The Great Purge

I had grand plans to outline the great master-plan for simplifying my life today.


I was in Wal-Mart the other day buying two drying racks to replace the one my cat has been using as a jungle-gym for five years.  Two is overkill if I keep up with my laundry on the regular.  So really, it's not overkill to have two.  Anyway, while I was waiting my turn in line, I saw a magazine with a headline promising me 62 ways to unclutter my life.  62!  I bought it without even flipping the pages!  Of course, I was somewhat disappointed in its claims.  At least 5 of those 62 "ways" were ways to rid yourself of guilt and muscle tension.  Because, you know, I don't need any help ridding myself of those things.  Not.


One article was helpful in uncluttering my life from my actual physical chattles, and I really do want to get rid of a shit-tonne of my stuff without really knowing where to start.  Wait.  That's not true.  The tube-television that's sitting in my car right now that the Salvation Army store won't take because they know they won't sell it.  I want to purge that first.  For sure.


When I read the other articles, though, I just find that many of the guilt-banishing, muscle-tension soothing, manner-developing tips just don't apply to me and my life.  Or I just don't think the guilt and tension and manners I have really need much renovation.  Does that mean I'm blissfully ignorant of my own shortcomings?  Or does it mean I'm actually sort of content with my life right now?  Or maybe both?


Huh.


Unsettling.

And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good

That's from John Steinbeck's East of Eden.  I lifted it from a Buzzfeed list.  I'm not particularly ashamed to admit that.


It's illustrative of how I'd like my year to be.  My 31st birthday was 3 weeks ago. 


I was in a relationship with a guy at one point in my life who said the first song he heard on the radio on his 21st birthday was symbolic of the year ahead.  On his 22nd, it was the second song.  It was the third song on his 23rd, and so on.


I'm not sure I want to leave my fate in the hands of the morning show DJ.  Steinbeck's probably got more to say to the masses.  But the truth is, I had decided on the philosophy of goodness rather than perfection before I read that buzzfeed list.  My 30th birthday kicked off the year in exactly the way I had imagined in all my greatest fantasies that it would.  As loyal readers will know, things hit the shitter shortly thereafter.  And as very loyal readers will know, I had been striving for perfection for some time before that.


My 31st birthday was pretty low key.  I went to work at two jobs that day and then went to rehearsal for a choir I accompany.  I had drinks with friends for an hour or so after that, and a Skype date with my long-distance love interest.  I relished the numerous Facebook birthday wishes that popped up on my feed throughout the day and beamed through the handful of in-person Happy Birthday songs I was sung. 


And when people tell me that's what happens after you turn 30, to console me because things were not that exciting, I tell them: I'm really trying to decrease the standard deviation of awesome in my life this year.  I didn't want it to be perfect.  The day was perfectly good anyway.


At this point in the blog post, I would normally write a longish list of resolutions or lessons.  This will only be slightly different from the norm.  I have two for the year.


1.  Be better at accepting less than perfection.  This is always a challenge in my life.  The other 3% is like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and it's hard to stop looking for that point where the rainbow hits the earth.


2.  When I'm in control of letting something or someone in or out of my life, do my best to consider the following question: "Does this make my life better?"  And if I AM in control, and the answer is No, do my best to unclutter my life of the things that don't need to be there (and of course, fight hard to keep the good things around).


So while I'd love to pledge to make my life perfect, I think those two challenges are enough.  And maybe, most of the time, my life will be good.

Fall

Maybe I'm referring to A fall, or THE fall, and not actually autumn here.

It seems that I made all of this fantastic progress in boosting my outlook in the summer.  But now I can feel that thick black moodiness creeping in around the edges of my consciousness.  Nothing's really wrong, but I'm pretty sure I know why it's happening.

I'm effing busy.

I just finished saying to a friend that you should never start a new second job at the same time that you're working on a theatre production at the same time that your main job has three major events happening during the busiest time of the year at the same time that you have to be away for a week for a conference.  The friend I said it to just had a baby, and his tired for sure trumps my tired, but I am confident that his fatigue is at least a tiny bit more rewarding than mine. 

September begins lazily enough.  I'm always waiting for my various commitments to begin when the ninth month clicks over on the calendar.  Soon, it's September 10th or so, and then there's this moment that feels like the shot from a starter pistol that begins my race to December.

So, I'm off.  And I'm running.  And I'm never really sure how this happens to me every autumn, but it does.  This year, though, I know I have a photoessay entitled "Things That Make Me Smile" floating in cyberspace that I can refer to when I feel like things are heading for a fall.  I just have to make time for them.

My birthday is coming up.  My 30th year was pretty great and culminated in a fantastic birthday party.  The six months following my 30th birthday were pretty much the runniest shit there is, in an admittedly first-world-problem kind of way. 

I was listening to the Counting Crows on my last road-trip and the line, "A long December and there's reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last," stuck out for me.

Now, my birthday is in November, and even though November hasn't started yet, it sure feels long.  But I do have a feeling that this year's going to be better than last year, for a lot of reasons.  One of those reasons is that I'm actually going to work at it.  In that spirit, I'm going to set some goals.  Maybe 31 of them, in the spirit of the number of years I've been alive.  Maybe not.  Depends how long November is.

100 Days of Summer and a Happy Fall

As many of you are aware, I, along with some family members, some friends and many strangers around the world, embarked on a journey of transformative photojournalism known as #100happydays.

The idea is that, as members of the modern western world, we're so caught up in our day-to-day commuter, punch-clock lifestyles that we're letting the happy moments in our lives slip through our fingers and be forgotten.  #100happydays is an exercise in long-term gratitude and acknowledgement of good things in our lives.

I didn't get a great start in life on this score.  The maternal side of my family has numerous little sayings, and one of the more famous ones was popularized by my grandfather and remains well-used by all members to this day.  "Oh, I'm such a failure."  Add to that the "What happened to the other 3 percent?" I frequently heard from my parents, and it's easy to see why I was never quite happy with the status quo.  Factor in the usual body image issues and a totally run-of-the-mill amount of bad luck, and you can probably guess that this challenge was, indeed, challenging.

On day 100, I posted a picture of myself, freshly showered, wearing pink pajamas with penguins on them, smiling into my smartphone's camera.  I confirmed that my life is really quite full of happiness.  And that it always has been.  When I say the journey was transformative, it wasn't as though I came out a different person.  I came out the same person with different eyes.

Here's what I learned:

1.  Exercise is really good heart medicine.  I think the link between regular exercise and cardiovascular outcomes is beyond significant scrutiny.  That being said, I obviously mean the "feel-y" heart, and not the blood-pumping heart.  I was incredibly active in June and July and while I'm not sure I ever felt the endorphin rush of a runner's high, I definitely felt pretty euphoric for a lot of the time in those months.  Sometimes I get sad and I'm not sure why.  Now I'll take an inventory of my last week's physical activity, because it might have something to do with couch potato's low.

2.  I really like coffee.  Or rather, I really like my local coffee/bookshop.  Some days, the only thing I could find to photograph was the latte I got at the end of a hard day.  There's really nothing like a foamy, creamy, slightly bitter, sometimes sweet, sometimes flavoured, warm and cozy drink to make you feel comfortable in your skin.  On the other hand, I'm pretty sure it wasn't about the coffee.  The bookstore is staffed, pretty much entirely, by friends.  It's really nice to have a place I can go, even for a few minutes, and share a smile, a brief conversation, and sometimes an amusing drawing and then go home and savour the foamy, creamy, warm and cozy memory.

3.  When you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you.  Seriously.  When you walk down the street with a smile on your face, everybody smiles back at you.  (But if the clouds are at your feet, that's amore).  More people say hi.  One man tipped his hat to me one day.  I think because I'm so busy and focused, my natural inclination is to walk fast with my head down, but when you actually let the sun hit your face really good things can happen.  Furthermore, if I'm feeling great that everyone's smiling at me, then everyone else must feel a little bit great also that I'm smiling at them.  It's like getting a million times return on your investment.  I'm pretty sure that I met this really cute boy one day because I smiled at him from across the room, and then he smiled at me, and turns out we think each other are kind of rad.  So, if the smile doesn't come naturally, it might not be a bad idea to fake it 'til I make it.  Because it's working so far.

4.  Happiness takes work.  Some days, the happy things happen to you when you're not expecting them to, but most of the time we actually have to stop and look and listen and SEARCH for those things that are going to make us smile.  I am a really busy girl.  Really.  So I have to be extra diligent not to let my to-do list and my jam-packed agenda catch me up in a whirlwind of places to be and shit to get done, causing me to forget that I wanted to do them in the first place because they make me happy.  And that's the key.  The #100happydays challenge is over, but the "forever happy days" challenge will always be there.  So I need to remember to look for things that make me happy, even if I'm not going to Instagram them.

***My personal #100happydays challenge photos can be found on Instagram and Facebook at #3percenthappy.

A Trite but True Fairy-Tale

Once upon a time, there was a young bloggess who wrote about her lack of value and her quest to become someone beautiful and sought after by all those around her.  One day, she went to a bar in a strange town and started up a conversation with a handsome young man from Ireland who happened to be traveling in the far-off land.  He asked her to dance, and they continued to talk and smile at each other.  Suddenly, as the electronic bass of another nameless club song rang through the giant-ass speakers of the packed beer hall, he held her by the shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her. 

The young bloggess took this kiss to mean that she had some value, and relishing the feeling of being valuable, she sought kisses wherever she went.  The more kisses she got, the more awesome and valuable she believed she was.  Conversely, when the kisses ran out, she felt as though all her beauty and value had dripped off of her like non-colour-fast dye and run down the sewer grate, never to be seen again.

One day, not so many days ago, a slightly older and slightly wiser bloggess had an epic long weekend of togetherness.  She danced and ate and drank and laughed and swam and smiled and flew.  She spent many hours with friends, and a few hours alone, and each hour was excellent in its way.  She even thought one or two gentleman might have wanted to kiss her.  But nobody did.  And that was ok.

For you see, the slightly older bloggess was learning that it wasn't the kisses that made her awesome.  It was herself.  And she knew this was a lesson she had still only grasped in the most tenuous of ways.  It would still be too easy to let go of all the worth she had placed in herself if she went out in search of kisses and was denied them now.  Instead, she held steadfast to the notion that while the long-held eye contact and pregnant pauses were a result of her awesomeness, she would still be awesome if the eye contact were never made, and the pauses were filled with conversation.

At that moment, the bloggess knew, the kisses might have happened, and she was valuable and beautiful and awesome anyway.  And that was good enough for her.

100 Happy Days and and 100 Awkward Challenges

Disclaimer: I'm going to talk about lady-things.  If that makes you uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't read this.

I'm 10% of the way through #100happydays.

I picked a swell time to start them. 

The first day I was single was the first day I didn't take my birth control. 

I've suspected for a long time that, emotionally speaking, birth control makes sure that my keel is even but my decks are constantly flooded.  In other words, when I'm artificially hormoned, I'm in a steady state of minor depression.  This has its disadvantages - like being a constant marginal downer - and its advantages - like not being bipolar.

After I stopped my birth control, I spent about three months in utter terror that I had been subjected to some kind of immaculate conception procedure in my sleep.  Though the panic involved in the notion that I was carrying the second coming was overwhelming, it wasn't until my first period came that the real fun started.

I have since been experiencing this bizarre vacillation between my two personalities: the happy horn-dog and the rage-weeper.  Three weeks ago, I might have been turned on by a light breeze on the back of my neck.  Though this is frustrating, since I'm not super-equipped to start looking for a new partner for adult sleepovers, it's certainly the lesser of two evils.  Last week, I had a full-on meltdown at work (luckily, with no clients present) because someone didn't show up for an appointment THAT WASN'T EVEN WITH ME.

The upshot of this is that just as I decided to start seeking out the joy that already exists in my life, my totally confused endocrine system started pumping out PMS hormones like crazy and EVERYTHING IS WRONG.

Knowledge is power, though, or...knowing is half the battle, or...something else G.I. Joe said.  Point is, I know that this is a temporary state of affairs.  Eventually, my hypothalamus will get this shit down and know just the right amount of hormone to keep me fertile but not batshit crazy.  I hope. 
In the meantime, I persist with being at least a little bit happy for 100 days. 

Current trends suggest that apple trees in bloom, food, physical activity and the staff and owners of my local bookstore are the greatest predictors of happiness in my life.  The apple trees in bloom are fleeting, but I'm pretty sure I know how to get a bunch of everything else. 

If you're on instagram or facebook, you can find my #100happydays journey at #3percenthappy.  Please feel free to comment and like.  Positive feedback is the rage-weeper's kryptonite.

Fake it 'Til You Make It

It's been some time since my last post.  I've been wicked busy, which has been good.  Being chained to a piano and being constantly preoccupied with how I can arrange that my next meal not come from the Subway around the corner has meant that I haven't been constantly preoccupied with how my life hasn't really turned out exactly the way I expected it would if I looked at it from the vantage point of about one year ago.

I took a trip to visit a good friend on one of my first free weekends since my new life started.  We had a great time.  We did a lot of awesome things and I took a lot of pictures of us doing awesome things.  But a funny thing happened that weekend.  I fell in love with a bartender. 

No.  This is not my rebound story.  I don't think.

I fell in love with this bartender because he knew that the time signature to Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill was 7/4, he was genuinely interested in what instrument I played, and also teaches music and science...you know, when he's not a weekend bartender.  And all this happened after I decided he was kind of cute.  It was like I'd been given this gift.

Now, I don't know his name and he could be married and have kids that necessitate his working at a brewery on weekends in order to support them.  I don't know.  I left before I could get too invested.

The next day, I drove home.  It was a sunny day and I had a great mix of tunes playing and the only downfall was that I was leaving a great weekend behind just in time to hit morning rush hour traffic on the 403.  When I finally got onto the 400 to head home, I burst into tears.  Not because of rush hour.  Not because of the weekend I was leaving behind (I'm totally going again this summer).  Possibly a little because I had expected to find somewhere to eat breakfast hours beforehand and was getting a little shaky.  Probably because of the sense memory of the last time I was in that spot three-ish months ago, likely tinged by the fact that, only a few days before, I ran into my ex for the first time since we parted ways, and seeing him reminded me that not too long ago, I was really effing sad (It was awkward, but I did not bolt like a frightened deer, though I suspect it was painfully obvious that I wanted to). 

I got it together by about Barrie, and when I got home, I fell in love again.  That might be my rebound story.  Time will tell.

The following weekend was spent at the family cottage with family members that I haven't seen in over a year.  They have all been very supportive of me via Facebook and email, despite the fact that I certainly had not made visiting them at all a priority in the previous year or so.  They were full of inspiration and kind words.  And advice about what I should do next.

I'm telling these two stories for two reasons.  If you haven't figured it out already, the first story illustrates that emotionally, I'm still kind of wobbly.  The second story leads to a bit of a personal epiphany about how to stand on two happy feet.

Ever hear of a compliment sandwich?  When you sandwich some not-nice criticism between two slices of good stuff bread?  Maybe I have it backwards...but you get the idea.  Well, the truth is that there is an awful lot of bread (i.e. good stuff) in my life and there really always has been.  Only, for years, I've been mired in the modest skim of not-nice filling I've got going on between those voluminous slices of bread.  And it hasn't made me really happy, and I suspect it makes the people around me kind of not happy also (truly, I don't suspect it.  I know it.).  I found the advice of my family a little bit overwhelming because they were full of ideas about how to make my life better than it is right now.

The truth is, though, that it is challenging enough to like my life the way it is right now.  Even though, in my rational thought centre, I know that my life is pretty freaking great.  I think the best way to make my life better right now is to work on liking it the way it is.

I've always found that those people who celebrate the little tiny microscopic good things in their lives are just a little bit precious and perhaps also a bit willfully ignorant of their own misfortunes.  On the other hand, I'm kind of starting to think that looking at everything except the giant elephant of sadness in the room might make it get bored with hanging around.

#100happydays, here I come.