ever since i told everyone and their cat about my old blog it’s not feeling so much like mine anymore. except, the thing is, i’m not ready to give up the past yet. the past = a blog i’ve had for nearly two years. i need little reminders of what used to be and how different things are now. i also require blog sites with catchy names and “wordpress” is extremely accommodating on all counts! plus wordpress conjures up images of letter in vice, being squeezed to an untimely death. and i like that.

it’s the second day of the fifth-year and i’m already thinking: grad school.

in fact, i’m feeling confident and intelligent and speaking out in class and organizing group meetings and thinking about joining the women’s center and thinking about an MA in women’ studies. i’m taking a course with a professor who has me thinking: environmentalism, feminism and great writing can be combined into something sublime – something i never thought i’d find in my career as an undergrad.

occupying the rest of the space in my mind is how great it is to live with someone you’re in love with. i keep trying to create scenerios in which this love-nest will not work out favourably, but even my paranoid-unconcious needs to admit that it’s great waking up next to each other (on those nights we decide to sleep side by side) and eating supper together when time permits it and studying together on beds, drinking hot chocolate in the luxury of our own home.

this feels like the culmination of something bigger. of twenty three years! not just the boy, all of it.

also, i’m officially looking for a new job! though, it must fit into my incredibly restrictive requirements of being an independent business with an interest in community, as well as being extremely lax and allowing me to spend the majority of my time reading and pontificating. in short, i will never quit the paper tree. ahoy! minimum wage and mistreatment!

what i like about my friends:
they come up with activities like “everyone write down what you like and dislike about everyone else in the room!” and it’s actually fun and funny and sometimes genuinely heartwarming. huzzah! all this in addition to going on an expedition to mars!

what i don’t like about my friends:
nothing, after last night.

and now it’s really, nearly, over.

little known fact: late-night thunderstorms terrify me! flashes of lightening that seem to light up the whole sky for minutes, not seconds? thunder that is rolling, booming, heavy and slow? there is something about thunderstorms that puts me completely on edge, anxious and unable to fall asleep. basically anticipating the next awful and unnerving quake.

in short, i am not one of those people who thinks thunderstorms are totally rad.

edit: on an unrelated note, i am looking to reinvent my life.

in five days i move into an apartment with the boy i love!

sometimes i catch myself in a moment and think, is this the right choice? am i setting myself up for failure? we are so young and silly and wrapped up in each other & new love. and yet there are those days when we fight long and hard, we are impatient and snap – he laughs me off and i give him the silent treatment in retaliation. he gets us lost, in the subway and again in the car, and i am marvelled by how little direction he has. i think, this is not going to work and i know he thinks it too.

but at the end of the day we take care of each other, the way two people in love should. we apologize and he rubs my arms and i kiss his forehead. we are never too careless with each other and it works exactly the way it should.

we spent today moving some of my things into the apartment, speculating about the bigger move this weekend. we did laundry, bought records and cooked dinner. we thought, separately and together, about what the next eight months will be like – only a kitchen apart.

the real thing is not as scary as i thought it would be.

there’s a chance that i’ll start to wonder if this was the thing to do.

august feels like a month of chances and consequences, but mostly loss. losing my former-roommate (suddenly a friend?) to another continent. reconnections complicate that kind of loss.

and the loss of good friends, best friends, to cities nearby. the kind of things i shouldn’t wine about but it feels like more than just empty miles when we’ve spent the past year & some months only steps apart. a busy street, an elevator ride.

i’m proud of the people in my life who have chosen new paths for themselves, building futures and real lives, but there is the selfish part that wishes we could stay silly and dependent (in february) forever because i am terrified of a future with fewer constants. of never again finding the highnotes that we hit together years ago.

three of my favourite things;

happy (belated) canada day!

i spent yesterday doing the most wonderful things. mostly things like an afternoon in the sand, near the water, experimenting with my new camera. finally! and a bbq with family & friends, drinking beers on the back deck, warming up on a cold evening around a fire. i can’t imagine more beautiful things!

watching ryan run around the backyard with my neice and nephew – play a raucous game of soccer with a four-year-old boy – i was struck by how handsome and warm and loving he is to everyone – how much he feels like family. some offhand remark about having kids of our own (not yet!) got me thinking of what a great dad he’ll be one day; patient and wonderfully laid-back, the kind who will live to cook breakfast in the morning and take his family camping on long weekends. getting a tad ahead of myself, but it’s refreshing and comfortable to be able to see the future.

ahem.

i spent all evening documenting my family on film and feeling like quite the little shutterbug. there is something to be said for the familiarity of film – photos you can hold in your hand and mount on your walls, something tangible. things are more interesting through the lens of a new-old camera. and family, being home, is like a vacation from my other life and self.

the thick of it.i have a lot to say but i’m butchering most of it, even in my head.a visit from my ex-r00mmate is the realization of how far we’ve come. how much i can appreciate people from a distance, monthly visits for the next months and years could keep us in each others lives. we can love and laugh and remember quirks and habits in charming way, and even the bad things seem laughable now. living every day without 2am pizza runs and beer-fueled confessions really is bittersweet.i’m making a promise to try harder with, and for, the people who matter. i don’t want to forget that there is a whole world outside of this niche it’s taken me four years to carve.

so let’s pretend that the next two months are forever!

i don’t think i want to think about it
how the fall is coming down
the light is leaving and it’s hard to breathe
buried in a pile of leaves.

this morning i woke up to a mini-panic attack. the overwhemling tendancy is to start the day thinking about the heavy things – things i need to accomplish in the long run, short run, immediately, last week. i am almost always falling behind. bill payments, keeping in touch, job search!

at 5am yesterday i signed up for my final year of university classes. insignificant considering most of my friends have graduated and moved up, away or onto grad school, but it felt really strange knowing that i had done it. eight more classes to go and i’ve fulfilled my requirements to graduate, and somehow have managed to salvage my GPA after several rocky terms and false starts. there is a plan and an inevitable outcome! still it feels strange to know that i will never take feminist theory (the course that has never fit into my schedule after four consecutive years) and that i took my last women’s studies class winter term. suddenly there are so many things i’ll never get to do that somehow seemed possible.

i.e. i will never…
get a minor in art history.
or anthropology.
or cultural studies.
have an affair with a dashing, intelligent, moody older professor-type (fingers crossed for grad school!).
join a club or a “team” (to be clear, i would never actually join anything campus-based, it was just a passing thought).
take a creative writing course.

some of these can be easily dismissed but some are nagging. the thought that maybe i’ve made the wrong choices for the last four years, academically at least, and now i’m stuck. paralyzed with fear and a potentially useless degree. how exciting to be having the identity crisis that everyone i know had months ago. i have arrived!

since i’m overwhelming happy and in love i’m finding it hard to complain about things but i feel as though i’ve done a pretty bang-up job!