No fear

I do a core workout class twice a week at the gym. Thursdays are my favourite class day because I like the instructor. Today was her first time teaching the newest release and she asked if anyone had done it yet. I had, and another guy in the middle of the studio nodded.

"What did you think of it?" the instructor asked.

"Hard," he said.

"Hard! We don't say hard in this class! We say challenging."

I smiled at this. The other day when Stephen said relationships are hard I said I couldn't use that word. I didn't it like it. To me, hard is a word you use in exasperation. Hard is saved for things that are not only difficult, but questionable as to why you keep doing them. I don't want either of us to describe our relationship as ever being hard.

Maybe it's a girl thing to get so hung up on certain words. I like the word challenge. I can agree that a good relationship has challenges. I like a challenge. I think I have some version of that statement on my resume. Take on a challenge and your are ambitious, driven, confident in your abilities and a problem solver. That's who I am.

I can't remember the wording of it anymore, but I used to have a quote on this blog about how having a relationship with millions of people was easy, it's having a relationship with one single person that's difficult. It resonated with me when I found it because it was easy to make new friends with random strangers but trying to create a meaningful relationship with one special guy was har-d.

Now I see the wisdom differently. It's always been easy to bare my rawest thoughts and feelings here. Perhaps it's the comfort factor of putting words on a page. It's a release and they just flow out so much easier from my fingers than my mouth. My arguments make sense here. When I try to speak my truths to one person, even the simplest statement gets stuck in my throat and then, like I am actually choking, my eyes water. It's annoying. I wonder if it would be any easier if I knew sign language. Maybe I could just draw them pictures?

I never used to be so afraid. I would worry about things a bit, but they wouldn't shake me. I journaled, blogged, vented to my mom and it was all very manageable. Now, I have something new and special that I am afraid to lose and it's different. I can only guess it is kind of like being a new parent who says "Oh my goodness this little thing is so awesome and precious but so fragile. Please don't let me break it!" Kids are a lot stronger than we know, and really, so are we. Even when we are
fumbling around and feel more incompetent than a dust bunny, we still have instincts to guide us. And, I believe, if we have good, honest intentions, we can do pretty okay. People can generally forgive someone who is trying her best. Love does that.

I am afraid to say out loud that I am afraid, because I don't want to be seen as weak. I want to be strong, tough, confident and the one you can lean on. I used to be that girl. I had to be that girl. It was called being an older sister.

I am afraid that if I find my voice and get the words out about my fears and needs, there will be too many for any normal person to handle, and the camel's back will break. But I'm also afraid that if the fear doesn't come out, it will grow, like a cancer. It will make me ugly and eventually destroy me. I can't keep holding it all in.

I used to come here to share my story with the hope that if someone else out there in the world was going through the same thing, they wouldn't feel so alone. They could feel normal.

Being afraid is hard. It is exhausting. And what if I actually have nothing to fear? What if I could stand there, in all my imperfect messiness, release it all and lose nothing but the stress of carrying the fear around? What if I released it and someone said, hey, me too?

Whenever I find myself staring at a wall of fear that has paralyzed me, I remind myself that I will survive. I always do. The wall crumbles. I leap. And I haven't died yet.

Dear Jill,
You're not perfect. You're working on stuff. I get it. I love you anyway. You're worth sticking it out for. Let's go have some fun and eat some ice cream.

Love,
Jill

The relationship you have with yourself is the most challenging one and the most important. It sets the stage for all your other relationships. It needs to be nurtured.

Second Paddle

The second practice will be easier, someone told me. Really? How? As in, how could we magically be better? How could we suddenly have synchronicity and more power?

Miracle? Magic? Inevitability? The spirits of those who've succumbed to cancer giving us an extra oomph? We were better. I had a shorter, better fitting paddle this time, so maybe that's why I was better. But how did we battle against the gale winds and the near white caps on the river and actually perform better than the first practice? Don't know.

Part of the propulsion strategy is to rock back and forth as you paddle but this quickly made me feel nauseated. That's my biggest complaint this time. If there happens to be a 30+ degree sun beating down on us on race day I may go green around the gills.

Business Class

When I found out I got approval to go to Toronto for a meeting I was in my kitchen and got the email on my work-issued Blackberry. I jumped around the house like a girl who just got invited to prom by captain of the hockey team.

My first business trip ever. In my very first job, working for the agency, my two co-workers were always flying off to the Vancouver office or Toronto. That was back when flights were cheap and budget cuts had not yet made it to the travel line. Now many employers have put travel bans in place so the team in head office that you talk to more than your own family remains faceless. Or at least legless if you enjoy the luxury of video-conferencing. I did a job interview that way once. What a waste of a perfectly put together outfit.

So the excitement over this trip had nothing to do with the destination. I'd have been bouncing around if they were sending me to Saskatoon. It was about getting on a plane for business instead of pleasure, checking into a hotel room downtown instead of a Super Eight with a coupon, having a per diem to buy food with, taking a taxi instead of having a relative pick me up and getting to be Jill, who flew in from Winnipeg. So many new fun hats to try. Also, a good excuse to buy new shoes and a suit when I was in America the weekend prior.

My mom took me to the airport on Thursday morning.

Briefcase with laptop? Check. Cute flying outfit? Check!

From Toronto Trip 2011

Okay, now one with the sunglasses. Cheese!

From Toronto Trip 2011

My boss came on the trip and it was her first business trip too, so we were both excited. The flight down started us off on getting to know each other better outside of the hospital walls. We bonded over blistered feet and a quest for all things heart shaped.

From A Heart for Kristin

From Toronto Trip 2011

At 9:30 we retired to our rooms. I launched myself backwards onto the king bed and was disappointed that it felt like landing on a sheet of plywood.

From Toronto Trip 2011

It felt kind of lonely sitting there in my room. I read all my emails, perused my usual news outlets, sent a few texts out and wondered how the football game I was missing was going back home. Missing. Something was missing.

I eventually gave in and slid myself into the left side of the bed. The pillows were weird. Too soft. I doubled up and my head sunk into the synthetic feather mound. In retrospect, I'd say this was where my trouble may have began.


I dreamed that night repeatedly of being smothered in that bed with the extra pillows by a woman and a man on either side of me. It was really creepy. Sleep that night came in fits. I got up at 7:30 with only shreds left of my excitement for the meeting that day. I felt like a wreck.

Look alive, girlfriend. You've got a meeting to attend!

From Toronto Trip 2011

The meeting was great. We were done by four but my flight home didn't leave until eleven which left me me a lot of time to kill. My boss was meeting a friend for dinner so I was on my own. My feet protested, but I set out on a walk in search of some green space. I settled for a bench by a fountain where I pulled out my journal and let my soul flow through my pen. I play around with the various pieces of my life with a sense of determination like someone doing a Sudoku or crossword puzzle. On the one hand, life is chaos, but on the other, so many people and things have come into mine lately, just when I needed them, that I feel certain there is a melody and a chorus.

I closed my journal and put my puzzle away for a while to rest in my subconscious. I headed back toward the hotel and stopped in front of a $20 psychic reading place. My boss and I had noticed it the day before and decided we should try it for fun. The neon sign said OPEN but when I pulled on the door it was locked so I carried on down Dundas Street. I would try again later, but with the same results. Fate doesn't like cheaters. Or she wanted to save me 20 bucks.

I wandered in a circle, sometimes in the crowd sometimes out. I felt trapped and lost like a fish in a tank. Toronto is alright, but I don't think it's my city. But that could have been the blisters, exhaustion and dehydration talking.

It's just an expression

While getting ready for the gym today I noticed a multi-hued bruise just above my knee cap. I touched it. It hurt. Hm. When did I get that? Must've been recently. How? Mysteriously, as you often do, silly girl. I had a hazy memory of hitting myself with the heavy ramps I used to wheel my lawn mower into the back of Truck yesterday. My dad needed to borrow the mower, so if that was the cause of the bruise then at least it was in an act of love and not just poor coordination, as is the usual case.

The most unfortunate part of the bruise was that I was scheduled to do a portrait session with my photographer friend, Doug (affectionately known as Delores here). I worried about the bruise ruining the pictures. I made a mental note to check the rest of my limbs for unsightly blemishes. Later I would fret that the humidity would mean my hair would be limp and gross looking and that my workout would mean my face would be extra red. Gah. Pictures stress me out.

Last Sunday afternoon when NAF was here we were wandering around at the Forks. He snapped some pictures of the river for his blog.

"Wait, there's one more picture I need," he said and pointed the lens at me.

I made a face and groaned. "Not today."

"Why not today?" he asked.

"I was prettier yesterday," I said although I have no idea what that meant. If anything I was "prettier" on Friday when I was sporting my new frilly dress. On that particular Sunday I was wearing a typical weekend t-shirt with some black, easy-breezy, wide-legged pants and, the biggest fashion faux pas that I allowed myself to indulge in, my tired and worn black runners (the ones from New York that I cannot bring myself to toss. Not ever).

"You're one of those people," NAF said as we headed up the river bank.

"One of what people?"

"The ones who never like how they look in any pictures of themselves when really they take beautiful pictures." He showed me the image. Well if I hadn't have made such a "please don't take my picture now" face maybe the photo would have turned out lovely. Great. Now that is going to be his lasting image of me from this visit. You see? Pictures are so stressful!

When I was a kid, no, for my entire life I've wished that I could express myself physically through dance, gymnastics or figure skating or taking really great photos. I understand the concepts of beautiful  and expressive lines and postures, but I am so freakin' awkward and uncoordinated, like a baby giraffe who has no awareness of the length of her limbs. That's why I am constantly bruised. I am forever flailing my arms out and getting my legs in the way of unyielding objects. If I can practice and go slow, sometimes I think I can look graceful, and then I feel beautiful. But that takes some work. It's not natural to me like the flow of words onto a page is. Meh, everyone has their thing.

I've always been good with words. I know how to place them to communicate what I want to say. I know how to play with sentence length, diction and imagery to create something for my readers or listeners to understand and react to. If I can make someone feel something, I have succeeded in my expression.

When it came time for goodbye on Monday morning, NAF and I didn't have much to say. All weekend we had traded stories and laughs but now we were both quiet.We'd look at each other and I'd search his eyes for something that would tell me what he was thinking. Perhaps he wanted to say something but the words were locked up in his head. Me, I had words, all kinds of words. But I didn't know which ones to use just then. Instead I hugged him and hoped that he could read in my eyes that I understood and I wasn't mad, hurt or feeling regret. It was a hard goodbye for me, harder than I thought it would be, but I wanted to show him my most beautiful self--a girl full of grace, poise and strength. That was the picture I wanted him to take with him on the rest of his journey.

At my photo session with Doug today I put on my favourite songs and my favourite outfits. None of them showed the bruise. I tried my very best to show my heart, the whole happy-but-scarred, beat-skipping thing.
 
"Let's make sure we get a real smoldering shot," I told Doug. I wanted to have evidence that I could tell a whole heartbreaker story in one, unblinking look. With the very last head shot he did he said, "your eyes are really blue."
 
I leaned over to look at the preview screen on the camera and smiled. That's the look that makes for hard goodbyes.
 
Now I know.

New Year Orientation

Hello 2011, welcome to my life. Together, we will explore the final year of my 20s and the first few weeks of my third decade on Earth.

Your predecessor, 2010, was agreeable on the whole but supplied its fair dose of heartache (see eHarmony adventures in the first quarter and death in the family in Q2). I appreciated however, the perspective 2010 gave me. We didn't always agree, but I usually walked away feeling I had learned something and gained new, valuable insight. I give a lot of credit to 2010 for personal growth in the area of wisdom. And, it was nothing like the doozie known as 2009. I suppose we all encounter years like that from time to time.

2011, I feel I should give you some idea as to what I want to get out of you, the vision I have for you. I can't just expect you to read my mind and deliver. That said, it is still early and I haven't completely formalized my plans for you. I usually like to review and tweak on a quarterly basis. We will have regular planning meetings, opportunities to touch base, etc.

To begin, I'd like to take on a new novel writing project, likely this month, as I did with 2010. This time around though I'd like to take five weeks to complete it, which would mean committing to 10,000/week. In my first attempt I went in without much of a plan. The result was a positive experience, but not a product I was terribly happy with. I'd like to improve the product but still keep to a tight schedule as I feel it was key to sticking with the project and seeing it through to completion. I've already signed up for  a January 22 writers workshop at which I will have to have something to share.

I have finished paying for Truck which means that I will have an extra $475 to my name each month. I would like to invest this money in retirement savings, home improvements and personal improvements. For home improvements I'd like to paint my kitchen and install new flooring. I had thought that I might like to do this in January also, but perhaps I am being too ambitious with loading all these goals in your first month. I may push this goal back to February or March, although, you should know, I have already begun research on this.

For personal improvements there are some courses I am considering through Continuing Education. I need to look again at when they are being offered. I will get back to you on this one.

I'm also interested in investing in a heart rate monitor for use during my workouts at the gym. I've made going to the gym a regular habit and would now like to focus on getting the most out of my workouts by ensuring that I am exercising at the level I need to be in order to attain my fitness goals. Right now I am looking at the miCoach Pace Bundle by Adidas. It retails in Canada for $169.99. The sooner I pick out a monitor, the sooner I can get serious about my fitness goals, so this is another possible goal for January. Until then, I'll do my best with just placing my fingers on my neck.

There is one more personal improvement investment I have in mind. I've had some thought about giving eH another shot. Lisa's on there still and got a good subscription price. If I could get the same price I'd do it. Overall it was a fun experience for 2010 and made for good blogging.

Finally, 2011 you are shaping up to be a good year because on the weekend I got an email from my good old friend OAF announcing his plan to travel across Canada by bike. He will begin in April in B.C. and tentatively has plans to arrive in Manitoba by May. 2011, this is super exciting. I haven't seen OAF since he was NYF in 2008. I have already responded to OAF to let him know I'd be happy to be his ambassador to Manitoba and provide him with a bed and fridge full of beer upon his arrival to Winnipeg. More details on this to come as he finalizes his plans.

So 2011, that's what I have in mind so far. I trust this is enough for you to get going. No doubt you are already planning some surprises--both pleasant and unpleasant to make the next 12 months interesting. I usually try not to rely on you too much to supply inspiration and paths, however, I am considering testing out a more "whichever way the wind blows" approach with you to change things up a bit. I feel some of the previous years have taught me to keep my eyes and options wide open to maximize opportunity for full enjoyment.

I truly do have a good feeling about you, 2011. I am sure we will accomplish a lot together before your time is up.