14 days until 30

I hate how histrionic I'm getting about turning 30.

It's like I've turned into a parody of myself somehow. I want to just let it slide on by, just another number, but instead any time that number even nudges itself into my peripheral vision, I grab onto it. I make bad jokes about all the things I'm no longer allowed to do as of two weeks from now and about turning 20. I declare "We don't speak of the 30!" to my younger friends. I'm sure I must seem insufferable to my older friends, like those university students on the bus who bemoan their upcoming 20th birthday.

For an (almost) psychologist, I have some mighty pitiful defence mechanisms.

I think it is really the forced reflection that I'm reacting to more than anything. It's like whenever we ring in another decade, there are countless fluff pieces and televised countdowns about the true theme of the 90s was or what the 2000s mean to you. I feel as though this strange symbolism of 3650 days (give or take for leap years, I suppose) is trying to peg me into summing up my 20s somehow. Turning 20, though still surreal, was easier, because so much happens those ten years before, you can't help but feel kind of accomplished.

When I look back to my 20s, my first flash is "Holy Christ, I spent all of my 20s in school." This is, truthfully, an amazingly one-dimensional way of looking at the past ten years. True, I did spend almost all of my 20s in school, except for that 12 month break between 21 and 22 where I worked two jobs and focused all my attention on getting back into school.

But, lest I get into one of those "let me list everything that was awesome about the past ten years" kind of posts, there genuinely has been loads of other stuff going on behind the research papers, unpaid practica and numerous moves. Even just a few days ago, on an incredibly mundane Wednesday evening with the cold seeping into the crack between my sleeve and mittens, as station wagons drove by, I had one of those surreal moments of gratitude for my life, as cyclonic as it may feel lately. I'm loved and I do what I love, after all.

So why the hell am I letting two little digits even try to shake me?

The one where I pretend I really want to bake muffins

Living in a new city is always a bit of a humbling experience.

You never think of it that way, of course, when you are leaving. That is the time where every spare moment is crammed full of the people you are expecting to miss. When you're leaving, it suddenly seems rational to invite people to assist in wrapping plates in newspaper while you are wearing sweatpants, when in any other month, the same request would be a little tactless. And people, because they expect to miss you, volunteer for such ridiculous tasks as fishing cardboard boxes out of the recycling bins behind a Pottery Barn. They pepper you with hugs and goodbye gifts. You leave the city with your head foggy from a dizzying mixture of gratitude, excitement and wistfulness.

The first few days in your new home are dizzying yet again, but this time from the sheer number of baking dishes and pyjamas you own, and how boxes seem to be exponentially multiplying every time you turn around. Finally, you pause.

And realize how you know absolutely no one.*

When you were leaving, you knew this fact. But you tell yourself things like "Yeah, it'll be kind of weird, but I'm independent, so I'll manage."

And you do manage.

And you go to parties and say hi to your neighbours.

But you still have those humbling nights, the ones where you convinced yourself that you really did want a Friday night alone because when was the last time you baked muffins.

And you aren't sure who to call when things feel a just little empty.

You also wonder when making friends got so systematic. In high school, you just somehow had friends. Suddenly, you're questioning yourself.

"Is it too soon for me to call them? Should I add them on Facebook? What does 'we should hang out sometime' mean?"**

But you expected this, in a way. What you didn't expect is how lonely you are by virtue of lack of contact from home. When you were leaving, everyone was waxing on about keeping in touch.

But for them, you are just one person, while for you, they are everyone. So it's easy for them to not respond to emails right away. Yet its easy for you to count the people who haven't responded to your emails, and feel that number weighing on you. As though you expected your absence would change everything for them, when really, it's only changing everything for you.***

***

*Okay, that line was a little over dramatic. To be fair, I do casually know a couple people here- oh, and that handsome dude I moved here with.

** I actually discussed this experience with a handful of people who were also new in town. We all laughed about being 'friend desperate'.

*** I feel as though this is all coming off a little more pessimistic than is genuine. This city has actually been remarkably friendly, and relationships are developing at about the speed one could really expect. However, I think what really stands out is the act of 'getting to know' a lot of people, but not really knowing anyone just yet, if that makes sense.

In which Facebook ruins my teenage crushes

I realized the other day that I know the current whereabouts of the majority of the guys I've ever dated or had a serious crush on.

There's something a little underwhelming about the reality of this.

There was that point, sometime after leaving my home town, where, in the midst of a big city where I knew such a minuscule fraction of its inhabitants, I would wonder "whatever happened to so and so" and if I would ever run into them on a random street corner again.

(Of course, the only one that this ever happened with was The Worst Boyfriend Ever.)

Then Facebook happened, and they all stopped being mysteries.

This really hit me when, one random recent Saturday morning, I received an email informing me that Russ had added me as a friend on Facebook.

Russ' and I's history can be summed up quite simply. I'd met him a few times. We never had much of a conversation, but he made it clear whenever we met that he thought I was hot. I had recently broke up with a long-term boyfriend, so I called him. We made out on a handful of occasions, and maybe went out on a date or two. He got annoyed when he discovered that my "I'm-not-looking-for-a-relationship" did not mean "I'm-looking-for-no-strings-attached-sex", and we quickly faded out, relegated to obligatory nods if we ran into each other to make it clear there were no hard feelings. I honestly never knew much beyond what movies he liked.

Yet, 10 years later, he adds me on Facebook. I'd noticed him on it before, but never saw much of a point of contacting him. What, exactly, would we have to say? Remember that time we made out during Sleepy Hollow? Or the one time we had coffee? Still, out of sheer curiosity, I accepted, wondering his motivations-- of which there seemed to be none. I said hi. He said hi. That was pretty much it.

Now, as it it wasn't odd enough that I know what my high school boyfriends are doing with their lives, I even know what the guy I made out with in college is doing on Friday night (apparently having a BBQ, if you were wondering).

Crushes who nothing ever actually happened with are even more surreal. It seems that when things never really developed the way you'd hoped with a certain person, or when your relationship with them never had a messy end point, you always wonder if they were really that special. And what Facebook has shown me is that, while they may vary on where they end up in life, they are all just so tortuously real.

I remember when I received notification that the guy I fiercely crushed on for the entirety of my 13th year had added me. He was the older boy who teased me mercilessly in the way that only heartbreaking 17 year old boys can, by throwing me into the lake with my clothes on and tango dancing with me in the middle of the street. He had brown hair that always flopped into his blue eyes. He was just so achingly dreamy. I eagerly clicked on his profile, to see what had become of him, more than ten years later. And while he hadn't necessarily changed... he was just so painfully average. Sure, he wasn't ugly, he seemed to be happy and he didn't communicate solely in text speak... but he just wasn't as magically special as I recalled. And he couldn't help but lose a little of that shine in my memories.

Sure, there are advantages to all of this. I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't feel a tinge of smugness when I discovered the lying guy who crushed my heart at 16 gained about 100 pounds. I've also gotten back in touch with many a lost friend, including exes or ex-crushes who are genuinely good people I'm happy to see. Still, I can't help but wonder if there was something to be said about certain people remaining a bit of a mystery.

Spinning around to reach full circle

Call it coming full circle or something.

I opened up my computer, deciding again to write. I then looked at that plane shaped icon on the monitor in front of me, to find I am once again hovering over Lake Michigan, 37,000 feet this time. And Wild World started playing in my ears once again.

And my head is all muddled.

Perhaps I expected these trips to help resolve all this uncertainty, this stomach tightening ambiguity that makes what used to be statements suddenly become punctuated with huge bold question marks. But there was no real epiphany. None of those movie-perfect revelations in it all becomes clear, that this is where I’m supposed to be.

I briefly thought I might have found it in one city, navigating through deliciously pulsating neighbourhoods. As I tend to do when I develop a crush on a city, I began the detailed process of imagining myself living on the 5^th floor of a specific building and deciding where I would shop for groceries. It didn’t hurt that the placement I was interviewing for looked absolutely dreamy on paper. But it wasn’t so swoonworthy in the pain in the ass world we call reality. It felt overly competitive, painfully bureaucratic, yet hypocritically disorganized.

And then the programs that made me especially giddy are in cities without that spark. One is a city I already spent a handful of years in, which, though convenient and reasonably effortless, seems devoid of any sense of adventure. And one is just really damn cold.

So, while there is clearly some indication of the right direction to go, I kind of hoped I wouldn’t have to go through that painful formalized step-by-step decision making process. I wanted to just know.

Really, though, this is such a silly debate this is to be having with myself. I still could end up at any of them, and I could make my own little life there for a year. I would learn immense amounts from any of them, and it would still be a pretty epic success to end up at any of them. And, after all, it is just a year.

I think I need to come to terms that major life choices don't operate like the quintessential lightbulb above the head. They are never so clear and instantaneous. Real life doesn't operate by love-at-first-sight rules.

32,000 feet over Lake Michigan

It’s an odd thing when flying becomes so routine that the fact that you are hovering 32,000 feet over Lake Michigan isn’t the slightest bit daunting. It seems perfectly natural to be suspended in space, eating complementary Bits and Bites and watching your vessel’s progress via an airplane shapes icon in front of you on a 5 inch by 5 inch screen.

Until I graduated from high school, I had only taken a single round trip on an airplane at the age of 6. At 17, I took my second such trip, and spent the entire voyage in awe, nose pressed against the glass, marveling at the consistency of the clouds and speed at which the building became full-sized again. In the just over 10 years since high school, my number of flights have skyrocketed. I have four such round trips in this month period. I sit in my compact grey seat, not skipping a beat on my keyboard as the world flies past me at 500 mph.

How on earth did this life ever become so normal to me?

I remember at 19, two weeks before I was set to leave my hometown for a big city university, my then boyfriend and I took a road trip to find an apartment. I had never been to this sprawled out on the prairies city before. We had left after work, and, as such, were driving under the big night sky. Each time we came upon a new smattering of lights, I would look at him expectantly.

“No, that’s not it,” he’d say. “You’ll know when it is.”

And I did. The sky exploded in scattered orange lights, covering the horizon. I couldn’t believe that one of those lights would somehow become my light.

Sometimes I can’t believe that this girl who learned to rollerblade in the yellow church’s parking lot and thought that excitement was going to the nearby town with a McDonald’s is the same one negotiating trains in cities of millions and flying across the country by herself to go to interviews.

It’s hard to map out exactly how these changes happen. They just do. And it is often only by virtue of being able to compare yourself to your memories that you realize how much you’ve changed. The Duke recently told me I was one of the most independent people he knew. This set off a feeling of minor triumph in my head, for I never used to be independent. I used to be downright gloomy about the idea of doing things alone, maybe even clingy, certainly naïve. And now I'm not. I don't quite know how.

I just know that 32,000 feet above Lake Michigan on my way to a hotel in a city I've never been to but might move to anyhow isn't nearly as scary as my 19 year old self would have thought.

(Oddly enough, as I type this, the playlist he made me for my travels sings into my ears, the one he forbade me to look at before hitting play. Song four is Wild World by Cat Stevens.)

Resoluting.

Perhaps it is just sitting under a ceiling full of glow-in-the-dark stars, harkening back to my days of compulsive diary writing, that leads me to want to write so urgently again.

The other day, the Duke, doing a random Google Reader check, said "I didn't know you were blogging again."

"I don't know if I am," I replied.

Blogging, in its current form, doesn't seem to just be about writing anymore. It seems to have exploded into this bundle of networking, commenting, twittering. And I just can't do that right now. I used to literally dedicate hours in the evenings to this endeavour, and those are hours that simply don't exist anymore.

Over the holidays, I have spent a little more time online than usual, and read a lot about the latest round of blogging drama. I don't care to place myself in the debate, but the fact that it even exists is what kind of made me flee for the hills for a little while, despite having a lot of love for writing and the people who do it. I'm 28 years old now, dammit. The idea of secret undercurrents behind the writing is ridiculous and bloody exhausting. The fact that I have let my feelings get hurt over some of this stuff in the past is even more absurd.

Perhaps, ironically, by virtue of blogging, I know myself a lot better now, and one of the things I know is that I will absolutely, without a doubt, need this outlet again. With the moving across the country, alone, to somewhere I will potentially know very few people, this space will be essential. Even now, without it, I find my head swimming a bit too much, and my text messages are getting far too long to be practical. And I know that there are still a lot of wonderful "portable" friends here that will provide that slice of home when I'm feeling lonely.

Until then, though, I'm trying to get back to just writing. Simple as that. Because I sometimes find it sad that I got so caught up in comments and statistics, and lost that spark.

So, my secret 2010 resolution is to blog on my terms. To write because I want to write. And read because I want to read. Not because it has been a week since my last post or because my reader is too big or my funny posts get more comments. Only because I have something to say, or I want to hear what you have to say.

That can't be that hard, can it?

On keeping on breathing

I always have the best of intentions.

I really don't want to put anyone through the tedium that is complaining about being overwhelmed. Complaining about stress is so brutally cliched, like saying that you aren't good with names, procrastinate sometimes or don't always get enough sleep.

Everyone is stressed and nobody is actually good with names.

I'm fully intending to act as though I am 100% content, to practice what I preach, per se, by not letting the stress determine my actions. I'm acting happy to try to convince my body that I really am happy.

I'm drawing smiley faces on foggy windows. I'm humming made up songs. I secretly tap my toes in my shoes when riding the bus. I randomly buy butternut squashes on sale for extraordinary cooking plans. I'm overusing exclamation points in my text messages.

These things help, in their own little way. Any of these beat moping around. I can't handle being lazy for that long, anyhow. Unproductivity doesn't suit me. Another cliche has proven true- yoga has been a life saver. It turns off my thoughts pretty thoroughly, which, trust me, is a miraculous feat.

It's not even that I'm at all depressed. It's just that my brain can't keep up with everything that is going on. A lot of it, in fact, is kick-up-your-heels good news-- internship interviews, weddings-- there's just so damn much of it. Looking at my summer, I just wanted to hyperventilate. What do you mean I'm a bridesmaid twice and I have to move myself and my boyfriend to separate locations across the continent all in the period of a month and a half? Even my mom, the queen of acceptance, in an email yesterday told me "You are such a busy girl, it is just the way of your life at this time, but I am sure you sometimes want to pull your hair out."

Yes, it may be tempting to grab the roots and yank sometimes, but instead, I will drink tea and watch too much Food Network.

Oh yeah, and breathe.

Decisions

Some decisions always have the potential to be of great consequence.

Like where to go to school.

Whether to take that job.

Whether to kiss him.

Whether to wear a condom.

Whether to tell the truth.

Whether to break up with her.

The funny thing about these decisions, is as much as we may dwell over the countless future possibilities implied in each choice, the one we make almost always transition into fact so easily. It becomes hard to even imagine having stayed in that city or having said no.

Then there's those other decisions.

The ones you don't even know are decisions until after the consequences become apparent.

The ones you don't even consider unless something out of the ordinary results from them.

The ones that never seemed worth contemplating until regret came into play.

A month before my high school graduation, my friend Mal died in a car accident.

I remember feeling guilt over a decision I'd only even hypothetically made-- the morning I found out, her and I were set to meet during our spare period to discuss a project. I had considered asking her to reschedule so I could go tend to my boyfriend, who was sick at home. Of course, I never got to ask, yet I felt remorse deep in my guts about my secret thought of asking.

My misplaced guilt had nothing on that of her best friend, though. Before the accident, the two of them had been hanging out, perhaps out for coffee-- the details are long lost. Mal dropped off her friend at her house, before continuing on less than ten minutes down the road, where she collided with another car. And her best friend suddenly felt as though she'd made the most horrible mistake by not inviting Mal in for tea, to use the washroom, anything to just postpone her leaving for a single minute, that minute that could have changed everything. The funny thing is that if the accident had never happened, she would have never again considered why she didn't invite Mal in.

It seems that whenever there is something with unintended repercussions, one can't help but put all the decisions leading up to it, the ones you didn't even know you were making, under a microscope. I've wondered at times what if I hadn't picked up the phone, had another drink, walked in another direction, said something a little differently. I don't just do this with regrets. Today, as we lay on the couch, I surmised about all the haphazard choices that led up to that moment-- my last minute decision to go to a casually mentioned concert to get some space from obnoxious house guests, my choice to stand where I did in a sea of hundreds, to turn around at that exact moment.

It is mind-boggling that so much significance could come from a split-second choice.

The psychology of leaving

I have a friend who has always dreamed of going to work in Australia. It was, of course, after she'd fallen in love that all the sudden the pieces, seemingly out of nowhere, fell together. She is leaving in a matter of months. I saw them on Friday, and although they are trying to just be together until she goes, there is this wall that has grown out of nowhere. It is like neither of them want to risk falling any harder, with the end so in sight.

I think she would stay if he asked her to. But he will never ask.

***

I sent off my first application on Wednesday. I thought it would feel cathartic, but it didn't. It felt like I had swallowed a ball of static electricity.

***

I put on a sweater this morning. The sleeves felt taut. It appeared to have shrunk in the wash.

I usually would find an excuse to keep it, telling myself I could wear it over a thin tank top, that the colour goes well with my eyes. Now I just want to get rid of it, telling myself that it is a waste of a hanger, that it would take up the space of something more useful in a moving box.

***

Things always acquire a different flavour when you know that there is a definitive conclusion coming, even if it is months away. I knew I wanted to leave my job, but it didn't seem particularly imperative. But now that I have officially given notice, everything about it seems grating. All the minute flaws are suddenly as subtle as sirens.

I'm trying my damnedest to go on living as normal as possible. After all, I always knew life here was never supposed to be permanent. But, still, with application deadlines looming, it has become a lot more difficult to not focus on the countdown. My friend starts talking about going to a haunted house next Halloween, when suddenly I realize I will not be here then.

I don't think it is just the fact that I will be somewhere else. I have always had a sense of my location as being temporary ever since what seemed like a traumatic move across the province when I was 10. I grew up knowing that ambition necessitated leaving my small home town. I knew grad school necessitated leaving the city where I did my undergrad. And I know internship requires leaving here, and that his PhD requires leaving my internship city, and then jobs will necessitate us leaving that city. As the cliche goes, the only real certainty right now is him and I and change.

But that not knowing is what tarnishes everything. It's not that I won't be here next Halloween, but that I don't know where I'll be. And as much as my mind tries to simultaneously make a plan for each of the ten places I could be, it's not the same.

It's not that I'm scared- I'm not. If I've learned anything over the past decade, it's that I am more adaptable and independent that most. I can't help but laugh at how stifling life would be if I had it planned out to the same degree as some of my friends, with their how many months they should date before marriage and then how many more months more until children. I like having faith that I can be happy without such a concrete plan.

I'm just having a hard time staying in the present these days.

Unpredictability

It was a typical date for us in its lack of typicality: Afgani food and an independent zombie flick. We walked home, hand-in-hand, through our shortcut in the courtyard of a generic condo complex, the full moon's light bouncing off the patio windows. He was speaking of deja vu, and how he believed that certainly times in your life are more prone to deja vu simply because you recollect them more frequently.

"I think I will think back to this year often," he says.

I have a tendency towards not just trying to remember past events, but trying to place myself back in the same head space I was at the time. I try to pretend as though I am blind to the outcomes that came to bear, as if I can't remember how everything turned out in the end, as though I am naive when I am back in these stories. Perhaps this is why I write, because it is the closest I can ever come to being back there again, without hindsight sneaking in and tinting things just a little.

"I think the weirdest thing about reminiscing about this year is that we are never going to be able to capture this uncertainty that overlies everything," I say. "We'll instead look back knowing how it all turned out, and it will turn into a scene from a movie, with false bits of foreshadowing weaved in. You remember things differently when you know how it ends."

But right now, fingers interwoven on a Sunday night, we don't know how it ends. We just know that 365 days from now, I'm going to be somewhere far away from this courtyard, and he is going to be somewhere else. We may be a short train ride away, or instead separated by security checks and several hours in the air. I may be in the Prairies or in an Eastern metropolis. He may be in the United States or in Canada. The logistics will follow.

This uncertainty walks that tight-rope between blessing and curse. In some ways, I feel lucky for having given myself the flexibility to live somewhere else for a year, to be able to gather the stories about the nuances of another city, and then to move on yet again, to join him somewhere else new. There is something romantic about the idea of him and I in a new place, about becoming home to each other in a city where everything else is new and still lacks a those firm connections.

But then there is this year apart. People all echo the same generic statements. "It's just a year," they repeat, despite the fact that they haven't even considered moving to a different neighbourhood. A year is still 365 days, which is 365 nights not waking up beside him.

I also notice that this uncertainty is starting to carve out boundaries between me and others. My mother, who I only see once a season if I'm lucky, despite me only being 8 hours away, grows quieter when I discuss the ambiguity of my future. Some of my friends seem to be inching away, as their lives become more concrete. They speak of raising kids in proximity to one another, of buying houses nearby, and I am subtly distanced from them, my next ten years still remaining an abstract concept, with seemingly exponential possible outcomes, which become tiresome to consider after a while.

Then again, maybe the one concrete thing I have right now is that uncertainty, that excitement, that unpredictability, those multiple possibilities. Maybe I shouldn't be in such a rush to nail my life down. Maybe I, too, will frequently look back on this year of unwritten possibilities. After all, we all have decades of predictability to come if we want it.

Words on my mind

Lately, when my mind needs a break from report-writing or stats or whatever task is keeping me on a computer and away from the sunshine, I've found myself meandering back to this site and flipping through my archives. As the words take me back in time, I'm experiencing a weird kind of ambivalence.

Part of me can't help but think "Damn, I was good"- but I'm not sure whether this is inspirational or intimidating. Maybe it is because I'm out of practice at this whole blogging thing, but the words don't come out as seamlessly as they used to. Even though my mind is still as busy as ever, the idea of translating it all into relatable paragraph form is overwhelming and a little scary.

I guess I'm just uncomfortable with this in between state my blog has fell into. I've never been good with ambivalence. I need things to be explicit. As such, I keep on pressuring myself to make a decision about this blog. Do I formally call it quits? Do I start writing again?

When I read back, I know I don't want these words to disappear. I want to have the freedom of having a place to file them when they start spilling over. But, at least in this moment, I also don't know if I can handle the formality of actual starting to write regularly again. Right now, I don't know if the creativity juices are flowing enough to do this frequently. I don't know if I have the time- even writing this, I'm taking away from much needed work time.

And I don't know why on earth I feel the need to pressure myself into making such a formal decision. After all, what's wrong with having a half-assed blog?

The space of ten years

Nostalgia is a little more prescriptive at some times than others.

It is a downright predictable feeling over the past week, what with the emails zipping about regarding the ten year high school reunion occurring in a mere two and a half weeks. It certainly doesn't help that a few of the more adolescent traits have returned with this reminder, with the with-children arguing with the without-children about venues and alcohol consumption, sprinkled with a good sized dose of sarcasm and small seeds of resentment that have somehow remained over the past decade.

My flight is booked. I've decided to avoid asserting the seemingly ubiquitous distaste for everything associated with high school, and rather uncooly admit that I actually didn't mind high school so much. I've also firmly decided to avoid the social comparison pre-requisite that is seemingly petrifying others. Why should the fact that I am unmarried and still renting matter any more to me on this particular day?

But, yes, emails from names you have not seen in print for a long while certainly do get you thinking. It was under this reminiscence that I pulled out an overstuffed photo album from the back of my closet, planning to flip through as I made dinner, thinking "I can't believe it's already been ten years."

This is the photo album, really, containing the most detailed picture of my late adolescence except for perhaps the handscrawled diaries hiding in a box in my parents' attic. It spans from my surprise 16th birthday party all the wall to just past my going away party, at 19, when I left my small hometown to move to the big city.

I flip through the pages, and there I am.

There's me with blonde hair, orange hair, red hair, brown hair.

There's me smiling, back against the heater in my high school.

There's me, arm in the air, proudly brandishing a giant bottle of Baby Duck sparking wine.

There's me, my arms around my best friends on my parent's reclining couch.

There's me, sitting on a boy's lap.

There's me, rushing into the icy water for a New Years Polar Bear swim.

There's me, dancing.

The thing that can't help but notice is just how young I truly am. My eyes look so much bigger, my posture more awkward, my arms slight, my clothing just that little bit askew. Occasionally, there is a photo of me stretching, unaware as my flat torso peaks out, so much less conscious of my body. I am so much littler than I remember. I can't believe this young girl thought she was so very grown up, was having sex, was behind the wheel of a car.

It's a little shocking, to feel like those memories were just yesterday, then to see the physical realities of how long ago they really were. It is certainly provided a quick jolt reminding me that I am, in fact, really an adult.

I can't believe it's only been ten years.

Confidentiality

There are many oddities associated with being an (almost) psychologist.

The responsibilities are tremendous. Not only are you expected to have an eye on the people you treat and their lives outside your one hour a week, but you also have an assumed responsibility to the people around them. There is an assumed almost psychical power to what we do, as though we are to be able to predict with utter certainty what our clients might do. The consequences for mistakes in either way, overestimation or underestimation of risk, are devastating.

Your job title also carries a lot of weight in your every day interactions. People look for the signs that you are secretly reading them. They ask you for advice, be it at a dinner party or in a bar, leaving you wondering if plumbers are approached by their drunk friends with frantic requests for advice on a rusty drain. 

You are also expected by some to have a certain infallibility to you. It is assumed that in order to be a psychologist, your personal life must be thoroughly in order. (I have many times beat myself up by believing that ridiculous stereotype.) You worry about being seen by your clients in a non-professional environments, and the effect that might have on their image of you. I once found out I was at a beer gardens, in a tank top and shorts, at the very same Canada Day celebrations as a client. I was extremely thankful for the lack of paths crossing that day.

One of the most underestimated responsibilities, though, is that of confidentiality.

I take confidentiality very seriously. I view it as fundamental to what I do, and as something I cannot compromise. Sadly, there are a few of my peers who are a little more lax in their interpretation of the term.

It is an odd quirk of the job to have to hold a lot of charged information in your own head. My own capacities in being able to handle this weight have increased a lot since I've begun training, to the point where I am reasonable proficient at being able to leave it behind when I walk in the front door of my apartment.

Still, I do work in a forensic setting, which often makes for a lot of heavy information being thrown my way, from trauma to violence to insane tragedy. In all honesty, I never believed I'd have the capacity to do this kind of work, and I sometimes sit back and reflect on the fact that I am much stronger than I gave myself credit for. 

I've worked in this particular job for over a year and a half now, and still some friends don't know about it, because I choose not to speak about it very much. People are a little greedy for details, and I don't blame them, because it is fascinating stuff, especially in this era of criminal fascination, of multiple CSIs and talk of criminal profiling. I can't give them these details, though, just a generic job description and vague generalities, no matter how many good party stories I may have floating around in my head. It's just something I have to be black and white about.

Still, some days, it is a lot to take in. Some days, the details of it all just dawn on me. And in those times, I just have to do a lot of thinking. Because (although I can always talk to others at my workplace) keeping quiet is just a part of the package deal I signed up for when I decided to take this path.

Windy days and tea shops

I think the tea shop worker has a bit of a crush on me.

It is not just that he complemented my t-shirt when I walked past the counter. It is more than he gives me a big nervous smile when he comes by to refill my water, stammering out questions about whether the fan was interfering with my reading, and I accidentally catch his eye as I glance around the room on more than one occasion.

To be truthful, I find the whole thing a little endearing, and a little reassuring. He thinks I'm cute enough to be nervous about in the same outfit I was wearing when, earlier, happy to be freed of another day wearing my professional pants, I declared "Being a slob is highly underrated!" Even better, he thinks I'm cute enough to be awkwardly nervous about, rather than to cockily and drunkenly stammer towards-- which, no matter how much time elapses between bar trips, seemingly remains the predominant mating dance of the 20-something.

(Although, to be fair, someone did recently shout "Babe-raham Lincoln" at me whilst pedaling by on their bike, sans helmet I wasn't sure whether to be flattered, offended, or just shamelessly impressed by his Wayne's World quoting ability.)

As I was getting a little stir crazy from my first whole work-from-home-day in months, the Duke essentially commanded me to leave the house that evening, and finally enter the 200+ varieties of tea shop a ten minute walk away from us.

He is a smart boy sometimes (see: picking me). Pina colada tea (note: best idea ever) and an honest-to-God-fiction-book-that-is-in-no-way-related-to-my-dissertation make for a great way to clear one's head. What this mini-excursion really reminded me of, though, is how much I miss walking.

In my old neighbourhood, I took to wandering as a simple way to clear my head. Sometimes I took my camera, sometimes my iPod, and sometimes it was just me and my feet. My new neighbourhood, on the surface, appears too functional for such endeavours I walk to the overpriced grocery store, the coffee shop, the bus stop, my friend's apartment. I never just walk.

As I stroll down the street home, I think about all the silly details I miss by only walking to reach a destination, by keeping my sunglasses and headphone on at all times to shelter me from the world. Like how invigorating it feels to have the wind blow your hair perfectly away from your face. Or the parked bus emblazoned with the name Buttercup. Or the piles of cherry blossoms. Or the man singing to himself.

It's good to get out of your apartment and out of your head sometimes.

Shark jumping

I'm starting to wonder if Hijinks has officially jumped the shark.

Over the past couple months, comments have plummeted. I know, as someone with some semblance of a writer, I shouldn't get all in a tizzy about comments. But, still, outside of the immediate sting of a diminished number, I am wondering if I should be viewing it as a clue of some sort. For instance, if, as a singer, one of your albums sold a bundle, and the next was a relative flop in terms of numbers, wouldn't you wonder if your music had stopped speaking to people?

I have tried running reasons through my mind for this drop. It could be that my relatively busy schedule has led to less consistent commenting, and thus less reciprocal comments in turn-- which is way too systematic for the whole spirit of writing, in my books. It could be that all the cool kids are Twittering now, and I haven't the time to even think about consistent witty updates on my life. But I keep coming back to the same thing... maybe it is my writing that has taken the tumble in quality. Maybe I'm just not inspiring anyone to actually have anything to say.

I do wish this didn't matter to me. This little blog is an important part of my life, and I like having a place to leave my thoughts. At the same time, though, I don't want to be that singer who should have retired long ago, who should realize it is time to move on. And then I flip back again- who cares if I have a horrible voice, cliched lyrics, and sell no albums, if I have a passion for music?

I just don't know anymore. I'm wondering if I should take some time to figure out what exactly I want from blogging, to figure out if I need a change, if I can get some perspective, if there is something missing. 

(PS. And, please, don't take this as a plea for reassurance!)

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned

Envy is my deadly sin, if we're to be specific.

Now, before I launch into my tale, I want to make a few things clear. First, I know this entire reaction is silly and irrational. I am aware than I have a damn good life, and to imagine something different would be to picture something entirely disingenuous to who I am. I know that given the choice, I would remain wearing the same shoes I am now, as despite them being less shiny than others, they fit me a hell of a lot better.

That being said, what is the purpose of having an anonymous blog if not to write longwinded posts complaining about petty things?

So... I took an impulsive surprise trip to HomeTown for the Easter long weekend. As part of the process of surprising my mom, upon arriving, I went directly to my little sister's house.

By sister's house, I mean the house recently purchased by her new boyfriend. By new boyfriend, I mean her boss, who is 12 years her senior, and who she moved in with after dating for two months.

By house, I mean something a lot more glamourous than anything we lived in growing up. I mean three bathrooms, jacuzzi tub, amazing view, so many extra bedrooms that they can spare a "studio" for their brand new hobby of painting on top of the usual spare bedrooms and office-- plus shiny new non-Ikea real furniture. On top of this, they have jumped full speed into responsible homeowner's mode, speaking of replacing hardwood floors, knocking down walls, landscaping, putting in a hot tub. My sister speaks in confident tones, making statements such as "Well, I certainly don't want to sell anytime in the near future" and "I'm not sure if I like his idea of building a suite in the garage, although it would help with the mortgage."

In other words, my sister jumped from broke and moving back in with the parents to a half million dollar home (in a town where that actually buys a lot)-- all in one fell swoop.

And me? Well, since graduating high school, I suppose you could describe my trajectory as consistent... upwards and mediocre paced. I've done all the practical things... multiple degrees, paying off my credit card balance, putting off buying a car, working while going to school, keeping separate bank accounts, waiting the appropriate amount of time to take the next relationship step. And, well, to show for it... I'm living in the nicest one-bedroom I've ever lived in. And while it does have a dishwasher, a substantial lack of spiders, and actually room to move, it certainly doesn't have a backyard, and guests get to sleep on the (admittedly comfy) couch.

So, yes, although I will only admit this in whispers through gritted teeth or with several beverages in me-- I'm a little jealous. I'm almost too much of the poster child for making sound decisions, and my sister is anything but-- and she is the one living the high life as we speak.

I know what comes out of everyone else's mouth when I do admit this. "But you'll be better off in the long term".

I might snap if I hear the words "long term" one more time. I have been thinking in terms of the future since I started university nearly ten years ago. Almost everything in my life is decided for with the "long term" in mind. Anytime I describe plans for the future, it has twelve steps in between.
"Well, first I will finish my dissertation, then I have to move for my year internship, then we go to the city where the Duke is finishing his PhD and I will get registered and hopefully find a job, then we probably move once he's finished to a place with a good university for him to work at... and then we can relax! That or it is time for me to take my maternity leave."

More than anything, I am probably envious of how simple it all seems to be for her right now. In the middle of a never ending to do list, I yearn for that simplicity. Even though I know this is probably just a clear case of grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side syndrome, of wanting what you can't have. As the Duke points out to me, I would be horrible at living a quiet life. I need to bust my butt to get what I want. It's in my basic chemistry. 

The truth is, she's happy. I see it in her eyes when she's with him. And so am I. In my life, and for her. Just because I'm envious doesn't mean she doesn't deserve this happiness. So I probably owe a few hail marys for this one.

The statistic down the hall

A friend of his gave my boyfriend cocaine for his birthday.

Nevermind that he has never done cocaine and doesn't intend to do cocaine.  It is a little reminiscent of adolescent peer pressure, like when I was convinced that it was a really good idea to serve as the requisite "egg" in a rambunctious trampoline game of crack the egg or to try a dip of chewing tobacco. (Note- These weren't good ideas. At all.) This is the same friend who encouraged us to try to hunt down some Cuban cocaine while traveling- yes, the same country with the shady communist regime and that tried to kill us with something as banal as a hamburger.

So, despite the Duke telling him how absurd this suggestion was, he has decided to try another strategy- the classic selfish birthday gift, kind of like when Homer gave Marge the bowling ball. He apparently wants another stimulant buddy.

It's on occasions like this when it occurs to me how naive I can be. It's not as though I'm blind to drugs. I grew up in a town where pot smoking was practically a formalized afterschool program. I came of age in the rave era, where, as I danced under strobe lights with outstretched arms, friends were frantically hugging all those around them on an ecstasy buzz or tripping out on a bushel of pillows in a corner. But I guess I just assumed that people just got over it.

Sure, we all hear of the academic-type distinction between functional and dysfunctional drug addicts. We're told that there are just as many uber-successful briefcased types snorting cocaine off bathroom sinks on the weekend as there are junkies passed out with needles on their arms in a back alley. Still, though I agreed with this on principle, I never quite expected the reality of it. 

I didn't occur to me that academics in their early 30s were really wiping the white stuff off their noses between teaching classes and writing manuscripts. I was shocked that with the revelation of one friend, the tumbling domino effect that followed, in which I suddenly realized that a number of the people I'd had beers with had also become semi-regular cocaine users. I was also amazed at the lack of discretion, the expectation that this was a casual enough of a hobby to just drop in conversation, like the movie he saw last weekend. 

And, suddenly, I was reminded of the time this happened before, of the fellow down the hall in a former apartment building. I used to borrow sugar from him and watch the Sopranos at his place on quiet weeknights. Only when he was evicted was he revealed to have a fierce cocaine habit while being smart enough to wait until we were back in our apartment to pull out his baggie.

It's always an odd revelation that the statistics are the same people you are having lunch with.

Putting down the pen

One of the oddest things about blogging is that it lends itself to the belief that your thoughts are especially important and need to be communicated. Before, I was happy to let the random ideas or clever scenarios merely simmer in my head before vanishing (unlike the lyrics to old TV show theme songs, which seem to be wedged in some random brain crevasses for ever more-- I bet almost every single one of you can rap the Fresh Prince of Belair theme song in your sleep). Yet now, it feels like I am cheating myself to let them escape. They somehow need to be written down, to be witnessed.

This may explain why, on the bus today, I was struggling to find a theme to connect the dots between my opinions on the pigeons living the alley by my apartment, my implicit theories about the guy who sat across me on the bus in the beat up leather jacket (I decided he shopped at used book stores and vaguely wanted to marry him), and my annoyance at my co-worker who has suddenly become a fierce vacation doppelganger and is copying every step of the holiday the Duke and I are about to depart on.

Of course, none of these thoughts matter much at all. It isn't going to alter the course of my or your life whether I decide to tell you about how I nearly trip over pigeons in the morning.

This is likely why I have not joined the Twitter masses (or is it the Twitterati?). If there's one thing I have been told on multiple occasions (other than "Wow, you really are that clumsy" or "Maybe that's enough cheese for today"), it is that I think too much. I know that if I purposely enrolled myself in a program where people presumably wanted to hear the most random of my thoughts, like how it just feels better to know my socks have polka dots on them even though no one can see them, I would probably whip myself up into a frenzy. It certainly seems that the simple act of blogging has done enough to make me more aware of the minutia of my brain... Twittering really could only make it worse. I spend enough of my brain power reacting to "Oh God, I need to remember to blog this."

It kind of reminds me of those people who get so wrapped up in taking pictures of an event or a place that they are entirely separate from the experience. They have no real memories of it, only the plastic versions of memories in their photographs. I have the tendency to start narrating the story of my day in my head before the day is even finished, rather than just being in that day.

The other night, the Duke and I were having a profound late night conversation about of topics such as mental illness and astronomy. As I slid beneath the comforter, knowing the similarities between his memory and a piece of swiss cheese, I said to him "You are getting some pretty intense ideas there. You should try to write them down." He told me that he sometimes appreciates being able to have these thoughts without feeling they need to be preserved, that he can sit with the idea in the moment and be okay with the fact that it may never come to mind again.

Perhaps I can learn a little from him about living in the moment.

Then comes marriage...

I am beginning to wonder how my friends became so cliched.

It certainly couldn't be by simple virtue of the diamond rings displayed on their ring fingers. It is not as though they are the first of my friends to get married, many of whom who have managed the transition from girlfriend to wife with relative ease. 

This week, six of us sat at my kitchen table, empty plates before us from our weekly meet-up. As I began collecting the plates, the regular dose of matrimonial talk began. You see, three of the six are getting married, one this spring, one this summer, one next summer. While I don't mind talk of the larger themes, such as bachelorette plans, dresses, caterers, or of their general excitement about an admittedly huge day in their lives, lately it has progressed to the downright banal. This time, they began chattering about their three's trip to the mall to pick out wedding bands, which began with an anecdote of how the jewelry store worker made a joking remark about the big rings on each of their fingers, and ended with a detailed dissection of which shape of wedding band best complemented their fingers. 

I counted floorboards.

I also wondered when they had all gotten so oblivious. Not just oblivious to the fact that I was counting floorboards, but also to the fact that J is single and not necessarily thrilled about it, or that M has been with her boyfriend for longer than some of them have been with their fiances, and is still barely able to get him to utter the word "commitment". Oblivious to the fact that their constant talk might not just bore some people, but may actually be a tinge hurtful.

While they may be unaware of how their words may sting, they also are also painfully incognizant of the fact that not everyone is necessarily wanting their lives right now. As it has now become obvious that M and her boyfriend are not getting engaged anytime soon, attention has turned to me as the next on the list. My non-committal or general responses to "do you think he's going to propose soon?" or "do you know what kind of ring you want?" fall over deaf ears. It seems that "I'm sure it will happen, but not anytime soon" is not satisfying enough, so they keep on pressing. 

That same night, as I excitedly tell them that the Duke and I are finally booking our sunshine holiday, S coos "Oh, I bet he has something in store for you there", and winks condescendingly. And even though I know it is only because she wants for me what she thinks I want for myself, I can't help but get annoyed. Why isn't it good enough that we are having our first big holiday together? Why does it need to be that I am providing him with a cliched scenario to ask for my hand in marriage? Why does everyone act like I am just suppressing my frantic need for a wedding, rather than accepting that him and I are just happy in the moments we're in now? 

I guess it is just starting to depress me that these women I know are genuinely ambitious, driven, feisty, independent present themselves like something out of a bad sitcom, when all we talk about are calories and relationships. As I walked home today, I realized that I knew reams more about their theme colours, the necklines of their bridesmaid's dresses and their fiances' idiosyncracies than they did about my dissertation or my job. And it made me feel a little lonely.

And the world continues to shrink

Saturday afternoon, I am standing at the corner of a busy intersection with the Duke and two friends, debating where to go for lunch. My eyes flit over to the flow of people crossing the pavement, and I make eye contact with a tall man. He is evidently walking towards me, with sure, direct steps, and I am perplexed. Was my eye contact somehow unintentionally inviting?

He strides up, and reaches out his hand. "Hi, I'm *insert name here*." I reached out to take his hand, bemused, when suddenly the light bulb beams on.

I've had my first random blogger encounter, for this is S'Mat, who I have emailed and Facebooked on occasion, but never encountered through anything but the glow of a computer screen. And, again supporting my conjecture that the world is a bit of a tangled interwoven spiderweb, with random lines connecting you in ways you never predicted, he has ended up not only in my city over the weekend, but dining across the street from where I stood and chattered. And he was able to generalize that profile picture snapshot to the in living colour version of me in my winter jacket on a weekend afternoon.

Feeling as though I have been standing, agape, for several minutes, I let him know that I have figured out the connection, then shout out "I haven't seen you in so long!" for the benefit of my perplexed friends. He nods wittingly at my charade. I turn to introduce him to my boyfriend, and S'mat knowingly states "This must be the Duke." The Duke is understandably bewildered to hear his former blogging moniker tossed about, but I murmur to him softly that he is another blogger. S'mat puts his finger up to his lips in recognition of our shared secret.

We talk for another few quick moments, before we both veer off to our respective groups. With the increasing overlap between my "real" life and my blogging life, I am getting eerily apt at lying on the spot, and I tell my other friends that S'Mat was an old friend from my undergraduate days. They smile and nod, then turn to the menu, as I contemplate what a very small world it is after all.