A wee bit of BS

I believe I have previously shared here how December is the hardest month of the year for me since my dad passed away ten years ago. Christmas is an important celebration to me in terms of my faith. Yet the commercialism is something that seems to be more and more of a negative as each year passes. However, it might take a lifetime of blogs to explore all of that topic. This year though I have been talking to more and more people who share the same feelings about December, albeit for very different reasons. For some there has been loss, others are facing financial stresses, many are reminded of what they do not have. Yet if you saw them you would never know. Something else I have been thinking about a lot lately is mental health. There have been so many stories in the news about this important topic. Yet, to me, it seems as though we are making little progress in truly addressing it at the individual level. For each person trying to find a way back to good mental health there is ...

I was listening to a sermon podcast tonight on the topic of friendship. I have been thinking a lot about the friendships I have lately as well as the kind of friend I am in return. In the past year and a half I have had some sad losses of friendship and amazing joys at gaining new friends. Life is always moving, always changing so it seems natural that friendships will as well. I often mourn the loss of a friendship. Those I consider friends are important to me. I understand there will be disappointments. We are all human, none of us is perfect. Yet a friendship ending is still sad. So I started looking at the losses. (My last blog post was on learning from these and other circumstances.) This past week I had a friend tell me if a friendship dissipates quickly or easily, maybe it never really was in the first place. Those words were very freeing to me. I am not the kind of person who likes drama. Is there a problem? Let's find a solution. Do you need help? What can I do? Do...

We are always learning. Some days it is obvious. Other days it is more subtle. Yet we continue to learn new things or new ways of relating to the world around us. Something I have been learning, or maybe re-learning, lately is the power of people in my life. Over the past months I have been incredibly blessed by amazing friendships. I have also been hurt and saddened by others. It is all a part of life. Although, I have found myself with feelings of sadness lingering longer than usual. This has me thinking about why. I want to figure out what has changed. In life we will always have people coming and going. Some stay for a long time, others come in for a short time. For the most part I can say those relationships that ended, ended with respect and kindness. Sometimes life just takes us in a different direction. It happens. I have been thankful for those in my life whether they have stayed or moved on. I try to learn from each relationship. I try to learn how to be a better friend...

September 1st can be a time of joy for some and sorrow for others. Parents are often excited their children are going back to school this week. Others are sad. It can be hard to see the first or last child either start their first year of school or their last. Some have children moving away for school. Others are sad to see the end of summer. The days are shorter, temperatures cooler, and trips to the beach are all but finished. Yet as I sit here on September 1st I feel as though I am getting a fresh start. I am not entirely sure why either. Nothing has changed today except the calendar. Yet my attitude and outlook seem different. Over the past months I have been reflecting a lot on where my life is, where it seems to be going, and where it has come from. I am certainly in a better place than I was this time last year and even better than two years prior. For the first time in a VERY long time I am feeling a great sense of hope for the months ahead. My attitude and outlook have c...

I am not sure if it is because I am 41. Maybe it is because I am single and 'have lots of free time.' Or it could be from the changes that have been taking place in my life the past couple of years. A lot has changed in my circumstances but also in my heart and mind. I have experienced a lot of new things, some good, some very bad. As I have been slowly working my way through the changes, trying to learn as much as I can from each experience, I have had a lot of time to think most about the person I am towards others. People have called me amazing, inspiring, courageous, and other lovely things. I honestly don't think of myself in those terms at all. I really do what anyone else can do. I certainly do not believe I do as much as I could. So I am trying to change that. It is not easy to make changes to who we are. Ask anyone wanting to lose weight, learn a new language, move to a new city or country, or go back to school. At some point, learning something new requires ...

I think a lot. I remember in College, a friend said to me once he would love to spend a day in my head. After thinking for a moment, he then decided that would not be a good idea. My mind is a very busy place. I am often planning out my day, tasks, how to get all the things done I want to, how to get things done over the long term, what I will write next, what I will knit or crochet next, what I can do work wise, and on and on. (I'm sure you get the idea.) I also know I am not alone in this. I am not married. I do not have children. One can only imagine how busy my brain would be if I did. I have had a few friends say they find it difficult to 'shut off their brain' when going to bed at night. Honestly, I struggle with that too more often than I would like. Our minds are filled with problems, solutions, trying to find solutions, happy moments, sad moments, angry moments, hurt filled moments, joy filled moments, the mundane, the magnificent, the ordinary, the extraordina...

I started writing this blog post without a title. It is about suicide but I want to make sure this post treats the subject with delicacy and respect. When I first posted on social media that I was going to write this, I encouraged people to privately share any of their thoughts with me. I was surprised at what I heard back from friends. My intention to write was to bring to light a topic that many are impacted by and some of us don't even know it. Many people have dealt with this issue very privately, whether it was considered by them or someone they know and love. I will be honest here too and say it is hard to write about this without worry someone will misconstrue my words. Yet we cannot keep silent about it. I am also not writing about euthanasia. It is about the silent hurt many feel that for some, leads them to that ultimate decision to end life, often leaving behind many who are hurt, angry, confused, and heartbroken. I remember many years ago reading a blog post...

I just looked at the date of my last blog post. It is hard to believe it has been almost a month since I last wrote. Maybe because the idea for this post has been working itself out in my mind for that time. I realised lately I say the word "can't" a lot. Not to anyone other than myself though. When I started paying attention to it, I concluded the only person holding me back in life is me. I used to run half marathons. Life, work, stress eventually took over and I had to quit running for a bit. Then I got out of shape and when I would think about training again my first thought was I can't, I am too out of shape. I finished my Masters degree four years ago. I would love to go on to doctoral studies. I would absolutely love to teach. Yet my first thoughts are - I can't afford it, I can't possibly be smart enough, I can't get into the program I want. When I look for jobs I often see some I would love to have. I do not always apply because I think I ...

A little while ago someone asked if I would write about forgiveness. Sure, I said. First the idea needs to percolate a bit in my head and heart. I cannot force words on the page. They have to flow, they have to be honest, and they have to be true. Forgiveness is a huge subject for all of us. We have all been hurt, intentionally or unintentionally, by others. We have been let down. We have been taken advantage of. We have been ignored. We have been bullied. We have been insulted. We have been abused. Maybe not all of us have experienced all of these situations, but we have all been hurt by another. We have also hurt others. I would argue we all need to forgive and be forgiven. Before writing more about what forgiveness is and how it plays out in life, it is important to say what it is not. It is not simply forgetting. It is not saying what someone did was ok. It is not simply allowing hurts to continue. It is certainly not in any way saying abuse of any kind is ok. It is simply, t...

Life will be filled with ups and downs, joys and sorrows, peace and distress, ease and difficulty. I could go on but I am sure you know what I mean. Over the past few months I have found healing in dealing with some incredibly difficult and stressful situations. In the midst of that I kept pushing forward because of some of the other, positive things I am involved with. Many days were off balance with one side weighing more heavily than the other. Yet there was progress. There was accomplishment. There was success. I have also learned a lot about many of the people in my life. Most are incredibly kind, generous, thoughtful, understanding, giving, selfless, gracious, forgiving, and loving. That is not the disappointment. More than circumstance, what can cause me sadness and feel disappointed is when I discover people are not who I thought they were. I have learned about some I (still) admire who are not as gracious, kind, selfless, understanding, or generous. It saddens me most beca...

Last week I met up with some friends one evening. As I left the house I realised I forgot my mobile phone. I contemplated running back to get it but decided I would leave it. I can count on one hand the number of times someone has said they wish I would focus on the conversation at hand more than my phone. Whilst I do look at it a lot, I am not necessarily tied to it. Yet those few comments made me think I need to work harder at being present. I need to listen more and not worry about what I might or might not be missing on my phone (email, text, social media). I also had a few instances in the past couple of years where I was with friends who were on their phones as much as they were conversing with me. I found it incredibly irritating, even disrespectful. It reminded me to make sure I am not that person. So as I was out with half a dozen women I was the only one without my phone. It was, maybe ironically, a meeting with a group of us who met on social media. Naturally there was...

I try to live my life in such a way as to give to others. I believe the more we have been blessed with in life, the greater our responsibility to help others who may not have those blessings. It does not make one better than the other. It is simply a part of living in community together. To me, life is about reaching out, volunteering, helping others, and giving of myself. When I post on social media about the things I do it is not to boast or make myself look good. I do it in hopes of others being inspired to see how they can reach out to the world around them. Surely if I can do it, anyone else can. After all, I am possibly the most ordinary person around. I do it in part to help keep myself accountable. It also brings me great joy that I love sharing with others.  There is another reason I do this. Focus. Lately however, I have been greatly distracted by personal issues that needing sorting. I allowed the things in my life to overtake my time, thoughts, and energy. Some w...

As my life ebbs and flows, changing constantly, I have been thinking about success. It is something we are taught to strive for. We should be successful in our jobs, as parents, as volunteers, as children, and in any role we assume. I have had many conversations with friends lately about saying 'no' more. The two are related, believe it or not. It all comes down to how we define success. Are we defining it ourselves or allowing others to tell us what it means and how it looks? For too long, maybe, many of us have allowed the society we live in to define success. We should have a house, a car (at least one), be married, have children (who are well behaved and excelling in everything), have lots of education, holidays to sunny places, have all the latest gadgets, and the list goes on. This constant striving has left many I know worn out and disappointed with life. Some are taking steps to change that. Learning to define success for ourselves is an important first step to re...

I had a friend over for tea last weekend. We had a lovely, long chat about many things. One topic she mentioned was feeling pulled in different directions. It was just a brief statement but it is something I have been feeling and thus noticing in others more lately. As a woman, I know many other women who feel this as well. Many of my women friends have children. This leads to them feeling even more 'pulled.' I am not saying men (or fathers) do not feel this too. I am sure they do. I cannot speak to it though as I do not talk to my male friends about it. With the world changing so quickly, so constantly, I believe it is safe to say most people feel pulled in many directions at any given time. It does not seem so long ago, however, when we would talk about 'stretching ourselves' to learn, to grow, to improve. So how did stretching become pulling? As I think about my own life and situation I wonder why do I feel pulled instead of stretched? I believe we start to fee...

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure if I have written about this before. I looked through the titles of past blog posts. I am feeling a bit too tired to read through them all though. So here I write anyway... I have been thinking a lot about the labels we apply to ourselves and others. We like to identify people, then define them by the labels we have created. Some labels are created by society in general. Male, female, liberal, conservative, religious, agnostic, atheist, ugly, beautiful, right, left, and the list could go on. After we learn labels, we each create our own version of what each means. Then we apply them to those around us. Maybe we even choose people we surround ourselves with based on the labels we like the best. Some exclude people with labels applied that are opposite and/or disliked. Some labels are clear, others are subtle. Yet they are always there. As someone who has been labelled (sometimes incorrectly) I can say from experience, much is lost when we see th...

Lately I have been thinking a lot about words, emotions and the mind. I have also been thinking about how delicate the mind is. We often do not stop to think about it, I would guess as we are (mostly) sound of mind. However, I have seen more and more lately that maybe we are fooling ourselves more than we realize, as I watched a documentary on bullying in the U.S. last week. I had to wipe away tears as I listened to the stories of children in school talk about their experiences being bullied. My heart ached as I listened to a mother talk about finding her daughter hanging in her closet because she could no longer take the bullying. It reminded me of (very brave) friend who shared the story of the night she considered taking her own life. She was not bullied in the sense we tend to think of. As an adult, she was experiencing judgement and shame for something she should not have been judged for. She was alone in many ways and fighting on many fronts to keep her life together. I am gl...

I was originally going to write this last night but have had some other thoughts on the topic and might see this post take a slightly different direction than originally planned. That is the beauty of writing though, I never really know where it will end up until the words start to flow. I was at my best friend's house over the weekend and there were six kids there. At one meal time the boys (11,9, 8, and 7) started talking about double standards. It was all in good fun. I was impressed at their understanding of the concept and the examples they gave. A teacher chewing gum in class telling students not to chew gum in class, an adult telling them not to talk with food in their mouth as their mouth is full, etc. We were all laughing. But it got me thinking. I have said before I refer to children as little people because they deserve respect. It also reminds me to be clear and honest with them. I try hard to avoid double standards. Children are very quick to point out discrepancie...

Who are you? It is a simple question with a complex answer. Usually people will answer the question by saying what they do. That question got me thinking about how we define ourselves. At the moment I am mostly unemployed. I have a consulting contract I am happily working on and have little side jobs here and there that come up. But most days I am looking for jobs to apply for or working on some volunteer things I am involved in. Yet I can honestly say I am more content than I have ever been in my life. This life change got me thinking though. Who am I? How do I define myself? Thinking deeper, how do others define themselves? As a society, how do we determine worth of ourselves and others? What about those who are unemployed? Homeless? Those in the service industry? Those in upper management? Have we bought into the myth that value as people is determined by the work we do or title we have? My days have changed. My schedule has changed. Who I am or what I'm worth has not. Jus...

What if we worried less what others thought about us and concerned ourselves more with what people said directly to us? This is something I have been thinking about for weeks. Honestly, it is something I have been working through in my own life for decades. Recently though, I have had many conversations with people I care deeply about who seem worn down by what those around them think about them. Some have legitimate concerns as it is in the workplace where they are singled out for poor treatment by colleagues, some have struggles fitting in at church or in the community where they are not exactly like everyone else around them, some have had harsh home lives that left them vulnerable. I would venture to guess that most people care to some degree what other people think about them. I might even guess for some, the growth of social media has increased that worry. There is a pressure to appear almost perfect on social media for some. Blogs are written and shared almost condemning t...

I went to home of friends for dinner tonight. These are dear friends. I have known them for a long time. I was in their wedding. I consider them family. We can be honest, we can share our struggles, we can celebrate our many blessings. There is comfort. There is safety. There is freedom. There is grace. There is understanding. There is love. Tonight we were talking about how we grew up. We all grew up in very different homes. We had very different experiences. My one friend was saying how she is doing better financially than her mum. She grew up with little. Yet there was a lot of love in their home. Her husband grew up in a very different situation and what their family had, they worked hard for and saved smartly for. I grew up with little and eventually my dad's business did well. There were other struggles after that but we still knew what it was like to not have to worry about finances as much. None of us are motivated by money. Nor are we concerned with having lots of ...

Last year a friend gave me a small journal. It has a lovely embroidered cover. I love journals. I love stationery. I love writing. I have a lot of journals so I thought this one should have a special purpose. This one would be my 'joy journal' and I would write in it at the end of each day about something in my day that brought me joy. That was last year. It is still completely blank. Last year it was hard for me to find much joy daily. I am sure it was there, I was just too tired to look for it. However, my life at this moment is so much better in so many ways. It is easy to find joy each day. My hope is to get into the habit of finding joy daily that when life is hard again (because really, life is hard at times for all of us) seeking out the joy in the day will help me through it. When we find joy, it can lift us up in difficult times, it can inspire us to move forward, it can give hope. It can also be contagious. When we recognize joy we then cultivate it. When we culti...

I have been hearing this word a lot lately. I am not sure why now more than before. Or maybe I am noticing it more because frankly, the term irritates me. I have heard a lot of people gush about finding their 'soul mate' or waiting for their 'soul mate'. Personally, I do not believe in the notion of a soul mate. I am not anti-relationship. Nor am I anti-marriage. I am also not cynical. I have blogged about that before. This post is more about managing expectations. It is also about perspective. I have a lot of married friends. I do not think I have heard any of them refer to their spouse as their soul mate. Certainly not the ones with children. Why? My guess is they understand the reality that relationships take a LOT of work. Living with someone day in and day out is not all wedded bliss. Adding children to the mix creates new layers of complexity. Communication is so important yet so difficult at the same time. They also understand relationships are impacted by ...

I have noticed a few of my friends post on Facebook today that they have chosen a word for themselves this year. The word will be their focus, their guide. As the year progresses, this word will be their plumb line, their lighthouse when things get rough. It will also help them celebrate when they succeed. It started me thinking about words. They carry tremendous power so it is important to choose them wisely. It is crucial that we think about the words we use towards others and maybe more importantly towards ourselves. What messages do we allow ourselves to believe? If we make a mistake, do we believe that makes us a failure? If we have a bad hair day does that make us ugly? As children we are told to choose our words wisely, instead of fighting we were told to use our words to explain why we were frustrated or hurt. Words. They are powerful. Honesty is vital to me. Many years ago I decided I would work at never saying something about someone I would not say to them. If I could ...

I know I said I do not make resolutions because of the new year. So today, when I committed to writing 500 words daily for the next 31 days it was more because of the timing in my life and less because of the timing of the calendar. I had committed to writing a novel in a month last summer. Yet my hard drive crashed at the start of the month and it took over a week to get it replaced so I gave up. Today when I decided to sign up for this commitment (as opposed to challenge) I did so knowing the only way I would get writing more is with some inspiration like this. I cannot explain why, but I feel like my life at the moment is better than it has been in a long time. After a year of great difficulties, the year ended with tremendous freedom from a lot of toxic things that were weighing on me tremendously. At 41 years of age I am feeling, maybe for the first time in my life, a tremendous freedom to do things I have previously only wanted to do or thought of doing. Last night I stayed...