Relax

After giving yesterday's post some further thought, and getting some feedback on it, one thing became painfully clear. I get caught up in what's going on in my head, working out every possible outcome for every situation and forgetting that a vital part of life is remembering to act. Part of life is letting go of all the thoughts spinning around in my head, taking action and letting the chips fall where they may.

I showed my blog to E yesterday for the first time and picked a few specific entries for her to read. We talked a fair bit about some of the stuff I had written and she said something I found interesting. She said that I was more articulate in my writing than I am in person. That she had expected me to be as scattered when I write as I can be in person, and that she was surprised to find that it wasn't the case.

Most of what I write is knocked out on my laptop, usually with no revisions, and submitted to the blog within about 30 minutes of when I start writing. I usually just hit the spell check button and then the post button, and call it done.

As she continued reading the blog, there was a moment where she asked me a question about it, and I absolutely panicked. I physically panicked. There was a full on fight or flight response. It took me a while to explain it to her, and in hindsight I did a fairly poor job of it initially. I tried to explain that I felt challenged on the content, and I didn't like it, but that really wasn't the issue.

When I got home, I gave it some more thought and really I think it comes down to another issue. I second guessed myself.

She wasn't challenging me. She wasn't asking me to justify anything I said. She wasn't attacking me or asking me to make myself smaller to fit into what she expected of me. All she was doing was asking me to clarify and expand on something I had said, and I had a knee-jerk reaction to her being in my space.

I put all of myself on here. I am more honest with myself here than I have been able to be anywhere else. I write to work a lot of things out, because in this space I can make decisions. In this space there is no room for second guessing, and instinct and congruence with who I really am override all else. In this space, you take me as I am or you get the heck out of my space.

It wasn't that I didn't want her there, because I had invited her in. An invitation to read my blog is equivalent to me laying a welcome mat out at the entrance to my brain.

I wanted her here, but her being showing up, reading and having this information and this honesty from me makes me feel really vulnerable. It's scary.

She can read me pretty well, and I'm not used to that. I'm not used to someone wanting to know what I'm really thinking and feeling, and not just as a casual observer. I am putting a lot of faith and trust in her, and it means I have to trust my instincts, that she is a safe sounding board. Putting this faith in her means that I need to put faith in myself. It means that I need to trust, be honest, and most of all, it means that I need to accept that it is safe for me to relax.

Breath

As it turns out, this foray into dating women isn't as easy and straightforward as I had hoped. I expected that it would be an easy transition because of my past. I thought it would go off without a hitch. The universe, however, has conspired against me and proven to me yet again, that I shouldn't walk through life with expectations.

I always seem to get caught up somewhere between what I want, and how to get there. Right now, in this moment, I want to date women. I have no interest in dating guys. 


What I'm struggling with is the fact that I feel like I need to learn a whole new set of rules, because I never really dated other girls. 

Actually, to be fair, I never really dated at all. I had a few good guy friends over the years that I was basically friends with benefits with, and the more I give it any sort of thought, the more I realize that there was no real connection with them on a relationship level. We were basically scratching an itch. The truth is, I have no idea how to date whether it is men or women. 

I'm left with all of these things that I wonder, and no real answers. I have been trying to express where I'm at, and have started four or five blog entries, but nothing is coming out coherant or cohesive right now. All I've got is a thousand questions in my head. I've come to a place where all I can do is express the questions and let them breath a little. 

I wonder whether what I'm actually having a hard time with is the fact that I want to have more with a girl then I've ever really wanted with a guy.


I wonder whether much of my past can be explained by the fact that I always liked girls, and never really explored that beyond occasionally sleeping with them. 


I wonder whether blaming my history and track record with guys on the fact that I should have been with women all along is a cop out.


I wonder whether that matters.


I wonder what kind of girls I like.


I wonder whether my family will really be as okay with all of this as I think they will, or whether it's wishful thinking on my part. 


I wonder why people blame my interest in women on the fact that I've had some very violent and negative experience with men in the past few years. This one upsets and frustrates me to no end.

I wonder why anyone who has known me since high school has a very "Yup, that makes sense." response, and anyone who has known me just within the last four or five years has a "Wait, wait... what? Didn't see that coming!" response. 

I wonder if I am really too old to be figuring this all out. 

I wonder why I feel like everyone will assume it is a phase, regardless of the fact that they don't seem to.

I wonder why I get so nervous going to the Village, and why it is so comfortable all at the same time.  


I wonder if all the insecurity that is coming to the surface right now has always been there, and whether addressing it and how I see myself will have as big of an impact on my life as everyone expects.


I wonder why I don't see myself the way other people see me, no matter how many times they tell me that my perception of myself is in-congruent with who and how I actually am.


I wonder how I will fit in the community, and if I will find my place in it as quickly as I'm told I will, or as slowly as I expect that I will.

I wonder why it's only taken about three weeks for my anxiety about going into the Village to go from an 11, all the way down to a 3.


I wonder whether the girl at the bar last night saw me too.


I wonder if I will be accepted because I'm discovering that I'm super girly.

I wonder whether my family already knows, and is just waiting for me to spit it out.

I wonder whether I'm bi or just straight up gay.  

I wonder why this feels like home, in a way that I can't even express.

I wonder if all of the change in my life in one moment is a good thing, and whether I'm strong enough.


I wonder why I always seem to have so many questions.


I wonder why I'm the kind of girl that needs to process.


I wonder whether what I write off as processing, is really just me making myself smaller, more socially acceptable, having my opinion conform to what people expect, and reconciling myself to being that person.

I wonder whether I should make a conscious effort to stop taking all this time to process, and start just living it and figuring it out as I go.


I wonder why I didn't figure this out before.

Spring Cleaning

Very few of you will ever see my apartment.
I am usually hesitant to let even good friends into my place unannounced and will cancel plans if I can’t get organized in time because my apartment is usually a mess. I am terrified by someone seeing the mess my house is in, and I’ve recently realized that my apartment is a reflection of my mental state.

Right now, my apartment is a total mess.

I don’t actually dislike cleaning, contrary to popular belief. I find it rather relaxing when I’m good and ready to do it, but I usually have to get into the right head space to work on it.

I tend to leave it until I have no further options, or when it affords me the opportunity to procrastinate on something that I enjoy less than cleaning. If my apartment is a reflection of my mentality, does anyone else see an issue?

There are times when my apartment is so bad that you’re not getting through the front door, even if you have a fire hose, and my kitchen is ablaze. This is generally a pretty good indicator of the fact that I’m trying to avoid dealing with something, and sometimes it can take a pretty long time for me to be prepared to deal with whatever it is, but I am more than willing to let you believe that this is because I’ve been working too much to take any sort of care of my place, but usually that’s a boldfaced lie.

It has a lot more to do with the fact that mentally I’m a mess. It means that I’m trying to work things out in my head, and either I’m under a fair bit of pressure, stressed, or otherwise trying to cope, and all my energy is tied up in that.

For the record, I hate it when my apartment is like this. It stresses me out more than most people could ever understand; only further compounding whatever stress I’m under until I have only two choices, of either shutting down completely, or bucking up and dealing with it.

Right now, I’m in the process of attempting to do some work on the apartment, and give it a look. I want to get it organized and actually decorated enough to look like a grown up apartment. It would be nice to have a place that actually looks like I’m not a college student.

This, of course, means that I have a lot of cleaning to do, but it’s the kind that lands you on your hands and knees for the better part of a day to make any sort of progress. This also means that it is the kind of cleaning that makes the mess worse, much worse, before it gets better and the scary part about the process is that it comes with addressing a lot of underlying stuff.

Here’s to spring cleaning!

Life happens in its own time, and there is no convincing it otherwise.

I've not written in a while because I've been trying to process somethings, but since I'm failing so epically, I figure I'll just try to process publicly and see what happens.

I'm dating a girl.

Anyone who has known me for any lenght of time seems to be unsurprised by this.
It's freaking me out.

Apparently everyone around me knew way before I did that eventually I'd date a girl. I make no bones about the fact that I have a history with women, but I have never dated a girl.

In fact, I generally identify as straight. I like men, and have always considered women a side dish.  You may think that was just a stepping stone, or a ploy for the attention of men, however it was always great fun at the time, just not something that I expected to want full time.

We had been fantastic friends for about six months, and had a whole world of things in common. Suddenly, the "just friends" thing isn't working out.

She admits that she dated women in college, and I admit that I've had a few sexual relationships with women, but that's where it has ended. We continue for a few weeks more, and it gets more and more complicated. We're both acting awkward.

Finally, I invite her out for drinks for the gold medal women's hockey game, and we end the night sitting in a Starbucks having "the talk."  We decide to give it a go. We are both honest about our boundaries. Her family situation is an issue for her. The fact that I have always dated men, and don't think that I'll suddenly cease to be attracted to them is an issue for me, as is the fact that I don't do well in relationships. We think we can live with each other's issues.

So, I suddenly find myself in a relationship with a girl who's mom is totally non-supportive of the fact that she's gay. They live together. It's a little intense, but we're avoiding the issue and that's fine. We both work way too much and don't see a lot of each other, but things are good. I continue to struggle with this whole "transition" that I don't see as a transition, but like I said, things are good.

I haven't talked to my family about all of this yet because it's all so new, but I'm really lucky to have a family that has supported me through bigger and harder things, that is fairly liberal and who I'm confident will be quite okay with having a daughter who dates girls.

In fact, the person having the hardest time with all of this is me, which I suppose is logical. I mean, the person who I have identified as since the start of high school pretty much got turned on her head about a month ago, and tossed into a monogamous relationship. I struggle with relationships at the best of times.

I also have a huge problem with the fact that more than one person has tried to apply psychology to who I have been over the past 10 years, saying that I would only relate to men the way I have based on the fact that I was a huge closet case. I have had a few more friends say that this is to be expected after years of the experiences with men that I have had, and to almost blame this on the fact that I've been raped.

The thing is, I'm not broken. I really don't need you to justify this, to tell me why it happened, or to explain away either my past or present, with the other. I like who I like, and I don't know that it needs an explanation by you, psychology or even by me.


I talk to a few people at work about it, and all of a sudden there is this whole mini-community that I'm welcomed into with open arms. It's a little overwhelming because my expectations are sort of thrown out the window by those around me. No one expects me to be ready to jump into life in the gay-bourhood with both feet, and besides a casual invitation to PRIDE, and the suggestion to go out and meet a few people at some point, there's not any pressure.

So, I'm sort of working out this whole identity and trying to process that everything that is going on. I'm trying not to over-analyze everything (failing) and just roll with it for a while, but it is challenging. I'm struggling with it. I suppose that it is to be expected, because life isn't a sitcom where you just kiss a girl one day and suddenly your entire future is decided. I guess I'll just have to get used to that.

You've got to love it when life catches you unaware.

Just a quick check in...

So, I've been swamped. I haven't had time to write in a while and I thought I'd drop in for a quick update.

I've registered for the CN Tower Climb for WWF-Canada. 144 flights of stairs. I'm training like a woman.

I've been doing a whole bunch of working out and have set up some challenges for myself, including several events this summer.  For the WWF CN Tower climb, it's a obviously a fundraiser for World Wildlife Foundation, and a great physical challenge. You should sponsor me!

Click here to sponsor me!

I'm trying to raise $150, which is 2x the minimum fundraising goal. If all of my readers gave up one Starbucks coffee, and sponsored me for $5, I'd blow that goal out of the water.





I've also signed up to do the Becel Ride for Heart in Toronto. It's 50km on the DVP, and it's in early June. I'm going to have a lot of work to do to get ready for this, and I'm still working on coming up with a plan. I'm really excited about it though. I'm considering starting out with a 25km bike ride, called Ride for the Rouge. It's a fundraiser for the Rouge Valley Conservation Centre. I know that they're all fundraisers, and that's a little frustrating, but it's the easiest way to find great events that I've found so far.

I'm going to try to find some events to sign up for towards the end of the summer, and really try to get set up to do the Half Moon in August adventure race in Alberta, and maybe RacetherockstAR in Muskoka in July.

And now that I'm looking at that schedule... this is crazy. I'm so excited.

Anyone up for the challenge?

Family dynamics and a matriarchal family

You're going to have to forgive me for my philosophical musings today. I woke up this morning and did yoga and it always puts me in a reflective state of mind.

I come from a family that I always considered to have a patriarchal structure while I was growing up, I had a great grandfather who everyone looked up to and went to for guidance. We all had and have a great deal of respect for him, and considered him to have set the bar to which we all should rise. 

Time passed, and he got very ill with Parkinson’s. Let me be the first to say that Parkinson’s is a dreadful disease, because it claims the body long before it takes the mind. It is a hard thing to watch, especially in a man who we all head in such high esteem. A little over five years ago, he passed away and suddenly Nana and Grumpy became just Nana. 

There have been a lot of things that have happened in the family that I'm grateful that he wasn't here to see, but there are also things that I think would have made him proud. I think he would have been pleased to see the women of my family suddenly rise to the occasion and take the reins of the family. I don't think he foresaw it, but I think it would have made him every bit as proud of us as we always were of him. 

A great example of this is my mom. I always had a lot of respect for her, even if we didn't see eye to eye when I was growing up. It took us a lot of years to find our common ground, and mostly it involved a whole lot of me realizing just how much alike we are. When I was younger, people would say to me "you certainly are your mother's daughter" and I would be absolutely gobsmacked. I would protest, and say that I wasn't the home making, housekeeping, two kids and a farm kind of girl.  Boy oh boy, was I ever wrong. 

She and I coming to common ground also involved a fair amount of her acknowledging that I am bound and determined to do just about everything the hard way, and that I need to learn my own lessons, and see the world through my own eyes. It's how I learn. It isn't a choice. Things got a lot better for her and I around the time that she realized that telling me something was hot wasn't going to be nearly as effective as just letting me touch it. 

Now that I'm a little older and have more perspective on the situation, I also see how much leadership she takes with our family. She is the first to make sure that my grandparents get everything they need, and provides a level headed sounding board for them on a fairly broad spectrum of issues, as she does for her sisters and children. I also see how much our relationship has impacted how she interacts with other members of our family. As it turns out, I'm not the only one who needs to make their own mistakes. As I watch her in her role with other family members, I see her let them fall every now and again, when she sees that it will be a more effective lesson. I don't know whether she does it consciously, or whether it has become part of her instinct, but it amazes me. Sometimes it takes so much more strength to let someone make mistakes than it does to try to protect them from everything. 

I am starting to see more and more how very like her I am. I really am my mother’s daughter, no matter how big of shoes I have to fill. I see the world from a similar perspective. I live a very different life than she does, but the older I get, the more I aspire to have the same kind of respect from the people around me, and to have a similar kind of life. While I don’t want to work the same job, and I hope to get there my own way, I hope that I can be as happy.

It is astounding to me that in the transition from patriarchal to matriarchal; suddenly my mother stepped up to the helm. It was unexpected, at least to me, but I feel truly blessed to have such a fantastic role model and mother.  I really believe that Grumpy would have been just as proud as we all are.

Apartment hunting and the reasons for it...

That's it. I've officially had it. My fire alarm has been going off at ungodly hours, my building manager is never available, and my rent is the next best thing to astronomical. $1000 a month doesn't sound so bad, but considering the amount that I'm actually home, I could quite easily adapt to something a little less expensive.

I'm attempting to find something new for May 1st or sooner.  While I know that I'm starting to work on this a little early, I need some time to get my head around the transition and what steps I need to take in order to have a move that goes off a little bit easier than the ones in the past. 

I'm also trying to make some decisions on what I'm looking for, and where because I know more more about the city than I did when I first moved into the GTA.  

My requirements are relatively simple:

1 bedroom
TTC Access very nearby, preferably within 10 minutes of a subway station
Pet friendly
<$700 a month


Now, you're all laughing at the  <$700 a month, I'm sure. Let me explain my theory on this one. I'm sure that we all realize that for less than $700 I'm going to end up in a basement apartment, and I'm fine with that. I want to live in something a little more affordable for a year, pay off all my debt and put away enough money for a down payment.  I want to buy a house, or at the very least be well on my way to it this time next year.  


Basically, the new year came around and I realized that I've been living a life of total chaos for the past five plus years, especially financially, and despite my economic klutzyness, I seem to have finally started to come out of the mess. I feel like I'm in a position where I can fix a lot of what has been so very wrong with my finances within about a year if I make a concerted effort, and some relativly minor changes, including moving to a place that I can more easily afford. I don't want to live somewhere where an entire bi-weekly pay deposit is eaten up by paying rent. It's not a comfortable position to be in, and so I'm looking to do something about it.



So, if you know of anything... you know where to find the comment button; right?