I have struggled with my weight for as long as I can remember.

And by struggle, I mean I have spent my life running (usually red-faced and sweaty) in an attempt to catch up to the image I have for myself. But the truth is, this image did not come from deep within myself. I wish I had realized this years ago, when I was in my teens and trying to stay afloat amidst anxiety attacks, the deepest, darkest hours of depression, and the endless hours of asking “When will I be skinny? When will I be BEAUTIFUL?!” Instead, I spent a great deal of time dedicated to trying to be the “best me” that I could be, while letting everyone else decide who this “me” should be (Apologies for all the rhyming).

This ideal image, of body weight, proportion, complexion (you NAME it), came from years of looking in the wrong direction, and listening to the wrong people. I realize this now, in my twenty-fifth year on this planet, and feel little relief. While this revelation means I can start to begin looking elsewhere, and listening to myself, I still feel utterly lost.

I truly need to rediscover (or perhaps redefine), all over again, what beauty is.

This word we put so much weight on, one that we write poetry about, and some dedicate their lives trying to create, capture, or simply taste.

A coworker/friend of mine had approached me early last week and remarked on how I had stopped working out, because…he decided this was imperative to know…he could tell. Knowing exactly the kind of person he is, I realized immediately that I should not take offense or get upset, but see this as a kind of caring on his behalf. I should see it as more of a “Hey, time to continue on your journey of weight loss!”, and less of a “Hey, time to stop being so fat and disgusting!” But honestly, I am not strong-willed enough to be able to stop that second feeling from drudging in and just devouring the first. After trying to laugh it off and insisting I was trying, I walked away feeling utterly defeated.

But then something happened.

For the first time in my entire life when someone commented on my weight, instead of feeling defeated and disgusting, I felt angry. I was angry that this person could not see beyond my chubby cheeks, my large chest, and my size 14 dress. I was angry that the first thing this person saw when they looked at me, was what I had to fix, instead of what I had that was already so intact and beautiful. I was angry that I had spent the past twenty five years of my life letting other people’s words and actions towards my size make me cower, cry, or conceal myself.

I am here to say that I have in no way figured out how to solve these problems. I am here to say I am still working toward being a better me, a me that is happy and healthy and still understands that my size ten feet and size fourteen dress may or may not fit into that equation. I am here to say that epiphanies are amazing, and life is amazing, and I am so sorry if anyone has ever made you feel like less of a person because of how you look or the kind of clothing you wear. I am here to say that when you look at me, or anyone for that matter, please be aware of all their pieces and parts.

(To be continued)

In high school, and throughout the first half of university, I never stopped writing.

I would write poems, stories, journals; and send them out into the universe. If you asked me at the time, I perhaps would have played coy. But I can honestly say, I wanted more than anything at the time for people to discover them. I felt like I had been writing forever to try and get these feelings out. An attempt to try and tell the people I wanted to talk to the things I wanted them to know.

Music blaring, I would plug away noisily night after night. Waiting for the right person, to find the poem, story, or journal that I had written for them. To tell them that I was sorry for that time I fucked up. To tell them that I was still around, in case they were wondering. To tell them…this is me. I am right here. Please, come find me. Now.

I never truly saw this as a sign of loneliness or desperation, but merely an attempt to reconnect with people I had lost. People I still cared for a great deal, but had lost for whatever reason. I know I have always had an exceptionally hard time comprehending how we are supposed to meet people, get to know them, and utterly fall in love with so many parts of them (romantically or otherwise) and then simply…let go. Why would I ever want to let go of someone that I had grown so close to? Even if we were bad for each other, even if things just didn’t work out, even if we just drifted apart as time went on. They are a living, breathing, person. The idea of letting go of them has always seemed ridiculous.

Perhaps this notion is exactly why I struggle so frequently with thoughts of the past. Biking to work, marking papers, falling asleep. When suddenly I am reminded of them. Not just one person, but a mixture of pieces of them. Pieces of everyone, here and there.

G’s shaggy hair, brilliant smile, loving embrace.

A’s leather coat, watchful glances, beautiful guitar playing.

M’s blue eyes, playful laugh, wrestling escapades.

All of these, beautiful and sometimes sad things, start to weigh me down. As if I am trying to swim but my feet keep getting stuck along the bottom, drudging up all of this mud. My head starts to spin, and I feel like I could lay down with these thoughts and sleep forever.

I have heard of so many mantras, about living in the present and focusing on the now. What it must be like, to maintain a focus on the present day for longer than a few moments at a time. I realize this is symptomatic of my depression, and my anxiety. But I like to believe that there is some positive part of this all. That I am just a person who struggles to let go of others, of their memories or the thoughts of their presence, because it kills me so.

But on the other hand, at what point do I stop dragging myself down? At what point do I finally decide that these crates are important, but not important enough to let the whole damn ship sink.

 

 

 

The problem with cycles is that they are hard to break.

Think about stopping your washer mid-cycle, to throw in an extra pair of socks. Welp, depending on how contrary your washing machine is, it can just cause the poor thing to go off the handles.

Depression is a cycle, or at least for most. You have the time of your life. You wake up early, you work your butt off all day, you manage to squeeze in a run, and then make the most amazing supper for you and your significant other (who is even more amazing). Then you lay down for the night, knowing everything has been taken care of, tended to, and now you can rest your head to prepare for another amazing day.

Until it hits you. The thing is…it can sometimes take you a long time to figure out what “it” is. Is it food poisoning, is it exhaustion, or are you just anxious for the next day to begin? You start to think, and then pretty soon you’re laying awake at night unable to sleep because…well who knows?

After battling depression for years as a teenager, I had convinced myself I had mastered the art of fighting back, and had eventually kicked it to the curb like a bad habit. Unfortunately, it kept creeping back in. I began looking for every open window and door, trying to figure out exactly how it had managed to crawl it’s way back into my life. After many failed attempts, I became frustrated, wondering if I was just “meant to be” this way. Perhaps I was always depressed, but at times SO depressed, that I never even realized that I was depressed (as you can probably already see, the cycle is a vicious one to begin with).

Then, before you even realize that this creature, or entity of some kind, has taken hold of you, you’re piggy-backing it around town. You bring it to work, to the doctor, the grocery store, heck – you even bring it out dancing with the girls. Over time, you start to feel exhausted, irritable, and overall lousy. Sometimes, you are able to take a stand and say that you have had enough. You shake it off (in this case, some Florence and the Machine can sometimes help), and manage to escape its grasps for a while longer, even if it continues to stalk around you, just a pace behind you. But sometimes, you aren’t able to get away.

Sometimes you run until you are so exhausted that you finally just lay on the ground and give in. This can lead to you feeling completely, utterly, and totally stuck. When this happens, I tend to feel a whole lot of nothing, and then small spurts of a lot of everything. Sounds healthy, right?

And then you start to ask yourself, “Am I just making excuses?” “Why am I making excuses…when I could be doing work, heading out for a jog, making supper, etc…”

To be continued… (being a teacher is busy work!)

Zooming through the Japanese countryside my phone’s music player shuffles to an  Our Lady Peace song, “Innocent.”

“I remember all the feelings and the day they stopped.”

This line had resonated with me the most in the early 2000’s when I was having a hard time being okay with who I was, who I thought I would become and everything in between.

I turned 24 this last August, and I think there are a few things I would like to say to 16 year old me.

First of all, those feelings will never stop completely.
I know hearing that sounds depressing and defeating, but trust me when I say that it happens to be part of the beauty of life. Remember that thing mom said about your experiences making you who you are, let’s just say she was right (again).

Growing up you’ve felt trapped, attacked, and often times beaten down by the things you think and feel. There were and are going to be mornings, nights and sometimes entire days(even weeks) when you can’t get out of bed. There will be days when you lie to stay home from school, days you hide in bathroom stalls, days you think that there is no way in the entire world you can pick yourself up off the floor and stop crying long enough to make it to the bed. There will be days when you can’t see beyond how empty life makes you feel.

Those times when you cried, screamed and said horrible things to the people who love you the most, or those times you hurt yourself (mentally and physically) because you felt like there was something terribly wrong with you and no one could help you figure out what it was or what it was doing to you. And that has got to be the most frustrating thing ever (because it still is at times.)

For a while you are going to feel sick. Not always sick in the nauseated sense, but in a way that makes you feel like there is a parasite living in your brain, in your heart and your lungs. One that steals your memories, eats away at your desire to live and cuts your breath short time and time again when you feel like you are drowning and all you really need is time to breathe.

It is going to take you days, months and even years (don’t worry, you’ve got time), to begin to figure out what it really is. Even though you’ve been diagnosed with clinical depression, it doesn’t mean anything to you. Because everyone says that being depressed is normal, it’s something everyone goes through and you just have to grin and bare it.

Well let me say this, you don’t ever have to grin and bare something that makes you wish away your life. You don’t ever have to feel like everyone experiences this so it’s normal and you can’t complain and try to get help because someone, somewhere else in the world, always has it worse.

Fuck that.

You’ll realize that what you’re experiencing is not normal. It’s scary and horrific and sometimes people aren’t able to fight back, they aren’t able to pick themselves back up and keep going, because depression isn’t just something that people have. Depression isn’t the common cold of mental illnesses. When people try to force you to sit and behave, you tell them that depression can be a god damn life sentence. It can tear your life apart and make you into someone you no longer recognize. It has taken too many amazing people from this world (earlier than they should have ever left us), and making it seem like the person had a choice in the matter is unacceptable. They did not take their own life, it was taken from them.

So you stand tall and keep your chin up. You experience those days, you have those feelings, you can cry, scream and sometimes even think that it is all too much and carrying on isn’t even possible.

Remember that what you’re experiencing isn’t normal or acceptable because you’re unwell. You have to push harder and fight longer to just be okay sometimes. Those feelings will never fully disappear. They still creep and crawl in the dead of night, or appear suddenly when you’re on a sunny beach with close friends. Even though you feel burdened and isolated by a diagnosis that seems to do more harm than help, remember that you never have to be ashamed of things beyond your control.

Just remember, you made it. You make it each and every single day when you get up and put your socks on. When you wake up and aren’t able to drag yourself to work, or finish that paper due in a few hours, remember to take a deep breath and realize that you are fighting back against a disease that attempts to destroy every part of your beautiful, brilliant mind. Yet you are still able to wake every morning, regardless of how far you make it from your bed, and constantly fight back against those thoughts and desires to just give up.

I won’t tell you that you aren’t alone in this pursuit, because depression tends to stick you alone in your own dark corner while you blindly wander, hoping that you’ll find your way out of this maze. I won’t tell you that everything will be okay, because sometimes it is going to be dreadful. Things are going to happen that make you question everything, that make your inner being so deeply saddened that there are no words to express how you feel.

But I ensure you that it is all going to be worth it. It will be an uphill journey with the best freaking view ever, because you’ll never stop fighting and moving. It doesn’t matter if you have to stop and catch your breath from time to time, but depression will not be your beginning or your end. It does not get to decide anything anymore (and if it does, you can always change your mind.)

“One day you’ll have to let it go. One day you’ll stand up on your own.”

I’ve been home for a few weeks now, but I can feel it creeping up on me. Soon it’ll be full blown and out of control. This desire to get up and go, to see new things, meet new people, and eat amazing new foods. This wanderlust.

Northern Alberta was truly amazing. It was an experience of a life time, and I was able to shake myself up and get moving once again. We all fear being stationary for too long, as if we’ll seize up like Dorothy’s Tin Man. The truth is, we’ll be just fine. As long as we continue to move forward, take steps, however small they may be.

When my father died I feared I had lost the desire to wander anywhere. After completing my Bachelors degree I came to a screeching halt. He passed away days after I had completed my final exams, and it seemed to cause my mind, body and soul to simply say, “This…this is enough.” So I worked at a call center and floated through both Autumn and Winter of that year, none the wiser.

When Spring approached, it was as if something snapped. I glanced back at the previous months and was shocked to realize I forgot to be present, in my own life! I decided instead of feeling sorry for myself, I would do something about it. I completed my TESL, drove across the country with some friends, and gave myself a proper slap across the face. So often are we driving down the highway that is life and realize, “Damn…I think I left me at a rest stop some 50km back.”

We never go back, we never turn around and decide, “Hey, that rest stop was actually pretty swell. I think I’ll stay there for a few months longer.” When we do we risk toppling over entirely. But if it so happens, as it has to me, that you rest for a bit too long, or end up toppled over, we can start again.

I’m on the verge of completing my teaching degree now and feel the wanderlust setting in once again. China, Japan, Africa, Alberta? Who really knows. What I do know is this, we can be lost, we can wander without even realizing it, but remember as long as we move forward, we are headed somewhere.

Here’s to the smallest steps, here’s to whatever comes next.

After a hectic week of teaching, I was relieved to travel to Grand Prairie for the weekend. Jake and Sandi came to spend the night on Friday, where we had some much needed conversation and relaxation. Saturday morning we hit the road for Grande Prairie, the closest “big town” to High Level.  Roughly five hours South of High Level, the drive consisted of endless prairies and countless cow farms(all of which saddened me, they look SO similar to bison!). We arrived around lunch time, checked into the Super 8, and went shopping. It turns out having 5% tax instead of 14% makes a world of a difference. I was lucky to catch some amazing deals (Got me some Converse!) and even get the chance to eat at the Wok Box there(Ginger beef is THE best).

Sunday we had the chance to browse the local Costco. It was awesome to get the chance to stock up on things you spend a little more on up in High Level. Back home I drink tap water, when I lived in Germany I drank tap water, practically everywhere I have visited/lived…I have drank the tap water. There is something about High Level’s tap water that gives me the heeby jeebies. It looks gross, it smells gross, and it most certainly tastes just as foul. I realized within my first week that I was not going to be able to drink straight tap water for the next three months. Therefore a trip to Costco meant purchasing two large crates of water (a total of 64 bottles). Hopefully it will last me the next two months!

I was delighted to learn that Grande Prairie has their very own Pizza 73. For those who have not been lucky enough, or graced with the delicious and tantalizing tastes of Pizza 73, add it to your bucket list. They make the best pizza I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. Their donair pizza, dear lord. Thinking about it makes my mouth water and head fill with thoughts of eating nothing but Pizza 73 during my trip to Calgary and Edmonton in February. I will make sure to include photos in the future for reference.

I had hoped  to get out and do some trail walking and maybe even some jogging while in Grande Prairie, but unfortunately the snow was in the process of melting, and everything was ice and mud. Not my favorite two things to run in. Therefore the majority of our trip down to GP was spent shopping, deciding where to eat out, and discussing how our internships were going. I am happy to say we all have great things to report (albeit some not so great thing as well).

Being positive has always been extremely important to me, and at times very hard. I realize as someone who interacts with young people on a daily basis, for the majority of the day, it is especially important for the outside to be just as positive as the inside (and some days, fake it if you have to!) Having a positive impact on the lives of those you surround, regardless of how long your presence is for, is crucial. After studying the Six Pillars of Self Esteem with my grade seven PLS (practical living skills) class, I did a lot of thinking. Self-acceptance is so important, and how you carry and portray yourself in front of young minds is SO very important. As a teacher, I want to be a good role model. Heck, even just as a person, I want to be someone that young minds can look to and draw from. Be positive!

Here’s to being positive, here’s to whatever comes next.