Summer Panic

It is mini-Friday at work and as per usual, I am wishing I were just about anywhere but here.

I'm beginning to panic about summer. Because well, it's already the end of July and I feel like it hasn't begun. Then I start thinking about how autumn is just around the corner, and while I really like autumn, I do not like the not-so-subtle reminder that winter is on it's way.

I am the world's worst planner when it comes to my personal life. For some reason, the idea of making plans for the future, of any kind, even the fun kind, like vacation plans, practically has me breaking out in a sweat. I think it's because of my inability to make decisions. Anxiety takes over the decision-making process, every time. Every decision I'm faced with becomes life or death. What if I make the wrong decision? Take a different route home and get stuck in traffic? Order something unfamiliar from the drive-thru and not like it? Make vacation plans and then something better comes along? Such trivial things but decisions, big and small, leave me feeling trapped. In my own little bubble of course.

Life is passing me by. I know this. I feel it in my bones. Yet, I haven't been able to make a change. I was discussing my ambivalence with a friend last week, and she asked when the last time was that I was absolutely sure about something. And sure enough to do something about it. To act on it. Moved to take action. And I realized it was seven years ago when I knew it was time for me to leave the small town I had called home for seven years. It was like somebody had just flipped a switch in my brain, or like the light finally came on. Everything clicked at once. I was finished university. I was finished the short-term contract job I had been working. There was still the matter of a relationship that was going nowhere, but my sudden urge to leave town eventually took care of that. I just knew that I had to get out. Unfortunately, this sudden clarity only had negative consequences, but still, I want that clarity back. I left town, I met somebody new, and I started over. And everything fell into place so easily, like the universe was telling me, "yes, finally, you have done something right. This was how it was meant to be." And then the universe gave me the finger, and said, "what are you stupid? i was kidding."

Transformative Thunder

The weather seems bi-polar this year. It will go from being extremely hot and humid to a rain storm in the same day, at least a couple of times a week. Today, it is thunderstorm weather, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to let up. I wonder if that is why I keep dreaming of tornadoes. I do like waking up to the sound of the rain pounding on the rooftop, and the sound of thunder rolling in as if from a whole other universe. Like it’s going to bring with it something new and amazing - something out of this world. That’s why it’s all the more difficult to wake up and go to work - just another mundane day. This morning, I just wanted to lie there and soak in this new energy and hope that it will transform me into something new. Something better.

So here it is Friday again, and so far, I have no plans. Last weekend, I decided on Plan A: OK Go concert with drummer boy and a bunch of people I don’t know. I had fun for the most part, though I’m still a little confused about drummer boy’s motivations. Every time I think I know, he does something to make me question what I thought I knew to be true. I am back to believing that he has no romantic interest in me whatsoever. He’s just really, really affectionate. If it were any other guy, I would say he’s giving off some pretty strong signals. But this is drummer boy: he who hugs a lot and rubs shoulders and places hand on smalls of back, a lot. Some might even say excessively. After the concert, four of us went out for sketchy Chinese food in sketchy Chinatown. I didn’t feel very well so I didn’t eat much. But let me just say, Black Pepper Beef is the shit. It doesn’t seem to be on the usual take-out menus. So, after Chinese food, I was Shanghai’d into driving drummer boy home. He talked my ear off for probably 45 minutes as we sat parked in front of his house. And in this 45 minutes, I would say there was a good 8 minutes of hugging. It was because he said he was leaving three times, and each time he needed a hug. A very long hug. He did explain that he likes to see people’s reactions to his extended hugs. But it does make me wonder if he ever gets into trouble this way.

Okay. Enough about drummer boy. Geez.

Like the weather, I can’t seem to make up my mind about a lot of things. Most importantly, I can’t decide whether or not to give up. Sometimes I feel a sense of hope, but then I always snap back to what seems to be my reality: despair. There is not a single area of my life that is satisfactory. If our lives are divided into four equally important areas - spiritual, physical, social, and emotional, I am lacking in every one. I feel spiritually empty, or confused at best, I have chronic pain and no energy, I’m socially awkward, and we all know I’m emotionally unbalanced. So where does that leave me? I will have to write more on this later.

Weekend Anxiety

So the weekend is here (it's less than an hour to closing time) and I still don't know what I'm doing tonight. I feel I should go out but I don't really want to, and I feel like I have to go out because there's a certain someone whom I live with that I really don't want to spend time with this weekend. Soon I will have an anxiety-ridden meltdown.

I can a)go to an OK Go concert tonight with people I barely know, if there are still tickets available like they were last night, b) go bar-hopping all over the avenue to check out a bunch of mini-concerts, but by myself, or c)spend a miserable evening at home trying to avoid talking about why I'm in such a pissy mood.

I'm so tired right now, and I have a headache, I really just want to sleep it off. But I'm pretty sure that's out of the question.

Everyone I know is either camping this weekend, or is involved in the infamous and oh-so-cliche bachelor party shenanigans. Of course, if I had more friends, (real friends, not co-worker friends or friends-with-my-boyfriend-friends) then I wouldn't be having this dilemna right now.

I think maybe that's my attraction to drummer boy. I want a real friend. All my own. And he is sweet. And obviously caring. He's a music-lover. And a musician. And I just want him to make me feel better. Is that pathetic? He is going to this concert tonight. He's going with a bunch of his friends, and it just sort of came up last minute on Facebook last night. Now I'm not sure I will be comfortable hanging out with just him and his friends. I will feel like an intruder. Like I'm imposing myself. (Would that make me an imposter?)

And to top it all off, I have nothing to wear. Seriously. I need to go shopping. But I'm afraid there won't be time.

Why do weekends have to be so complicated?

Surreal

Tomorrow after work, my boyfriend and I will be visiting his aunt. Her husband was Bill. Just thinking about her last night brought me to tears. I can't even imagine, and I don't want to imagine being in her shoes. It was so sudden. People always say that but it's true. He fell down a few stairs, hit his head, and was in a coma. His brain was bleeding. There was no hope of recovery. The decision was made by the doctors to take him off life support. Apparently the accident happened around two in the morning on Saturday night/Sunday morning. My boyfriend and I were at the hospital with Bill and the family from about 5:00 AM. It was the worst 9 hours of my life. I can't imagine what it was like for his wife and children, and mother. His elderly mother took a flight here to watch her 55 year old son die. Bill's wife loved him so much. She was wailing and crying so hard she couldn't breathe. Her chest hurt. Because he was ripping her heart out. That's what she said. She leaned over his body and cried over and over, "don't do this to me, I can't do this, don't leave me". The most heart-wrenching thing I've ever seen. Thinking about it now is making me really cry. It was all so surreal. He was just lying there, but there was no visible injuries and his life support kept him breathing regularly and his blood pumping, so he looked...healthy. So it was hard to accept that he wasn't really there anymore. I heard the doctor say that only his brain stem was functioning. We were all there when he took his last breath. That was hard. Really, really hard.

His wife is not handling this so well. When people come over to see her, she just stays locked away in her bedroom and she won't stop crying. I don't know what to say to her. How we can make it better for her.

I didn't know I was going to write about this. But I don't really talk about it with anyone.

My Unattractive Tardiness

So here I am, bored at work again, and wisely using the time to do something other than be productive.

Last weekend, on the Friday, I met my proofreader and her boyfriend at my favourite music venue to watch a friend and his band. They left early because she was way too drunk, and after the bar closed, I went with a bunch of dudes to Denny's. I have not been to a Denny's since my college days. It brought back fond memories of going out to the bar with friends, and then needing to satisfy the munchies when nothing else was open. It's an interesting cross-section of society that ends up at Denny's in the middle of the night.

So as I mentioned, I've been having more difficulty getting out again and Friday was no exception. I was literally dreading it.

It doesn't make sense. I had plans to go to one of my favourite places, to do something I love doing and meet up with people I genuinely like. So why is it when the time comes, I always just want to hide under a rock and die? When I came home from work on Friday, I took one of my "I-don't-want-to-be-alive-right-now-so-I'm-just-going-to-take-a-nap-and-hope-the-world-goes-away-naps". This of course made me late and I missed some of their performance.

I didn't expect to see this guy, who is a drummer in another band, but he was sitting at our table. Here I was, trying not to be too hard on myself for being late, when this guy, we'll call him D, gave me a hard time about it. I told him, that was just me, it's my thing. His response? "Tardiness is a very unattractive quality", to which I responded "Did you just call me unattractive?" Despite my apparent unattractiveness he was extremely affectionate all night. He is probably the most flirtatious, affectionate guy I have ever met. Now I have people reading too much into his behaviour. And it makes me wonder. And it makes me think of things I shouldn't think about. Did I mention that he is actually a really, really good boy? Like hypothetically speaking, his only motivation for wanting to be with me would have to be to save me? I can just see him asking me out on a date, to his church, and me having to explain why I musn't enter for fear of bursting into flames.

So this weekend there is a music festival taking place along a popular avenue. There will be concerts of all kinds going on all day and all night at pretty much every bar along the avenue. You pay thirty bucks for a wristband for the whole weekend. I'm still not sure if I'm going. But it sounds pretty fun.

I guess we shall see.

The Devil's On Vacation

The Beast is on vacation from the Hell Mouth, as of today. The Beast is of course, my insane boss, and the Hell Mouth, well, it's been my fond nickname for my place of employment for a long while. Words cannot describe how much less tension there is when she is not around. Her office is directly behind mine, and there is a window. She of course has blinds that she can close any time she chooses, which is never, so pretty much everyday I feel like I'm in a little glass box for her to keep an eye on. Since she's not here, I figured I can find better use for my time than work. (It's really slow today.) It sucks that anybody has to be here today at all, as yesterday was Canada Day (a stat holiday). We have to come in for one day before the weekend. Unless your're the Beast. She's in Shanghai.

I've been having difficulties with being social again. Well, truthfully, it didn't really get any easier, but I was kind of on a roll, you know? It's so easy to just slip back into a loner-rut. My co-worker wanted to do something yesterday for the holiday, but I didn't text her like I said I would, so we didn't do anything. The best part of my day yesterday (other than not being here at work)was going for authentic pizza. Oh my Goddess. It was so delicious. The thin crust, the homemade pizza sauce made with fresh tomatoes, the sizzling and spicy Italian meat. Heaven. I will definately have to eat there again.

Other than that, it was kind of a dud. We didn't take in any of the festivities. Not even the fireworks. Guess I'm just not that patriotic.

Tonight I'm supposed to see a band at my favourite music venue because a co-worker is the drummer. I've tried to obtain something resembling a commitment from my significant other as to what we will do tonight, but he has not given me his answer yet. I don't really feel up to going, but I know if I do not, I will end up having a really boring, guilt-ridden night. Guilt-ridden because, in my head, I will use my writing as an excuse to stay home, (hopefully alone), but in reality I will eat junk food, watch Stargate Atlantis, and possibly end the night early by falling asleep on the couch with my contacts in.

So yeah. Guess I'm going out tonight. Look at that, I just made a decision.

Truth

The funeral was on Friday. It was at the Legion. The most important portion of the service was the contributions made by family and friends who shared a little piece of how their lives had been touched by this man.

We heard from a son just how much his father meant to him. We heard about those lectures that went on and on, every weekend, and how they always ended with "I love you" and then were forgotten about - until next weekend.

We heard from a step-daughter who couldn't speak without sobbing about this man who was no longer here. Who let us all know how lucky she had been to have had two sets of parents.

We heard stories from a friend about how this man never complained, ever. Not about living with one arm paralyzed after a run-in with a moose. Not about his night-blindness that he knew would eventually steal his vision altogether.

We heard humorous stories from more than one person about how he would walk into inanimate objects and apologize to them.

And we heard from the man that was first married to his wife. We heard how this man called up "the ex" and directly asked where he stood with him. How he always asked for his input on raising his step-daughter. And we heard how grateful he was that this man came into his ex-wife's life. How grateful he was to have found a new friend.

This was Bill. I met him when I was a teenager. He was my best friend's step-dad. But it wasn't until I moved to this city that I came to know him. I was apprehensive about spending time with him because most of what I knew of him came from the angst of a teen. To be honest, I was pretty sure he was a bully and a big jerk.

Many years later I would see him again at my best friend's wedding. This also happened to be where I met her close cousin, now my boyfriend of six years. I was completely taken aback at how welcome Bill made me feel. I wasn't in the wedding party. I didn't hold this against her. I was living in a different province after all, and honestly, we had grown apart over the years. But Bill seemed to take it personally, and he just wouldn't let it go. He could not understand why I was not the maid-of-honour. I was secretly pleased.

I will never forget how he tried to shelter me from his nephew. Everybody watched and laughed as my best friend's cousin would inch closer and closer to me on the couch, and I would inch closer and closer to the edge of the couch until there was no where left for me to go. How Bill, half joking, half serious, told him to "leave her alone! She's a nice girl!" How he told me over and over how beautiful I was, inside and out. This changed as he got to know me of course, but he always let me know that he cared. He always made me feel like I was a part of his family.

Even on those bad nights.

Over time, my opinionated-nature came out around Bill, who was also very opinionated. And stubborn. And sometimes a little belligerent when drinking. I was not the only one left with memories of arguments, some more bitter than others. I remember one night, we were all drinking at his house, and somehow Bill and I got into it over something I don't even remember. Whatever it was, it resulted in Bill saying something pretty mean, that really touched a nerve. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried until Bill somehow unlocked the door and hugged me and took it all back.

It was impossible to hold a grudge against Bill. It's true that I had once again become a little apprehensive about spending time with him. You just never knew what would come out of his mouth next. But this didn't change what I had come to know as his truth.

And his truth was love. Whatever else happened, you always knew that one fact.

That he loved. A lot. And he was loved. A lot. And that's a truth that will never die.

We love you Bill.