Healthy Hindsight

Eventually, at some unforeseeable -- but real -- point in the future, I'll look back on the past year and smile.
June in Vancouver -- even on the grayest days, it's still a dangerously alluring place. Surrounded by the deepest, darkest blue, the lushest green and the sweet pink of cherry blossoms sprinkling the streets -- I can't help but dismiss the out-of-reach real estate and imagined air of superiority.
Taking class this morning on Commercial -- always thick with sweat and struggle -- a gleaming group of satisfied minds and bodies carrying each other through the dimmest places under the light...it was, as it most often is, completely magical. Another practice = another day I have freed myself from the limits, either self-imposed or otherwise, with which so many exist.

It's strange for me, meeting such a plethora of people everyday, observing those who choose to live shackled by the limits they have either created or accepted. As always -- open to every possibility I can or have yet to imagine -- I am feeling my way through the professional options that seem to exist for someone with my particular skill set and interests in Vancouver; I'm still teaching of course (because that is what keeps me emotionally satiated) and have recently ventured into the restaurant scene...an excellent place to quickly gain back lost heartache pounds.
5 nights a week, I play hostess with the mostess to a unsurprisingly rather affluent room of diners. Greeting hungry guests at the door, I can't help but take a quick peek right through them to catch a glimpse of what lies beneath. Those who truly sparkle are governed by the hidden gem tucked away beneath the Prada -- the truest ruby -- often forgotten by the bachelors and bachelorettes dining solo at the bar night after night. I notice the limited souls shelling out hundreds like they're never going to run dry in part because I am deeply fascinated by the human condition -- and in particular, because of the year I've had.

June in Edmonton -- spent pretending I was not about to jump off a cliff into the treacherous waters of marital separation...followed by dragging my breathless body ashore to find the sweetest sunshine bathe me in its warmth.
By August, I found reincarnation as a single mother (still a bizarre term to me, which really fails to do the reality justice). September, October and November split my heart, mind and body between two very different places. The months that followed gave me love in hopeless places, took it away and brought it back. I gained friends and lost others I probably should have denied entry in the first place. I laughed -- a lot...I cried...less. I danced in happiness -- the kind that makes you fly while your feet touch the ground.
I lived without limits.
This summer and beyond, I'll have another healthy dose of the good stuff, just a dash of the bad -- got to have some of the latter to appreciate the former -- and keep allowing the most important muscle I've got to do it's worst.

Black Sheep

Immersed in the carnal wonderland of True Blood last night, after making my customary mental notes on ways to expand my sexual repertoire, I became uncharacteristically melancholy over the show's title, and how it reminds me how untrue my own blood is.

Technically, I have a younger sister and two parents, but since adolescence -- about the time my independent nature became apparent and alienated me -- I have felt orphaned and been in search of replacements for the family that, to this day, behave as if I was unplanned and unwanted.

Always an original, demanding attention and doing things my way, whether it warms or cools the hearts of my relations, I tread my own path. Being a separatist has come with more than it's share of difficulties, but this comes as no surprise; agreeable people are easier to handle. My impassioned, energetic, open spirit is more often than not overwhelming for my relations who would rather I nod, smile and bow to whatever unsuitable or irrational demands they make.

The outcast of my family, I speak my mind and heart too much for their sensitive natures and spend fruitless tears on their exclusionary treatment of me. And some who think they know me wonder why I'm an attention seeker; aren't we all in search of ways and people to fill the holes in our souls?

I've managed to close the gaps with friends and their parents who love me as if our ties were unbreakable; I've found fulfillment in romantic liaisons with fiercely affectionate partners whose warm families, so different from my own, have embraced me wholly; I've created life -- a daughter whose smiles and snuggles brim with an attachment only (most) moms understand; mine often treats me like a fair-weather friend and saves her Gilmore Girls style of mothering for my sister.

Maybe I'm the problem -- I expect too much of those near and dear to me. I love hard and fast, which makes it difficult to understand any other way of expressing a sentiment essential to happiness; so perplexed am I by emotional inhibition, I once broke off a relationship fueled by the sizzling chemistry I'd only ever imagined because even though I knew he loved me, he never said it. Over brunch one morning, I remember feeling defeated by a comment he made in response to a couple next us exchanging "I love you's." He'd smiled fondly at me and remarked how "cheesy" and "unnecessary" it was for two people who felt that intensely for each other to vocalize it. Right then and there, over coffee and croissants, I decided his cowardice was unnecessary and left him.

I've had more than enough cold in my life and need all the warmth I can get -- the catalyst behind my addiction to hot yoga? Perhaps. The moment I first stepped into that room, thick with exertion (as those who practice know, it becomes tangible in there), I was enveloped with a sense of belonging -- pure comfort in working myself harder than I ever thought possible. Through the surrender comes a constant evolving, an emergence of one's true self.

Accustomed to facing challenges, I thought I'd learn to accept the fight to fit in with my family as a constant battle, worthy of my efforts if real, unconditional love resulted; but last night I came to question the importance of being included by my true blood. Are those who refuse to reciprocate a modicum of what I give really worth it? I know my sister can give me what I need and I will never give up on her -- ours is a friendship worthy of weathering any bullshit impediments. My parents, however, may benefit from a little less of my struggle to obtain their affections; one can only swim against the current for so long before growing tired and drowning.