Category Archives: Life

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Gratitude

Source: stilettosontheglassceiling.com

Source: stilettosontheglassceiling.com

Last week I fell off my bike.

I was riding in the streets of downtown Toronto. I just recently (three weeks ago) started riding my bike downtown. I had always been too afraid of riding in the city.

Anyway, there I was, riding down the street, in the centre lane going along with traffic (there were parked cars on the side so I couldn’t ride near the curb).

Everything was going fine until suddenly a crossing guard blew her whistle as I was approaching the intersection. I didn’t have enough time to stop, so I swerved to move over to the curb, and my front tire got stuck in the streetcar tracks. I flew off my bike and landed a few metres away on the road.

The behaviour of the crossing guard was both shocking and appalling. I was bleeding all over the road, my face and hands were covered with blood, and when I asked her to call 911 she told me her phone was broken. I’m guessing she didn’t want to be involved, or to be blamed. She had the nerve to tell me I was going too fast, and to argue with me as I stood bleeding on the side of the road, in shock, bawling and feeling nauseous. Someone asked me what happened and when I started with “she blew her whistle” the crossing guard become very confrontational, and started to defend herself, as though I was hurling accusations rather than retelling an account of what happened.

This was all very frustrating and disheartening. However, there is a silver lining and I was and am very grateful for two strangers who stopped to help me. One was a doctor and the other was a stranger who happened to have experienced the very same thing five years prior on the very same street. These two gentlemen kindly drove me to the hospital, comforted me, locked up my bike, and ensured that I was in good hands. I am forever grateful to them for helping me in a time of need.

I am also grateful for the fact that my wounds are mostly superficial. The gash on my forehead was glued, my swollen lips and chin, and the many cuts, bruises, and road burns I have will heal. I didn’t break any bones and I didn’t lose any teeth.

It could have been much worse. As I sit at home now, with polysporin all over my face, and a neck so sore I can barely turn my head–I am grateful. I’m grateful for the health that I always take for granted until life delivers gentle or not so gentle reminders to cherish what I have and what I can do with my body, my health, my life.

Today despite this pain, I feel grateful.

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Enemy

Source: georgecouros.ca

Source: georgecouros.ca

An enemy who brings me down,

Spiralling quickly,

Frantically,

Grasping at nothing,

Immersed

In fog.

 

Thinking, over-thinking

It’s a weakness of mine.

Leads to anxiety,

Familiarity

A God

Ferociously

I cling to.

But what I fear most:

Not introspection,

Rather reflection–

Looking back on days and years gone by,

Reflecting on actions, words, deeds,

Done and undone,

Spoken, unspoken,

To what end?

 

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Too Comfortable

Oh man. I just posted a video on Facebook about a shoplifting husky, then had an existential moment of wondering what my life has come to. These days are the hardest to get through: boredom, no social contact–it’s a potent combination that leads down a slippery slope. Before you know it you’re questioning your life and how you got here. You’re also chastising yourself for not fulfilling your potential. You were always the top of your class and then somehow fear took over. Sometimes I try to envision the working world as a classroom, to try to boost my confidence. It never works.

I’m not sure exactly what my problem is. It’s a vague sense of fear–perhaps of change, of being too antisocial, not assertive or smart or competent enough. I don’t know. All I can fall back on to boost my confidence is my academic career. And these days it doesn’t help much.

I need to be in a better place at this age and stage in my life. These long drawn out days that feel as though there’s 48 hours packed into a work day really kill my soul. They take over the rest of my world. It’s not enough to feel as though I had a difficult day at work–it’s takes me back to square one and has me questioning how I got here in the first place.

As enjoyable as watching an adorable husky walk into a dollar store and steal treats is, this isn’t what I thought I’d be doing with my life. And here’s the old conflation–I am not defined by my work. My work is not my sense of self, or my main priority in life. At the same time, it is many hours of my life and I want it to mean something, if simply to myself.

I guess I should start hunting again, but I think that’s not really the first step. The first step is this: realizing my value, worth, strengths, and intelligence. Just because I work a menial and often tedious job, doesn’t mean this is what I was meant to do, or what I am capable of doing. What I’m capable of goes so much further, but I’ve stopped pushing and testing those limits. I’ve allowed myself to fall back on familiarity and routine and I think it’s time I seek some challenge and change instead.

When I interviewed for my first job out of university I met a woman who had been working there for decades. It was her first job out of university, and one she intended to stay in while looking for other work. It was supposed to be her foot in the door. Funny thing is, sometimes we just get too comfortable.

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The Threat of Sameness

Source: scottthornbury.wordpress.com

Source: scottthornbury.wordpress.com

 

I have recently discovered something that threatens my happiness. Something that seems to stop me in my tracks, to chastise me, to discourage me, to keep me down and out and weakened. This threat is that of Sameness: of feeling and believing that everything is the same, has been the same, and worst of all, will continue to be the same. If you have no purpose or no hope for a better future it’s difficult to find the motivation to go on.

Case in point: dating. If you’re in your thirties, forties, fifties and have yet to find ‘the one’ (presuming you believe in and desire a monogamous relationship) then perhaps you will start to lose faith. You will feel like your relationships always end the same way–with a break-up–and this will be demotivating. Worse, it can be a negative, self-fulfilling prophecy.

When you fail to see the diversity of experiences you’ve had, people you’ve met, and in this case, reasons for your relationships not working out, you paint a very dreary picture for yourself. I think this has been a problem of mine for some time.

I tend to group experiences, people and situations together and feel as though my life has been one giant broken record–the same scenario on repeat time after time. I’m learning though that not only is this inaccurate, it’s really detrimental. It makes it difficult to pursue potential avenues of happiness if you see the same depressing end to them all.

I have felt lonely for some time. I have experienced a number of losses in my life. I have felt that I would like to be in a serious, committed, loving relationship for some time. But that doesn’t mean my life has been the same, for this entire period of time. I’ve grown, matured, changed, and experienced things that have humbled, awed and inspired me.

So today I’m going to remind myself, and anyone else who needs to hear it, that things have not always been the same. I have loved very different men for different reasons and these relationships have ended for different reasons. As long as I continue to embrace new experiences and to be open to growth and potential heartache, I’ll be okay. One day I will find what I’m looking for, and I know, until that day things will not stay the same.

I grow and learn and mature each and every day, and that’s something worth cherishing and not discounting.