Category: life

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?

categories life, new year's | Hezabelle December 30, 2010 | comments Comments (7)

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?

categories life | Hezabelle December 22, 2010 | comments Comments (1)

Fast forward

You know how you get to that point in the book where everything seems wrong, and you’re just waiting for everything to work itself out? You keep reading all night because you have to make sure it ends up okay. That’s where my life is right now, but I can’t speed up to the next page or glance at the ending. I just have to wait.

And I’m not good at waiting.

I have nothing good to say about my life anymore. I keep trying to put a positive spin on it, for myself and for the rest of the world. But I’m failing miserably. A few people have already seen behind the careful mask. Others will inevitably see it crack soon.

There are good things in my life, but they’re increasingly lost in the endless nothing of my life. Even when something good happens, it’s small and fleeting. I try to hold on to it, but the truth is that I can’t connect to it the way I used to. I’m deaf and mute, outside and in the corner.

I wake up every morning wanting just to go back to bed, to wait out the 12 hours until I can sleep (if I can sleep) again and live in my head. Days, weeks, months go by without anything tangible. At the end of the day I think that it shouldn’t have existed. That it was wasted. That I was merely breathing, functioning from one moon to the next.

Can I just fast forward to the part where I find some meaning? I’m not asking for anything life changing. Even a crappy job would do now. I just need something. Anything. Because right now, there’s nothing.

categories dreams, life | Hezabelle December 18, 2010 | comments Comments (6)

Try

December 18 – Try What do you want to try next year? Is there something you wanted to try in 2010? What happened when you did / didn’t go for it?

When it comes down to it, I think all anyone can ever do is try.

Really, we have very little control over our lives and all we can do is try to handle what comes at us. Try to succeed. Try to make the best of it. Try to keep going. Try to get through it. Try to enjoy it. Try to find joy in it. Try.

Life is about trying, about effort and not, necessarily, success.

So, in 2011, I will just… keep trying.

categories life, reverb10 | Hezabelle | comments Comments (0)

Friendship

December 16 – Friendship. How has a friend changed you or your perspective on the world this year? Was this change gradual, or a sudden burst?

I’m going to start sounding like a broken record here. My friends are pretty amazing, and all for different reasons.

I don’t like people much in general, so the ones I eventually choose as friends tend to be quite awesome.

It’s a hard question because all of my friends have changed me and are constantly changing me. But since this is supposed to be about this year specifically, I’m going to dedicate it to one of my newest friends.

I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us must to grow, if we let them and we help them in return.

Chandra is the most optimistic, enthusiastic person I’ve ever met. Her love of life is contagious, and it was exactly what I needed this year to learn how to love life myself.

Chandra and I at the Parthenon

She taught me so many things: to bounce, to run, to eat dessert. Her infallible belief in me, her constant belief that I was a great person, let me believe in myself for the first time in a long time.

I believe that we meet people in our lives at the time that we need them most. And I needed Chandra this year, so that I could see everything as a good story. Every misadventure as an adventure.

Chandra and I made a pact to spend our year seeing new things and new places. We used to go somewhere new every weekend, whether it was somewhere nearby or a whole new city. Because of this we saw so much and learned so much, together. She was my partner in crime and we were, quite literally, joined at the head for the year.

Chandra and I in London

I love Chandra most for her hugs and smiles and her ability to turn almost anything into a positive. I love her for giving life to the optimist in me.

Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

Chandra and I in Delphi

categories Chandra, friendship, life, reverb10 | Hezabelle December 16, 2010 | comments Comments (2)