Beautifully different

December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

It’s hard for me to say what makes me beautiful or different, because a lot of the time I don’t feel like I’m either.

I’m smart, but so are each and every one of my friends. I am by no means the smartest or even the best educated. So being smart, or good at school, is just normal.

I write, but so do a lot of my closest friends, some much better than I. Writing is something that has brought me closer to so many of my friends, something I share with some of my favourite people.

I read a lot, but where I come from books are like water, essential and constant. All of my friends are readers.

I can tell you a great deal about greek pots and/or Greek mythology. But does that really light people up?

I’d like to say that if there’s anything I do that truly lights people up it’s that I’m very good at being a friend. I will do anything and everything for my friends. I love people without restraint, a fact that quite often gets me hurt. I care so much about my friends, they’re the best part of my life. I hope that they know that and I hope that it makes them feel safe and loved.

But again, I’m not sure if that makes me “beautifully different.” So maybe I should ask you, what makes me different and/or beautiful?

Community

Catching up on reverb10.

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

I have never really been great at joining online communities. I had one, once, that I will forever be deeply connected to. A group of rpgers I met when I was about 12, four of whom (Fae, Kitty, Ali and Lea) are some of my closest friends. That’s the last time I was really in the loop, so to speak, when it came to an online community.

All of my attempts to join communities since then, be it the NaNoWriMo forums, 20 something bloggers or Tumblr have all fallen flat. They’re always already established and I always give up before I find my niche. So instead I become an occasional spectator, or manage to find a few friends from the community and stick with them (like Eleni, Seb and Lisa who I met through 20 something bloggers.)

I am currently in love with a site called Smart Bitches Trashy Books which is a hilarious blog/community about romance novels. So I’ve been trying to comment occasionally, but I guess I just never feel like I fit in.

That being said, I’m quite good at forming communities of friends in person. I always have a close group of friends, it’s always been a really important part of my life.

I like to think that all of my online relationship luck went into meeting Fae, Kitty, Ali and Lea. And that’s fine, because I love them all dearly and I never seem to lack for friends wherever I live.

Can’t go back now

Heather (8:04am): But what if your heart belongs in a myriad of places that still speak your name?

As I watched the sunrise over Castle Keep from the Newcastle train station, I texted with my friend Shaun about the meaning of home. I didn’t want to leave Newcastle all over again, but more and more that week I realized that it didn’t belong to me anymore. It had moved on, but I hadn’t.

This was the cafe where I waited for my train to London the first time, just days after I first arrived in Newcastle. I ordered a lemonade and it turned out to have ginger in it, which I’m allergic to. It was a baffling moment in which I felt extremely foreign. And thirsty. Thursday I felt more capable, travelling alone once again but so accustomed to it by now. Things had come full circle, which meant that it was over.

I think that was the hard part. Being there made me realize that it really was over and I was never going to have it back. Any of it. Newcastle, Europe, school. It was all done. I took a bus that went close to my apartment, about two blocks away, and it hurt to look. My mom asked if I went to see my apartment building, but I couldn’t have. Not ever. That place was home and I loved it so much. And it belongs to someone else now. Newcastle belongs to someone else.

My friends don’t belong to me anymore either. They have lives that go on without me, and all I can hope for is a passing message or a small moment of connection. I was a visitor in a place that I used to call home.

I have lived in many homes in three different countries. And in each one I was hoping to find the place where I belonged. But now it seems like pieces of me belong to each place and no matter where I am I feel displaced.

My trip was a bittersweet whirlwind. I was there just long enough to say my goodbyes all over again. To realize it was over, stamped signed and sealed like the certificate they handed me after I walked across the stage.

Goodbyes

When it comes to goodbye, I think I like the French “au revoir” better. In direct translation, it means “until I see you again.” I love the idea that the French have a word for seeing someone again. Reseeing. I wish we had it in English. Reunion doesn’t quite cut it.

I get tired of saying goodbyes. Why is that you have to say goodbye to one set of people in order to be back with another? Why is it that you have to leave one home to return to another? Why must there always be that trade off - losing something to gain something else?

I think it’s not about the places you go, but the people you meet.

This year has undeniably changed me for the better. But it wasn’t the place so much as the people. Places are only the backdrop for experiences, and experiences are largely dependent on the characters.

I know that distance is a relative thing, and I know that friendship can survive distance. But it’s hard when things change. When you go from seeing someone nearly everyday to maybe once a year. It was hard when I came here, and now it will be hard when I return to Canada. The more places I go, the more homes I have… the more people I have to leave behind.

So I’ll settle with an au revoir to Newcastle and my Newcastle cast of characters, because goodbye is too final and too sad.

My non-negotiable list

I like to make lists.

I often talk about my list of 100 Things to do before I die. I’ve done 29 of them already. It will be 30 by next week. Someone asked me what I was going to do when I finished the whole list. Easy. I’ll write another.

I recently read a post on my friend Courtney’s Tumblr, of an idea she had had and shared with some of her students. I’m not surprised, Court is the person who originally inspired my love of lists. We used to make “10 things to do this year” lists in high school.

But Court’s list is different. This is a non-negotiable list. I suggest you click on the link above to read her reasoning behind it and what she hoped to teach her students. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now. This is mine:

I want to be a mother. I want to have a job that I love at least 60% of the time and which challenges me. I never want to stop seeing the world. I want to have cats, always. I want to save money to pay for my children’s post-secondary education. I want to read all the time and instill a love of reading in children - not only mine but all children. I want to volunteer, even when I’m really busy, for causes that I believe in. I want to be the one who has great dinner parties, and I want to be the one who hosts family holidays. I want to write a book - even if no one but me ever reads it. I want to always make time for my best friends. I want to always be close to my sister. I will not change my last name. I want a true partner in my life, with their own interests and hobbies, who challenges me intellectually. I never want to stop learning new things. Everything else is negotiable.