Take A Year

And I don’t mean to say that it was the worst date I’d ever been on, all bad dates considered. It was just a bit boring. It was just a bit prosaic. It just wasn’t better than going for food and to a humourless comedy show and then having a drink, alone. And when we kissed at the end of the night it was for two multifarious reasons -neither of which included my being attracted to or wanting to kiss him.

The first reason to kiss this man was to get the taste of my ex out of my mouth and the second was because I felt obligated, in the way we often do. Yes -in spite of Me Too, with deep consideration for the example to be set for younger, more vulnerable persons than myself, no matter how troubling it may be, I’ve circled back around to -sometimes it’s just safer, just easier -better to just kiss the guy.

And when he asked for a second date I said maybe even though I knew the answer was no. And when I got home I decided to take a year.
So let me tell you about taking a year. It’s really not that hard, especially if you travel.

Do you? Travel?

When you travel, especially for work, it’s easy to meet new people and it’s easy to set boundaries. I’m not saying no body has peaked my interest -a little flirtation here, a beverage there. But-

I’m actually not dating at the moment. Thanks though. You’re sweet but -I’m not seeing anyone at this time. I’m not looking. It’s not that I’m not interested it’s just that I promised myself I’d take a year and I’m trying this new thing where I keep the promises I make to myself -it’s wild, I highly recommend it. I think you’re cute, I’m just not really on the market right now. I am, but I don’t date. I’m taking a year.

When I was eleven or twelve or thirteen, my best friend started sleeping over at my house kind of all the time -like, a few times a week. And then I got a boyfriend who went to our rivalling high-school. He gave me a little teddy bear I named after him and carried around to all my classes. And then more friends were sleeping in my bed, or I in theirs. Then I had a lover. And then another. And then a few more. My best friend told me they were in love with me on Valentines Day but I was already crumpling myself into a life with a chaotic ghost and when I fell in love with a writer that life unfolded and ignited and burned up. I went straight from the arms of that dude into the bed of another and spent time with three people who knew about each other and didn’t want to commit but also didn’t want to lose. I reprised the role of girlfriend to the dude from before even as I was falling into it with the next guy who always seemed like he was in competition with my roommate -who I might have described as a platonic partner if I’d known that was a thing at the time. There was another person or five in there somewhere and eventually I fell in love with the most darling man you’ve ever encountered but timings a bitch and so am I so things fell apart and instead of facing that I jumped head-first into a pandemic-long relationship with a political-analyst, moved to Alberta, and changed my name.

I had not been single since I was 16 years old and there was a large part of me -one I tried to hide, even from myself- that had no idea how to validate my own feelings or experience. And there was a part of me -one I tried to hide, even from myself- that truly had no idea how to love myself. In fact, I can say now with some clarity -though it was easier to hide it, even from myself- that I couldn’t stand myself, and that without the validation I got from love relationships and possessive friendships, I was lost, destitute, and desperate. There is nothing wrong with external validation or the seeking of it, it is natural and valuable. But my inability to be alone and to find some comfort in that aloneness led to self abandonment and that abandonment led to some questionable choices and those choices led to shame and shame can be a dangerous companion. Now, I have always spent a lot of time alone. I bartend and am alone in crowds. I write and am alone in company. See a show and am alone witnessing. But there was always a little romance or a partnership somewhere alongside that necessary solitude. Always someone to see, or to want to see, at the end of the day or the week or the night or the contract.

Are you coming to the show? I’d love to see you. I’ll just write for another hour or so and I’ll meet you there. You mean a lot to me. I can’t today but I’d love to see you this week if possible. I’ll come to you. I think my brother’s coming down that weekend if you want to catch a ride. When will you be in town? ‘ I can’t wait to see you. I love you. I can’t live without you. I wish you were here. I miss you. I’ll see you when I see you.

When there’s always someone, there’s always this safety net made of the noise of belonging. When silence came it hit with hurricane force and I responded in unhinged turmoil, fuelled by the fear of this unknown wasteland where there was no other. No-one to meet later, or make eye contact with when the joke was too good, or too bad. No-one to message when the kids were loud on the bus -electric with the performance of personhood. And for the first while, I buried my vows of self-discovery and attempted to evade that silence.
How to avoid silence:
Drink yourself to sleep. Fall in love with the idea of someone but don’t meet them or interact with them in any way IRL. Have imaginary conversations with your ex. Have imaginary conversations with your ex’s family. Have imaginary conversations with your pretend future lover. Have imaginary conversations with celebrities with your mom with your old roommate who is dead. Work as much as possible. Work all the time. Never stop working. Drink yourself to sleep -I already said that one but it really helps.

On the eve of my 37th birthday I woke up and went to Service Ontario to get my licence renewed. Happy Birthday! You’re expiring. Waiting, I went out into the Mall and looked around. I bought myself some gum. I got a coffee, then a banana, then another coffee. I got my hair cut. I told her to give me bangs. She tried to talk me out of it but complied and was surprised and relieved and happy that I looked like “that actress- whatshername?” You gotta love a new haircut for a birthday party -I thought to myself as I walked home. I felt slightly run-down and blamed it on the mall -have you ever left one without having lost a little piece of your soul? The clock struck midnight and I tested positive for COVID -my second time around and it felt personal. I sunk to the floor. I wept. Woe is ME. How could this happen this year of all years? What did I DO TO DESERVE THIS CRUEL FATE?

I can’t fill in the blanks for you really -the one’s that exist in between this moment of theatrical disease and the one that followed. Acceptance creeped in through the cracks my tears were using to escape and become one with the water of the world. It was something that was somehow separate from being about self-reflection and more just a shift into understanding. I don't know. Life would be too easy if I knew what it was -if I could hold it and explain it and prescribe it. Something shifted into place and I looked around at my surroundings and into my past and at myself. I had fallen to the ground in classic despair on the eleventh floor of an apartment building I was living in because one of my brothers knew a guy who had an archeological internship at an American nuclear power plant and wanted someone who would be compelled to really care for his illegal chilli plants while he was away. And it seemed absurd, and fairly silly, and completely reductive to spend another moment crying on that floor. And so I got up off the ground, and as I did, my only thought was -be free little seeds, go forth and proliferate. Yes -I’ve got seeds to plant and plants to water and water to drink and drinks to mix. I’ve got a life to live. Slowly, over a year -A Life.

1500 words. I’m just drinking more water. 2000. Writing more. 3500 words. And I’ve been walking to work. 15,000 words. I just kind of don’t drink as much beer anymore. 40,000 words. I can’t be sure. 67,000 words. But- 80,000. -it feels like I’m floating, like I’m dying, like I’m flying, like the flooding has started, like the air has gotten gentler like the water is softer, like the birds are singing again, like I can’t believe how good I feel because I didn’t know I felt that bad, didn’t know it was as bad as it was. I guess I just didn’t see it that way didn’t see us that way didn’t see myself that way. I guess I just didn’t see what was happening. Again.

Keep writing.

Keep thinking.

Keep breathing.

Keep practicing.

Keep your eyes on the prize.

I feel lighter feel better feel stronger like I can finally see myself again clearly. Like I can finally hear my own thoughts again. I just know that I’m better off. I don’t know. I’m just better off.

I don’t mean to say anything bad about anyone although who cares and for whom am I performing that lie? I don’t care, but I do -I want you to love me and respect me, but I want my future self to be proud of me more, I guess that’s the biggest difference.

I’m just drinking more water. I’m just writing more. I’m just actually listening to what’s going on inside my own experience and making choices based on what I hear. I’m just taking a year.

April 1st.

East York for a night. Trinity Bellwoods for two weeks. East York. Bellwoods again until the end of the month. The Danforth for a spell. Alexander for the party. Badgerow for a taste of home. Woodbine for six weeks. West again for eleven days (Thanks Mike, Thanks Kate.) Dupont for the time being.

April 1st.

A fools day -and I felt like one arriving at Billy Bishop with two bags and the guitar I bought in Italy for 86 euros during a thunderstorm and named Veronica after my most elusive friend who hated me a little I think -and who could blame them after the way I treated their sibling.

April 1st.

The city emerged from the sky, full of light and weighted with the burden I’ve put on it over the years time and again -the one where it’s my saviour and it’ll fix my problems and be the place that accepts me even when I’ve run away again.

April 1st and in my mind I stand at our apartments’ sliding balcony door off Whyte Ave in Edmonton and stare out at the afternoon. The cracking sky opens up and pours ice onto the streets and at the same time the thunder roars and lightning stabs down at the ground -a staggering partnership.

Later -in the summer- I’ll stand at a different door looking out at the sea of lights from the apartment buildings surrounding me -thousands of kilometres away from the life I’d promised to make good- watching the lightning dance and strike the towers. I’ll be alone and I’ll have been alone for a few months. I’ll have stopped feeling so shattered. I’ll have made it through the frenetic anguish of the storm and landed -a little uneasy, full of rage and self-loathing, but -home, in myself.

April 1st and I - a fool- land at Billy Bishop in search of shelter.

One year later I sit and type this very sentence as the wind picks up and the clouds form outside -burdened and grey and persistent. It rains. From the window of the coffee shop I see a phantom bolt and I am emboldened. All things considered I think I escaped the weather with unprecedented delicacy.

The storm? It was rough -rough enough that I’d never be of any use if I didn’t try to weather it well. -Which is the point of this whole thing, in case that isn’t clear.- Not that the only thing is to be of use. But- It’s good to have space for the thought, for the act. Anyway. I’m not dating right now. Not lonely and not looking. Friends. That sounds nice. I could do with a new friend. Couldn’t everyone?

247 Yoga classes. 9 trips to the Communist Daughter. 26 dinners in East York. 3 jobs. 1 really great game of Mario Cart. 5 sublets. 16 planes. 13 shows. 80,000 words- and counting. 567 students. 48, 512.8 km. Eternally TTC.

And there is wandering. And there is fear. Certainly there is still some anger in there -pointing the direction toward freedom. And there is no amount of time that can pass that will lead to the place where it all makes sense because this world doesn’t make sense and I don’t make sense in it. And there is no way to escape the shaking uncertainty in the prospect of allowing another person to see it all. There is being alone and being together and they exist alongside one-another. There is nothing to be done except to go to work, and make a friend, and see the show, and apologize, and forgive, and sing, and play, and laugh with the kids, and stretch the limits of perception, and try to make a small difference in this wild world, and wake up and go back to sleep and work and drink less beer and try to not have to rush to the gate -listen- I’m still working on it.

Edmonton. Toronto. Fox Harbour. Toronto. Sambaa K’e. Toronto. Dartmouth. Antigonish. Toronto. Tsiigehtchic. Toronto. Recife. Toronto.

A layover in Vancouver, in Yellowknife, in Montreal, in Inuvik, in Edmonton, in São Paulo, in New York -just long enough to get breakfast. Just long enough to say hello -to grab a pint and meet Mama, to join the Legion. Just long enough to play a game of tag -to freeze, to overheat, to get stuck, to get real, to get a drink, a coffee, a snack. Just long enough to make a few new friends, to go for a walk, to have a puff -a bite. Just long enough to know better, to get better, to be better. Just home long enough to make the rent on the sublet you’re underpaying your friend for because you’ll give that tropical plant a little storm every now and again and most people will just let it suffer a bit while they’re gone. Just long enough to really feel like you’re doing something new, being braver than you’ve been before. Just long enough to really meet yourself, to see yourself, to be a friend to yourself.

And it’s just a year -I said to myself.

Take a year.