<3

Predictive text in the T9 on my cell phone seems to tell a lot about my life. When I hit 1 twice, it writes either a happy or a sad face, depending on which I’ve used more recently.

This week, it’s been predicting a <3.

My best friend, Fae, was in a pretty bad car accident on Sunday night with her boyfriend, and they both had to have major surgery. She’s been in the hospital since.

Being a heartbreaking 862 kilometers away means that all I can do is text her and keep telling her how much I love her. Words are not enough. I feel helpless and useless. She’s miserable and in pain in a hospital bed in Pittsburgh and all I can text her is <3.

Last night, I kept my cell phone clutched in my hand all night so that when she woke up in the hospital, alone and unable to sleep, I could text her back. This morning she was moved to the ICU because they think she might have clots in her lungs and need to do xrays.

I need my girl to be all right.

<3

Things you can’t change

I’ve been working through this post in my head for exactly 4 days, 13 hours, 59 minutes and 15 seconds.

It’s not about resolutions.

I don’t think I believe in resolutions. At least, I don’t believe in them for me. I already have my list of 100 things to do before I die. Sometimes at the beginning of a year I’ll pick a few of those that I think I can accomplish by the end of the year. When I was in high school and university, I would usually write a little list of about 5 things I wanted to do over the summer. They were always achievable things. The summer I was 14 I taught myself to shuffle. The summer I was 17 I taught myself to French braid my hair. The summer I was 21 I taught myself to sit up straight. But I do horribly with concepts that you can’t measure. Things that I can’t definitively cross off a list. And, honestly, if I make a list that I can’t finish it drives me crazy.

Okay, I lied, it’s about resolutions.

But I don’t have any. Not really. It’s more like I’ve come up with a philosophy.

If you’re reading my blog then you already know that these past four months have been some of the hardest of my life. There are a lot of things outside of my control that I have been working against, to change. And I’ve had a few conversations with Fae and Kaitlyn recently about what type of things I should accept in life and which things I should work to change.

Because life sucks. But I’m stronger than that, right?

There are things in my life that suck. Things that I can’t change. Things that require patience and courage and perseverance.

What I can change is how they effect me. What I can change is how I see my circumstances. What I can change is what I make of my life.

And the true task isn’t being happy when everything’s great, it’s finding a way to be happy when everything isn’t.

I’ve already started to make some changes in my life this year. Little things that I can change. And hopefully I’ll slowly work up to the big things and I’ll spend 2011 learning how to be happy when things aren’t exactly as I might wish them to be.

And this girl? I’ve proof that she still exists.

Countdown

Soon it will be 2011. I’ll be sipping wine or champagne in my new shirt, bought with borrowed money especially for the occasion. With my new hair cut, the one that bankrupted me and left me with $7 in my bank account. But you can bet I’ll look good in the Facebook album. You can bet that when I look back in years I won’t remember how on edge I was, that I’ll only see the hair cut and the sparkly shirt and think that everything’s okay. I’ll be hoping that others think that too, and that I don’t drink so much wine that I can’t keep up the mask.

And I’ll be wishing, you can bet on it, at 11:59:59, for something to happen.

Wishing that maybe next year I’ll have more than $7.

Wishing that maybe next year I’ll have someone to kiss at midnight.

Wishing that maybe next year I’ll be stumbling home to my own apartment downtown.

I’ll make this list in my head, in desired order, of what I’d like the universe to bring me next year. And I’ll send it out there. I’ll bargain with life and luck for what I want, make promises to be better or nicer or appreciate things for, if only the universe’ll let me have them.

Not even all, but at least one, okay?

New Name

So, I fell behind on Reverb10, and I honestly don’t have much intention of catching up on most of them, but this one caught my eye:

December 23 – New Name Let’s meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?

I’m not going to address the prompt, per se, but the subject of having a new name. I love having so many different things people call me by, be it nicknames or endearments. My mom’s always called me Bunny, I’m known as Hez to lots of people and Hezza or Dud to a few. I’m even “wife” to someone, though our marriage is only Facebook official.

This year I got a new nickname: Heather Mae.

Heather Mae is my honorary Southern name. I met a lot of Southern Americans this year (well, more than I’d met before and more than I expected to meet in England!), but this name was bestowed on me by my hilarious friend Alycia.

Alycia Jo (not actually her name, but her Southern name as well) is from Georgia. When she and I are together, we’re sort of like a whirlwind. We never stop talking and laughing. I have so much fun with her. We spent a lot of time together in the second semester, because we were taking all the same classes. We spent even more time together in August, ranting about our dissertations and going out to dinner to make sure we fed ourselves at least once a day.

One particular weekend we did a high ropes course in the Lake District, with our friends J Lo and Becky Sue (also her Southern name… J Lo can’t have a Southern name because she’s Jenny from the Block). We also spent the entire night watching Disney movies. In my mind, that night sums up my friendship with Alycia. We laughed so hard it hurt and it was the best break I could imagine from writing a dissertation.

When I went back to Newcastle for my graduation, I spent most of my week with Alycia and her mom. They were nice enough to let me sleep on their floor for the duration, and it was so great to see Alycia again. It was like we’d never left, I think our conversation pretty much picked off where August 26th had left off.

When I think of Alycia, I think of laughter and having fun and taking silly pictures. Also, of Mulan. Because even though she won’t do it in front of people anymore, we do a great duet to I’ll Make a Man Out of You from Mulan.

Alycia gave me one of my favourite Christmas presents this year:

What if

Startled awake to the faint hum of the fan: no such thing as silence, now. The cat snores, a plane flies overhead. The house settles around me.

I remember the sound of silence, pressing from all sides, deep in the night. I remember the blue lit street below, the cool window beneath my fingers.

What if?

That’s the phrase that woke me.

Light plays on my walls, sneaking through slits in the blinds as cars pass by, as neighbours turn on porch lights. Outside the streets are snow quiet, holding their breath.

What if?

The bed creaks as I shift, uncomfortable, to avoid the question. Will myself back to sleep. Sleep.

I remember the sound of silence.

If digital photographs could fade with use, could bend at the edges or show my fingerprints, they would be falling to pieces. If holes could be born in treads of your thoughts, along oft revisited moments and favourite memories, mine would be worn through. When all that’s left is ghosts and memories, when I’m haunted by questions and possibilities, it is the longest night.

What if?

Sleep is impossible now, the question too insistent, pounding through my head and echoing in my spine. Drowning out the sounds around me with it’s incessant demand for an answer. I remember the silence.

I climbed up a mountain, and looked off the edge
At all of the lives that I never have led
There’s one where I stayed with you, across the sea
I wonder do you still think of me?