fight it. Allow yourself time to feel fully – pain, hurt, anger, sadness. If you don’t have the freedom to be open, set aside some time for yourself to do it in private. Take a solo walk on the beach, a drive, shower, etc.

BE HUMAN.

~ There is no such thing as permanently shattered no matter how bad it feels. You’ll heal. You won’t even know it’s happening, but you will and the real treat is that you’ll become heart/mind/soul stronger in the process. The person who said, “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger” was really onto something with that.

~ Cry. Cry till you want to puke, cry because you’re happy, cry because it’s romantic, cry because you remember, cry because you miss, cry because you feel like it. Crying often symbolizes weak and unbalanced in this society and it’s bullshit. I still cry to this day, it’s part of soul cleansing.

~ Avoid alcohol. If you’re depressed, drinking excessively is dangerous to the mind, body, soul and especially appearance … booze has MAJOR bloating effects. So now you’re more depressed (thank you alcohol depressant) and flabby? Not a wonderful combo for the self esteem.

~ TALK ABOUT IT. Pour your heart out. See a therapist. Find a therapist you get a good vibe from. Tell your story ten times if you have to but find a therapist and don’t settle for someone you aren’t 100% comfortable with. Looking forward to sessions is key; dreading them means something’s wrong. You should want to talk to talk to her/him.

~ Yoga/meditation. A strong sense of self, the mind/body connection, the lengthening and strengthening of limbs and spirit is something that has changed my life immensely since the beginning of this year. LEARN TO BREATHE while you STRENGTHEN your core. Seriously, the combination is life changing. If you can’t afford the time or price to take your practice in a studio either check out the local rec centers which tend to be very cheap or invest in some yoga/pilates/ballet training type DVDs. Wake up before the family and do them or after the kids go to bed. Just make sure to practice in silence and peace in a well ventilated, clean area.

~ Sweat at least once a day. I don’t care if you’re 300 lbs or the laziest person in the world, you need to break a sweat, get the toxins out and raise your heart rate at least once per day. This is also a mind ~ body connection as you’re physically pushing yourself, challenging your body and hopefully meeting a goal or fulfilling this daily requirement.

~ Feeling good = looking good = feeling good = looking good = feeling good

If you can give YOURSELF the gift of health, fitness and wellness you WILL feel good. You WILL look good. Looking at yourself in the mirror and LIKING what you see is such a confidence and mentality booster, I cannot stress it enough. It will affect every area of your life, especially …

~ Sex. No matter what is going on, life is always better after an orgasm, no? It’s the best natural stress reliever known to man and if you’re in a relationship, it’s laying beside you for free every single night. I often wonder why more couples don’t have sex all the time … that whole too tired bullshit is all in the mind; try acts of giving when you’re ‘too tired’ and it’ll work in your favor. You’ll have an orgasm, you’ll have the best sleep in the world and every one is a happy camper.

Oh, and it turns out that if you’re physically active that you’ll want to have sex more often, something to do with more blood in the nether regions. Factoid.

~ Passion. Live in the moment. Take some time out to be ridiculous. Embrace the inner child. Colour. Write poetry. Spend time at a farmer’s market talking to local growers. Become educated about food. Feel the sunshine kiss your cheek. Play. Roll around on the floor with your children. Skip down the street hand in hand with them. Dance. Cartwheels. Get messy. Bake real cookies from scratch. Decorate your house in hearts for Valentine’s Day. Be romantic. Let your kids witness passionate, playful acts love. Create sparks. Dream big. Be fun loving. Be as young as you possibly can whenever you can.

~ Drop the ego. It oozes out of you in a very non attractive, ugly way. Be genuine and modest. Practice kindness and softness. Practice empathy, compassion and one love for all.

The knowledge that you are not better than any other human is power.

Acknowledge your insignificance.

~ Be more than mom/dad, wife/husband, housekeeper/bread winner. Don’t forget the person you were before marriage, kids, career.

~ Love like crazy. Find beauty in everything. Grab life by the balls and make it yours. Go to bed every night expressing gratitude for the day you’ve been blessed with and for being healthy and alive. Make a difference. Find something you believe in and fight for it, talk about it. Fix yourself, inside and out, until you are proud of you.

~ NO ONE’S OPINION MATTERS. Except for those that sit around your dinner table and those that you sought out/asked for. That includes mine here, especially when I start talking about antidepressants.

~ Surround yourself with positive people. It’s common sense, negativity and drama is toxic poison to the mind, heart and soul and should have no permanent place in your life.

~ Get away from the loud and proud medicated influences online and TRY to fix yourself NATURALLY. Take control of YOUR brain. USE your brain and don’t follow the herd into a lifetime of pill dependency and false sense of happy.

It appears that the majority of online lifers are ‘depressed’ and medicating with drugs, it’s like the club initiation … what kind of happy pills do you take? and it blows my mind every time I come across a love n’ hugs fest when another one hits the (pill) bottle. That’s so SO fucked up to me.

Who in their right mind encourages drug use anyway? Druggies. I know … I was one when I was 20 and no one wants to be one alone so we’d get together with all the other druggies and make cocaine/ecstasy/’shrooms seem like the coolest thing, telling everyone how awesome it was and every once in awhile there’d be newbs and it’d be extra awesome to have a new user on deck.

I swear this is like a red ‘easy button’ voodoo parallel universe sometimes like I’m at a mommy rave full of middle aged tweakers all happy and shit because they showered today and OH EMM GEEE SQUEEE!!! I SMELL SO GOOD MY LIFE IS SO GOOD I SO ACTUALLY BATHED AND SHAVED MY LEGS AND COOKED DINNER, holy shit lets share it on my blog … drugs and hugs yo, drugs and hugs. Oh wait, that’s not a rave that’s a blogging conference, my bad.

Here’s your reward, five thousand internet friends who also praise the antidepressant God, Big Brotha Pharma. What a sense of belonging! Now stop celebrating and fuck off already before someone I actually care about gets your memo that drugs are the answer before trying for real mental and physical strength, thanks.

That said, every case is different, blah … BLAH … blah I’m no judge or doctor, all the power to them for bandaging and being able to wash the dishes and push their kid on the swing again, they’re just not for me. And yeah, there are people like my aunt, clinically depressed and schizophrenic just to name a few and meds keep her normal not jumping out of 10th story windows in one of her manic phases. Now there’s a good reason to celebrate the miracle of modern medicine! Not another sad turned happy mommy, oh my god, broken record already.

If you can’t tell already I am extremely anti-easy button, anti-antidepressant (hmmm, will an anti-antidepressant, pro natural/organic wellness post ever be notable or is that too lame and unrealistic these really real days of the all mighty internet?) and I should really be a spokesperson for the goddamn Church of Scientology but they’re way too creepy even for me so that means REALLY FUCKING CREEPY.

And while I couldn’t care less what YOU do to your brain (I mean, we’re all human after all and hey I found my false sense of happy in destroying families and marriages and falling in love with unavailable men and then at the bottom of a wine bottle before I realized how pointless and destructive it all was – to each his own)

I do care that I’m raising daughters in a society where pill popping is the norm, where you can go to your FAMILY DOCTOR for fuck sakes and get a script for Effexor after a 3 minute talk, I know because I did it when I was ‘feeling really down’, almost a year before I even felt what real depression was and thankfully that easy button chemical cocktail did not pass my lips because who knows where I’d be today. I guarantee NOT here where I am and it actually makes me physically ill to imagine anyway.

Now that’s fucked up. And not for me or my family.

What is for me and would probably work for over half dependent on drugs is walking away from the computer, engaging in REAL life – not the real online life, therapy and taking active daily steps towards improving mental health.

Getting off my ass and doing something to avoid fucking with my brain chemistry and becoming dependent on drugs like I’ve done so many times in my life.

For being dependent on NOTHING other than myself.

It’s taken one year to go from dancing with the devil in darkness to this place of independent function and diet and exercise induced wellness and vitality.

Feeling and talking about my pain, crying, therapy, spirituality, wellness and hard physical and mental work has paid off. Major things are happening in the next 12 months and I have the natural tools necessary to fight the darkness should it try and rain on my parade and impending journey.

One year ago today it felt like my world had ended. Little did I know, it was just beginning.

Today I am strong and free.It’s the best high I’ve ever had.

******

Now bring on the Winter Olympics. Those are the kind of people I want my children looking up to. Physically, mentally and independently strong; the fiercest competitors in the world.

(Really, I won’t be around the blog for the next little while as we’re in the grips of Olympic fever, preparing and planning for. Winter Olympics in Vancouver is a once in a lifetime thing for all of us … family, friends and especially our girls. We’re nothing short of the luckiest people in the world to have our kids experience this so close to home and lifelong memories are in the making! I mean, if we’re going to be paying for this for the rest of our lives anyway, we might as well enjoy it )

Be well.

Filed under: heart, self   |  1 Comment

our future olympians

07Feb10

Col and his brother took the girls skating for their first time today and they loved it, naturally. It’s in their blood thanks to their hockey playing/skating extraordinaire dad. I myself just can’t get over the helmets … I think little kids in these and skiing/boarding helmets are the cutest little bobble heads in the universe.

Feb. 7, 2010 SKATING

Feb. 7, 2011 SKIING

Feb. 7, 2022 OLYMPIANS (You know … if they want to and stuff)

Lily’s harsh mean-muggin’ up there … she should be in the Jay-Z video I posted below

This is much better (and showing off their new white kicks) …

Filed under: la famille   |  5 Comments

on to the next one

07Feb10

My brother introduced me to this song on the weekend and while I’m not really in a hip hop frame of mind I just can’t believe how bad ass it is.

Jay-Z’s right up there on an unprecedented level/league of artist you can’t even deny it … this in it’s beat/bass line/video entirety is proof.

I’ll workout to it for sure, makes me feel tough.

But I did some research on this song and video because really? It’s creepy and very surrealistic, downright disturbing, actually. This was kind of interesting … The Occult Semi-Subliminals of Jay-Z’s “On to the Next One”

Now that’s fucked up … and I like it. Illuminati conspiracy always makes for a good conversation.

I wanna be Jay-Z when I grow up.

Filed under: earworming, music   |  1 Comment

i promised i’d never …

04Feb10

… write about my mundane day in the park with my kids and today I write about my mundane day in the park with my kids.

Before I start it has to be mentioned that my alarm was set for 6am this morning but I hit snooze as many times as I could before 7:15 at which time poor Colin jumped out of bed because he had to be out the door at 7:15 and last night I was all, “No problem I got this, don’t worry about setting the alarm, you just rest your pretty little head and I’ll wake you up with some coffee after yoga” type deal.

And then I slept in till 7:15 giving him exactly 1.4 minutes to get ready for work and out the door. But it felt like a bed of pillows in heaven and I was an angel drifting in light and love and OMG, I’ve never had such a good sleep, ever maybe.

OH, IT WAS SUNNY WHEN I WOKE UP!

Sunshine! Streaming in through the windows! I came out of the bathroom and was !BLINDED! by sunny sunshine and I was SO !HAPPY! all day long. What a perfect thing to follow the perfect sleep. Like this day, February 4th, 2010 was the best day of my year thus far.

And there was no way I was spending it indoors.

So I packed snacks and juice and the girls in their hoodies and wrapped their little necks in chenille scarves, strapped them into the Radio Flyer wagon and left to the great sunny outdoors.

Outdoors? W-A-R-M City

Scarves off and I was happier than before. Sunshiny warmth how I’ve missed you. My skin aches for the feeling of real live sunshine, know what I mean? The minute I feel sun, I feel happy, my skin feels happy, my heart feels happy.

Plus! when we eventually made our way to the volleyball courts to play in the sand, we all took off our hoodies and wore t-shirts.

And then I got even happier because we were wearing t-shirts in Winter. That’s just so awesome.

Oh, and then I saw two bald eagles supplied by VANOC via unsuspecting current and future BC taxpayers to take Olympic visitor’s minds off the fact that it’s t-shirt weather in host city soaring together in circles and it was one of the most peaceful and beautiful things I could’ve experienced in that moment.

… in my t-shirt, in the sun.

(my other 4 year old took this picture, she’s got some mad talent, obviously)

Today was so great I’m not even going to write about my mundane day in the park with my kids and spare you the details of one of *those* posts.

You’re very welcome

Filed under: pleasures, positivity!   |  11 Comments