#48 Stress ball

I’m working on too many projects and I need to cut my time back. I’m really stressed out. I know that my friend was joking around about my inability to make decisions over the weekend, but that’s one of the symptoms of stress. I also haven’t been sleeping well and my eating habits have fallen off – I’ve been eating that extra meal after my evening lessons.

I’ve set this pace where I want to do everything: yoga, salsa, running, social life, volunteering, teaching, working my day job, writing, boyfriend, company, editing, training, courses, reading and that start-up business I’m working on. I have a lot of deadlines coming up because it’s my end of semester.

I keep telling myself that I need to do more – that people with kids and families can do it all so why can’t I? (This thought pattern is also a symptom of stress in itself). I don’t want to fail at all my projects. I have ridiculously high standards.

I’m talking to a counselor about it tomorrow afternoon. I feel this fear that if I don’t stop moving, I’m going to fall into bad habits and I want to talk to him about how to manage my time more efficiently.

I wanted to get into a course called Mind Over Mood, that was cancelled because of lack of interest, but I bought the book it was based on and I'm trying to do the work. I am going to bring it to the counselor tomorrow and try to work through it with her. This is the first time I've done counselling where I'm not just saying - I'm a mess, fix me - I actually feel like I have something solid to say. I hope that will make the difference. 

I got an email from my ex-husband that threw me for a loop and sent me spinning down a rabbit hole over the last few days - coupled with it being too cold to run.  I’m just so angry. I don’t think I really allowed myself to be angry – I didn’t want to carry resentfulness and hurt around in my life. I didn't want to be "that woman" who was just bitter. But thinking about it makes my heart palpitate. Thinking about him makes me so angry I want to scream. It was so cold and gross this weekend that instead, I sat at home, redecorated my house, and spent too much money on take out. Then I feel guilty for taking it out on myself and disrespecting myself like that. 

When I called the support line I was trying to tell the girl about my problem. I said, "I'm so happy, I'm doing everything I want, but I'm not managing to have time to be creative, to see my friends, I'm drinking alone in my house, I'm missing lessons and appointments" - She says, "maybe you're not actually doing the things you want." 

Which also made me upset. Because I feel like I am. But I'm not doing enough. I should be writing more, exercising more, eating more healthy foods, preparing more, sleeping more, talking to my friends more, having more friends, better connections, writing letters, sending presents. I have this typical North American attitude of: if a little is good for you then more must be better. 

I feel resentful when someone talks to me about balance. My friends throw platitudes my way like,  "take time for yourself" which I think is ridiculous because I feel like I've designed my life so that it's mine all the time. "My time" is in front of the class. It is when I'm at work with students. It is when I'm editing. I've managed to get paid for all the things I love to do, so there is no separation between me and my work. 

And that's ok with me. 

We tend to think that as human beings we are far removed from our environments - like there is "us" and then the Earth. But we are our environment. When people detach from it, that's when it causes problems. When people say, "I'm going to put in my 8 hours at work and then go home and watch TV to detach" - what are you detaching from? You're still in your life. 

I did a happiness quiz at work. I'm 100% happy. I'm slowly doing all the things I want to do. I need more direction in setting goals so that I know when I've accomplished the things I want to do. I need someone to help me find balance and not get so overwhelmed that I will fail. That I won't be able to continue this pace. 

#47 Insanity

How am I feeling these days? Like I am sabotaging myself. Like I have a million little bees floating around my head reminding me off all the projects Im not doing - the time I don't have - the things I'm not moving forward for. All the things I want to do - I feel like I need to do them ether -  feel Like I'm letting people down.

Every time I go to for dinner I feel hatred to myself for not eating soup. I feel guilty because my European roots seem to be slowly drenched with North American privilege. "Because I deserve" high quality scotch. Because I deserve sleeping in and not completing my tasks.


and I am sabotaging myself. Why can't I be the type of person who can just do things right away? I always leave things to the last minute. I always leave things to the end, when a ill ion little things come up. I always wait - procrastinate. That is not virtuous, not an accurate measurement of success - am I just going to be the per on with a million spinning plates in the air until they drop?

My ex emailed me and threw me for a loop. Why can I still feel him? Is he not attached to his new family anymore? I can't feel it. That child didn't even look like his. I bet it wasn't. I bet she wanted a name for it.

And the paranoia is setting in my old age. Be careful with me, I might just go on a Tinder binge. It's as easy as ordering pizza.

#46 Reflection

Today is the first day I've felt at home in the 170 days (5 months, 17 days or 4080 hours) I've been back in Canada.  Today is the first day that I've felt like really writing anything. It takes time, you know, these things in life - in your life - they take time.

And we all want to be creative people. I mean, we are creative beings. We are all artists. All good art takes time. All really emotional expression takes time. Look at dance. That's not created overnight. Even dancers need a break.

I'm suffering from burnout right now. I've been working 55 hours a week...more really. I don't think my friends understand what that is, I mean, they have families so I think it's normal for them to just be "on" and doing work all day long. So, I'm not complaining. But I am burnt out. Add to that that I've recently injured my legs because I've been training for a 1/2 marathon.... and overtraining. And over working. And over drinking. And really just going overboard.

Because I have been terrified of stopping.

I allow myself to settle for odd moments in my life. When I teach, when I do yoga, when I run. In those moments, I'm "here" - really. But I've filled up my life will "all of the things" because I'm so scared that it will all stop and that I will back to sitting in my lonely apartment watching Netflix. Everyday. Waiting for my life to begin.

It turns out, I'm in the prime of my life. The party is at Casa Stef's house all the time. I have not just sat in my apartment with the music off and a cup of coffee and no plans for people to intrude since I have moved in 49 days (7 weeks or 70, 560 minutes) ago. I don't mean friends coming and going - only a few friends have stopped by. I teach English on Skype and so everyday there are strangers who add energy to my place. They add their thoughts and their expressions.

When I came back I met a lot of people. It turns out that many people my age (the ones without families) have all been through something similar. They've left. Maybe for University, the military, travel, they started their own business. They left the "typical" life for something different. One of my associates (for lack of a better word) told me, "It just takes time in one place."

And another friend of mine and I were looking at all these lofty goals I have for 2015. He told me that you should really stick to the rule of 5 - Choose 5 things and then make sure that they people you meet, the things you eat, the time it takes, all revolve around those 5 things.

Then he added to take a look at your life every month and see where you're putting your efforts in reality. In reality when it shakes out, what are you doing with your heart? With your time? Is your money where your mouth is?

So for the last 49 days I've been spinning. Going. Pushing. Everyday getting up and teaching, prepping, throwing all my papers in a box to be sorted one day. Going to the library to take books out that I haven't read. To rent movies that I haven't seen. Joining WeightWatchers and starting a food blog only to never go to meetings because I'm in class.

Joining more groups and more organizations. Finding Tinder.

What's different about today? Today is the day that I stopped moving. Today is the day that I cancelled my Skype lessons. I had already taken this weekend off. I got up. I made soup. I put my dishes away. I sat in my house. Today is a day of refection.

You see, life comes with choices. This is something that I have never wanted to admit. I want all of the things. I want of the experiences. I want to meet all of the people. I don't want to be left out. Whether you laugh at my typical middle child behaviour or not, it's deeply engrained in my heart. I want it all and I don't want to choose.

However, I realize that there is a freedom in choice. Of things.

You see, many people choose a life. They choose a job they like. They choose a husband. They choose their groceries. They are unhappy - and so there is a particular attitude that comes with life. Being happy with you what you have.

You see, I don't have this problem. My happiness is completely turned on all the time. I am so grateful and happy if I'm grinding my own coffee beans and taking 5 minutes to smell the coffee or if I'm walking up the Great Wall of China. Happiness for me, is not a good indication of if my life is going well, if I'm ok.

I have created a wonderful life. But I'm still running from something. It does take a while to settle.

My travel friend Jannell, who spent a year of her life travelling around the world, told me that it's not enough for you settle. You have to find the pace of the city you're living in. You have to make your own way in that city. This city is my hometown, but I'm seeing it for the first time. I'm talking to the people. I'm doing the things. I have to remember to create the time in my life for me. For reflection.

#45 Space to create

Being back is weird.

There is sudden pressure to "get a job" and "work". A close friend of mine talked about what he does about mundaneness of life and how everyone has it.

This fills me with fear. We are so busy doing all these things that we forget that time doesn't work in our favour. Time and space work in their own way. We can't control time. We have made little watches and filled our lives with a way to measure time in order to be accountable to others. But we don't own time anymore than we own the space in the atoms of our body.

If we don't allow ourselves to understand that the creative process takes time, we won't be able to create the life we want. We need to be gentle on ourselves.

I was thinking about our need - basic human need - to create, to be flexible and fluid and respond to things in a creative way. I think this is where some of our drama comes from. When an event happens, we have to respond and we use our creativity to do so. We change our plans, our thinking for a moment. We feel satisfied by this. So, we tell everyone we know about how we saved the Office Potluck or how we Managed some Relationship. But this isn't real creativity, you know. This is using a latent skill that we all have, that's so deeply shoved down on our list of priorities that when we have an opportunity to use it, to be resourceful, we get giddy.

I've been reading through my old journals and I came upon this piece that I wrote to myself when I was 18.

"As much as I love achieving goals, I must remember this truth - we must set goals for the right reasons, for ourSELVES. Do not cheat yourself, respect yourself, encourage yourself, give yourself time, space, and love. You are on the journey of life, and though you will meet special people, you are the only one who fully understands yourself. Cherish that relationship."

#44 Fight club

When you come home after living abroad for a while things are really strange. Your friends, who you’ve kept in touch with over Facebook, aren’t the same people anymore. They’ve grown. Sometimes they have gotten sadder. Their houses have changed and they want to celebrate their new curtains. You think of things in terms of how much things cost and how many times you could have paid rent with those curtains. 

You know that you’ve changed. They’ve expected you to change.
They’ve expected you not to know who the contestants on Survivor are this year. They haven’t expected you to be different.  They haven’t expected you to not like watching TV anymore.

Wherever you were, you were free. You didn’t have to hide your reaction to how weak Starbucks coffee tastes now. You didn’t have to hide your outrage about how much fresh fruit and vegetables cost. You were celebrated for your high standards of restaurants, instead of getting the eye roll from your friends that your old favourite place no longer holds a candle to your tongue’s new power. That $23 for lunch is a ridiculous concept that would feed a family for a week. You order tea instead and feel like you are insulting them.

You don’t feel free. You feel trapped. You feel like you need to have answers about what you’re going to “do” with your life now that you’re back and “settling down”.

That’s the worst part about being back. The comparison. The show. The fact that people feel like they have to tell you things about their life to make themselves feel better. The game of “look, I’m happy too”. I don’t mean people who share their lives, their experiences. I mean the ones who really feel so insecure about themselves that they tell you about their great mortgage rate and how they “would” travel but they would prefer to invest in themselves where they can see the money instead.  

People don’t understand that buying things doesn’t make you happy. They don’t know what its like to live with nothing. They don’t understand what it’s like not to have a plan from one day to the next.

They expect you to “settle in” and get a routine and a “real job” because that is what people do.

But you can’t.

Because you know the secret to life.

The worst thing about coming home is that you know the secret to life and you can’t tell anyone. You can’t tell them because it would rip open their world from one side to the other and expose all the secrets that they swallow when they sleep.

You expected culture shock. You didn’t expect the first rule of Fight Club.

#43 Try

I just realized somewhere down the line that I've had this blog for an awfully long while. When I went into this project it was to achieve crossing off 101 things in 1001 days. I've managed to cross a lot of things off my list, most recently indulging in an Eaton Mess which is something I didn't get the first time I ate a week of British food (in Britain).



In a way, my life is much like an Eaton mess. It's something I've waited a long time to try, I had forgotten about, and the best bits are hidden. For those of my friends who have been following my Facebook posts looking on the outside it seems like my travels are filled with whipped cream and mmmm…. strawberries. But those aren't the best bits.

The best bits of me are the hidden parts. The parts that keep on going even when I feel sad and lonely. When I write long messages to my friends after several bottles of cheap wine looking for answers about the relationships in my life. When I decide that I don't, in fact, want to do anything in my life but stay alone in my apartment eating bread which is quite possible in Italy.

When I'm stuck and I feel like a failure because I can't create anything. When the vision of myself coming back from Europe looking skinny and strong and tanned vanishes because I didn't manage to do those push-ups everyday after all. When all I can see is the fact that I'm sick and the weather sucks and I'm running out of money, and not the gratitude of where I am and what I am doing.

Those are the dark parts of life, the chocolate chips, if you're still trying to follow my spontaneous metaphor. Still, as I mention these dark parts they seem very superficial. That's what they look like to the outside person. They look like a bout of good exercise and a bottle of good wine will "fix" the blues in life. Not everyone has the blues and the people who have it don't talk about it. Some people just accept the dark clouds over their heads like the crummy English weather.

I've asked most of my close friends this question at some point in our lives, "when you're driving, do you ever feel like you just want to let go of the wheel and let it go?" The answer has always been yes.

How many people have had that thought? But you don't act on it. You push it to the side and you order your favourite Starbucks and for a minute you're blissfully happy and you forget all about the awkward conversation.

That line - it's the only way I can describe it. It's like someone takes a grey magic marker and colours through your life.  It moves slowly through our lives and we don't know what it wants, when it will come, or what we can do about it.  That line is what I don't understand about life. Sometimes it's so thick that you can't move. Sometimes it's so thin, it's just a memory of a bad dream you had ages ago.

You can distract yourself from it and there are many techniques to do that like going for a run, eating healthy, getting involved in the community, and adopting a pet. Make a list of 101 things you want to accomplish and write about them. Make yourself a better person.

My struggle is my compulsion to find that line and tie myself up in it. It's been years and I still can't let it go like a crazy ex-girlfriend who won't stop calling her ex. When it comes into my life I like to sit with it in a room with a bottle of wine and indulge it. That's not a healthy relationship. When it's not there, I panic and wonder when I can expect it.

Status Update

By Humans of New York

When you're feeling down, it's so tempting to focus on your sadness: you wonder why you're sad, you hate that you're sad, you wish you weren't sad. It's completely natural to do this. But it's the wrong way to be. No matter how smart you are-- you will never change a bad mood by thinking about it. You will only magnify it.

Instead focus on your behavior. Focus on what you can change. Go outside. Exercise. Quit isolating yourself. Interact with friends and family. Accomplish things. Your mind will reward you with happiness.

It is so tough to change your behavior if you are feeling depressed. But it's the only way. Don't say: "I'll act differently when I feel better."

Act differently, and you will feel better.

Now I see more. I see that this line is just the weather. It is there and we can talk about it and we can tuck into a good book when it's raining and that's ok. We can also go out and help other people and that will probably make you feel better. Me, at least. I realize how I feel after I have a class of students - I help them. It makes me feel giddy. I'm good at a lot of things I didn't know that I was good at before I tried. 

A lot of my life I spent not trying things. I spent it waiting for things to find me, waiting for me to be spontaneously good at something or waiting to find that "thing" that everyone else is looking for… you know the elusive "thing" you're going to have to find if you're ever happy and then do it for the rest of your life. I didn't do a lot of things because I thought I wasn't good enough at them. I didn't travel because I didn't have anyone to go with. I didn't go to Europe because I didn't speak another language. Instead, I expected less from myself and it slowly stopped the funnel of creativity in my life. 

I was never a "one thing" person. As a child I loved change more than challenges. I was not tenacious. I would rather do 7 projects 80% right than 1 project 100% right. Some people may disagree. I am messy. But it's comfortable for me to change and that's just me. It's not "finding yourself" to understand yourself. The reason you start to "find yourself" when you're older is that you do enough stuff in your life to be able to attach patterns to your actions. There's no mysterious brain wave that opens up and gives your answers.

When you're in your 20's you look at your parents. You start to see them as human and you think: that's why I'm like that. You get some background. You start to hear about things your family did. People start to divorce. You see failure and success. When you're 30 you've lived enough to have your own failure and your own success. You've done stuff on your own. Maybe you have a family. Patterns start to emerge and you can see what you're like, how you're coping. This is the stage where you need to take responsibility and accept that you are, in fact, responsible for yourself. 

I used to dance in this crazy way when I was in my early 20's. My friends would be really embarrassed because I'd move my hips too much. It just felt right to me. I took some belly dancing classes and I solidified 3 good moves. Now everyone loves my dancing and says they wish they could dance like me. I still just have 3 moves but I'm learning more.

It took me 10 years and living in another country to realize that the people who were my friends and commenting on my dancing were just scared and didn't know how to dance like everyone else. Remember the hip sway, dancing in a circle, looking at everyone else?

At 30 years old, I'm learning how to dance. I'm not doing it to "find my thing" or to make a career out of it. I'm doing it because it makes me happy. I'm doing it because I realize that I can be tenacious after all, it makes me feel uncomfortable, but that's not a bad thing. There is no good or bad in life, there's just choice. 

#42 On Rome

By the time I got to Rome, living in Italy was wearing on me like a non-Italian pair of shoes. I was tired of working for 4 schools and not guaranteed a time or date of payment. I was sunburned and sick of the humidity. The thought of white bread turned my stomach and all I wanted was a piece of toast with seeds in it.

I knew too much. I knew the difference between someone being nice and someone scamming you. I knew where to cross the street the fastest. I was a line-cutter: guilty.

E10 is a lot of money for an Italian. You can feed your family for a week with vegetables from the market. E10 on a pizza and a beer in Rome was unheard of for me. I felt like this city cheats both my Canadian people and my Italian people at the same time.

I feel like this city is huge and full of tourists. The food, of course, is delicious. If you want to go and eat really good Italian food by all means go to Rome.

But in reality, Rome isn’t Italy. Rome is Las Vegas. Rome is grander than life and all wrapped up in a perfectly organized roads sort of way. You don’t get lost in Rome. People don’t yell in Rome.

People are not Italian in Rome.

All the Romans either work in the service industry or outside Rome, missing their city. That is the real Italy. The heartbreak of living away from the place you were born. They don’t have to move to another country to feel it. When you are forced to move away because of work, your heart is always broke, no matter how positive you stay about it.

A friend of mine moved from Rome to Turin for work. She commutes 4 hours a day to Milan and back. Everyday. She is Roman and accepts her life as it is. She is the most positive person that I know.

By the time I got to Rome I was in the bargaining stage of my break-up with Italy. I loved parts of it so powerfully and yet I saw the negative side. Some things grated on my very last nerve.

So, Rome, for me, has a different perspective. It’s like going to Disneyland after you’ve worked for Disneyland. You know too much.

My dad was always interested in marketing and sponsorships in the corporate world. My little brother was fascinated by the behind-the-scenes work in film and theatre. You can imagine my enjoyment when we went to a movie together and I had my dad on the one side commenting, “PEPSI placement. Look at that, the movie must be sponsored by Mercedes”; on the other side of me, my brother was searching for cut scenes and green screens.

This is what I saw when I was in Rome. Marketing, American culture, and the green screens that are smoke screens to cover up the beauty marks of Italy. Yes, you can have an American breakfast in Rome… this thought disgusted me until I realized that tourists can’t accept espresso. It takes a long time to get used it. It’s not fair to ask that from someone.

So I sit here conflicted because you didn’t come to Rome to pay attention to the green screens and the foreign advertising. You came to Rome to get your picture with the coliseum and use the #WheninRome hashtag. For that, I won’t spoil your ideas. I won’t tell you about the guy in the back pulling the strings.

I’m trying not to spoil it for myself either. The truth is, Rome breaks my heart because it’s the last city on this adventure in Italy and every cobblestone reminds me of that. But let’s stay positive and be appreciative of our experiences. It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

I will, however, share with you that #WheninRome, you’re paying too much money for Pasta that you can get outside the city. Stop buying bottled water, they give it to for free at the fountain.

I'm sorry, I can't. You can read all this crap on someone else's blog. 

My advice: 

In Rome, take advantage of the E2 wine and get drunk in the middle of the afternoon under a big shady tree and write all the poetry that comes to mind. 

Buy a pack of E4 cigarettes and chain smoke them while you're walking down the street. No one will bother you, they will think you're Italian. 

Talk with your hands. 

Glare at strangers. 

Don't go to any restaurants, go to the supermarket deli section and have them make you a sandwich instead. 

Get lost.