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Since I was just tagged in a similar meme (and wanted to prove that 7 things were just not a challenge), here is a list from 2005. I wrote it just as I was starting to make a space for herrealworld on the Internet.

This was of course before I was unceremoniously dumped. And I find #20 HILARIOUS as it shows that I didn’t even like him enough then to put him in a list other than to feel guilty about not including him sooner. #28 is also funny, but honestly I fell in lust to a mixed CD. I can’t even say that I was kissed for the first time to a mixed CD. I had to kiss him. All he said was that I had nice knuckles. And #74, ugh. Everytime I think of that camera I get mad. I didn’t get it for him for his birthday (which means I lied in this list!), I got it for him as a gift to “please love me” after he left the first time. That’s right, after he left the first time. I haven’t told you about that? Don’t worry I will sometime.

Don’t tell Clawdia and Pawylanna about #57.

Originally Posted April 30, 2005

1. She loves lists.
2. She also loves categories and order, some say its because she’s a Virgo.
3. Born in the year of the Rooster, and true to her sign, she sometimes thinks very highly of herself.
4. She likes all of the good things that horoscopes say, and worries that the bad parts are true.
5. She worries too much, but is now worried that she’ll have nothing to worry about because she’s done school.
6. But then she remembers that she can worry about finding a real job.
7. She is irritated by spelling and grammar mistakes, but has a hard time finding them in her own work.
8. She loves playing video games, especially when she can dress her characters up in pretty outfits.
9. She really doesn’t appreciate gore and violence for the sake of gore and violence, whether it be in movies, video games or anywhere else.
10. She likes the fact that this list kind of captures her mood at the moment it’s being written.
11. She knows that once she hits 100 on this list, she’ll want to add more.
12. She likes collecting things, especially things on the Internet.
13. She knows that sounds kind of strange right now, but hopes that it’ll be better understood later.
14. She hopes that you’re not too irritated about reading this list in the third person.
15. She misses her laptop, but it’s never been the same since the time she broke it while overseas.
16. She loves travelling, but hasn’t had the money to go very many exciting places.
17. She hates travelling alone, because there is no one to take pictures with her or of her.
18. Her favourite part of London was the tour of Parliament, go figure.
19. She’s also been to the United Nations Headquarters, though it was a long time ago and she doesn’t really remember it that well.
20. She’s in love, and feels a little guilty that this is the first time she’s mentioned the boyfriend.
21. She loves Canadian Beef, and so should you.
22. Unless you’re a vegetarian, in which case you should love Canadian Beef Farmers.
23. She loves sticky notes, especially ones that are multi-coloured.
24. She wants to be a writer, but worries she can’t write very well.
25. She’s a quarter of the way to 100, and she’s just getting started.
26. She has a hard time making mixed CDs because she takes too long to decide what songs should go on them.
27. It’s also because she likes coloured CDs or CDs that look like records, and doesn’t want to ruin them just in case she doesn’t like the CD.
28. She fell in love to a mixed CD.
29. She wonders if people will think it’s strange that she refers to a mixed CD like she would refer to a mixed tape.
30. She doesn’t mind it when people download music, or anything else for that matter.
31. She thinks if things were more affordable, people would be more likely to buy them.
32. She thinks that if people made more money, they’d have more money to buy things.
33. She thinks if corporations thought about people rather than money, they’d make more money because people would make more money to buy things.
34. She’s kind of a crazy lefty, but in a cowboy conservative sort of way.
35. She wishes she were more of a cowgirl.
36. She’s a budding feminist, who learned this past year she’s been a feminist her whole life.
37. When she gets married, she’s going to hyphenate.
38. She’s kind of embarrassed to admit that when she’s lazy, she’ll wear a sheet around the house.
39. She’s not afraid to admit that wearing a sheet can be very comfortable.
40. She’s a bit afraid to admit that she may or may not be wearing a sheet right now.
41. She’s an awfully bad liar.
42. She loves eating, and is coming to understand that she’d rather eat healthy than not.
43. She often finds fast food and corner store snacks to be too greasy and actually not very appetizing.
44. She walked into a McDonald’s the other day and didn’t think it smelled very good in there.
45. This may or may not have something to do with the fact that she thinks that Super Size Me is a good movie that everyone should see.
46. She also thinks that should be more movies like Hotel Rwanda.
47. The last movie she saw was Kung Fu Hustle, and really loved the parts when the Axe Gang danced.
48. She loves kung fu movies, at least the ones that are funny.
49. She thinks that any movie with subtitles is worth seeing at least once.
50. Her favourite movie of all time is about a girl and a boy who fall in love, but can’t get together in the beginning because she thinks he’s an ass and can’t get together in the middle because because she thinks he’s dead, but end up getting together in the end.
51. She’s halfway there, and she loves it!
52. She loves dogs, and wants to get one.
53. She really doesn’t think that having a pet in an apartment will be too bad, especially if it’s going to be a small pet who grows up in an apartment and is loved from the first day.
54. She also wants to get some fish, because her father loves them and she loves the glow that the tank gives off in the dark.
55. Her grandmother also had a tank full of guppies, and she loved feeding them when she was young.
56. Her grandmother also had cats.
57. She doesn’t really like cats enough to have one of her own, but in most cases likes other people’s cats.
58. She doesn’t like people or houses that smell of cats.
59. She’s got a super sonic sense of smell.
60. One of her favourite smells is fresh cut grass.
61. Another of her favourite smells is rain.
62. She grew up on a farm.
63. She wishes she had ridden horseback more when she was growing up, but didn’t because she used to be afraid of horses.
64. Now that she’s bigger than the horse, she thinks she’d do better.
65. She wants to have an herb garden on her balcony.
66. She’s excited to be moving to a new apartment within the next month.
67. She’s worried that she won’t have the money to buy the things she’d like for the new place, especially the things that are needed.
68. She wishes she had the money to buy the things that would just be nice to have.
69. She loves coloured pens and markers.
70. She wonders if you realize that when she gets a bit stuck, she looks around her desk for inspiration.
71. She returned the last of her library books over a week ago, and her desk is very empty without them.
72. She loves taking pictures, and wished that she had a better digital camera.
73. She realizes that she needs many other things right now before she needs a new digital camera.
74. Especially since she realizes that the camcorder that she got her boyfriend for his birthday last year takes fine pictures.
75. She never wants to live beyond her means.
76. She wants to start donating money to the Red Cross when she is able.
77. She’ll rip out pages of a notebook and re-write them if she doesn’t like the way that they look.
78. One of the reasons she likes blogs so much is because they do everything very orderly, and she can make them look whatever way she wants, and then change what she wants at a moments notice.
79. She wishes she were better at making webpages.
80. She also wishes that she got to swim more, because she loves it.
81. She just remembered that there is a swimming pool in the basement of her new apartment building, which makes her quite joyous!
82. Singing Christmas carols also makes her quite joyous.
83. She enjoys singing a lot, and wishes she had the self confidence to do it more often.
84. She took voice lessons.
85. She can’t wait to get a bicycle with a basket.
86. She really tried to resist the urge to say she also wants the little streamers that come out of the handlebars.
87. She really likes any kind of popcorn, but prefers the kind that comes out of an air popper at home.
88. She talks to her mom on the phone for hours on end.
89. She loves the Beatles, and can’t pick a favourite song or album.
90. She’s got a wonderful middle name that she got from her great-grandmother.
91. She misses her family dearly.
92. She’s more afraid of her loved ones dying than she is afraid of herself dying.
93. She loves it when her feet get tanned.
94. She’s a clean freak who only cleans when she’s in the mood for it.
95. She loves taking baths, in fact she’s wanting to take one right now, but needs to finish this list.
96. She can’t remember the last book she read for fun.
97. After sitting here for a while, she thinks it was Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry.
98. But she’s not sure whether she read it this past Christmas, or the Christmas before that.
99. She has a pretty good memory.
100. But she wishes it were better, which is why she’s starting to keep a paper journal. Oh, and start this blog of course.

I’ve been feeling bad about not posting much. Especially since I have a bunch of older content that I’ve been waiting like crazy to share with you all. So I made a promise to myself that I’d sit down and schedule some posts sometime this weekend, as well as write a new one on my thoughts on Mental Health Camp Toronto, an event that happened yesterday that I wasn’t able to attend in person but watched from afar on Twitter. I also plan on doing laundry, taking measurements so I can build my new bed, taking measurements for my bathroom for the lighting installation I’m doing and reorganizing the kitchen. You can bet your booties that I’m going to be blogging about all of these things, but I can’t make any promises about when any of them will get done.

Especially since my eyes are bothering me and I don’t know why.

So here is another older post. I did a search in posts for “dumped” and realized that this would make a great addition to the “On being dumped” series I did. So over the next few days you can hear my story. And today (since re-organizing the kitchen is on the list of things to do) you can hear about how I cleaned my microwave (and the way I’ve cleaned it ever since).

Originally posted: October 28, 2008

I’ve not been posting much.  But I’ve been thinking about posting a lot, which I think should count for something.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I blog.  Lots of people thinking blogging is crazy.  Lots of people think that the internet is a scary place where I shouldn’t put personal information.  Goodness knows, someone might read this in 20 years when I’m Prime Minister and learn about all the crazy things I’ve done.  Like: clean my microwave.

I’m too lazy to look up any previous posts I’ve made on the matter, but one of my “things” is the fact that I’m ashamed of a dirty house.  There are probably many reasons for this, but the most important reason is that when my house is messy, I am sad.  Not because my house is messy, but because the cleanliness of my house is a barometer for my mental health, and dirty means down in the dumps.

Which is why cleaning the microwave warrants a blog post.

My microwave has been dirty for longer than I care to admit.  It has smelled like microwave popcorn (sometimes I wonder if I should have just spent money on an air popper, instead of a beautiful LG microwave popcorn machine) and had a little chunk of paper towel stuck to its turney-table-thingy for what seems like forever.  But today after heating up my pizza I decided that I was going to use a bit of cleaning knowledge that I’d learned from goodness knows where, and clean it.

So I put a bowl full of water in it, and turned it on for five minutes.  I then forgot about it for 20 (I was eating pizza!), but then remembered it again.  I turned it on for another five minutes, this time remembering to go and rescue it after it beeped.

Inside, everything was steamy and lovely.  And with the assistance of no cleaning product whatsoever, I was able to wipe the inside free of all of the dirt with a paper towel.  And it looked gorgeous.  And I felt better.

I’m having a particularly hard time at the moment.  Money is always a bit of an issue, more so around the time when I have to pay rent and student loans.  You would think perhaps I’d change the dates so I didn’t have to pay both at the same time, but that hasn’t as of yet happened.  Even though my iPhone brings me immense joy, I worry that I shouldn’t have bought it and instead have paid down the credit card to ensure that I’d have enough room to book a plane ticket home for the holidays.  I have to remind myself that the iPhone was purchased with “me” money, and I have to stop spending that on rent or I’m going to go even more bonkers than I already am.  And I truly love my iPhone.

It’s also hard because we’re transitioning to the season and the time when I was rather unceremoniously dumped.  I’ve not talked about this much, and I’m not sure how much I’m going to talk about it other than to say that though I’d not hoped for a parade, the decency of a goodbye might have at least respected the fact that the relationship had lasted almost seven years.  Smells bring back a lot of memories, and right now the cool crisp smell of winter coming reminds me terribly of the weeks I spent curled in a ball wishing for any life but the one I was living.

This will only be magnified by the anniversary date and magnified again by the holiday season.  The hardest part is that my love of snow and Christmas and all things magical and wintry has been tainted by the fact that it’s associated with a time in my life I’ve been doing my best to forget.

It’s times like today (even when the first glorious snowflakes are floating down to earth) that I have to celebrate the small victories, no matter how trivial they might seem.

I cleaned my microwave.

I wouldn’t be a very good cat mom if I didn’t include these two little angels in a post about keeping my mental healthy. I can honestly say I don’t know what I’d do without them as they were there to comfort me on long nights and greet me when I came home after long days. Today is my second of two posts on mental health for Mental Health Week (CMHC still has a terrible website, oh my), and today I’m going to focus on learning to ask for help. Thanks everyone for not commenting on how in the last post I talked about it being “day two” of Mental Health Week when it was Wednesday. When I woke up this morning (thinking it was Thursday) I was all like “Wow, I might get three Mental Health Week blog posts in!” and now I’m all like “Well I guess I could blog Saturday or Sunday….” Moving along.

I’m fiercely independent.

I am the eldest of three children, so I’ve been leading the pack since that fateful day in April 1985. I like having my way. I like to use words like “fiercely independent” and “overachiever” and “strong leader”, but when I’m feeling dark I often tell myself that I’m arrogant and greedy and bossy. I have a hard time asking for help.

I used to think that being left by my ex was the reason I had a nervous breakdown. I used to be really mad at myself for that because I didn’t want to give him credit for anything. I still don’t, even if what he did had to be done, the way he did it caused so much hurt and pain for me and the people I care about that it’s unforgivable. It wasn’t the reason for my nervous breakdown, but it was the straw that broke the (fiercely independent) camel’s back. And forced me to get help.

Things had not been good for a long time. In preparing for this post with some self-reflection, I tried to pinpoint the moment where things started to go downhill fast. It’s with great pleasure that I figured it out and it feels like a great weight was lifted off my shoulders.

My nervous breakdown was triggered by the events of September 1, 2006 and September 10, 2006. What are these two days you might ask? September 1, 2006 is the day that I signed my letter of offer for an indeterminate (permanent) position within the Government of Canada. September 10, 2006 was my 25th birthday.

I’ll talk about my birthday first, because it’s quicker and sets the stage for the rest. I’m happy about birthdays. I did my thesis on how young people aren’t treated as equal stakeholders in society and I felt that the farther away I got from my early twenties, the closer I got to being taken seriously. I was a quarter of a century old! I had accomplished so much: Senate Page for two years, two internships in Parliament (one in Canada, one in the United Kingdom), a Bachelor of Arts degree, a Master’s degree, and an indeterminate job in the Canadian Public Service. I had done everything I’d planned to do save become Prime Minister. But that’s a story for another day. I came to the realization that I had completed my goals and there was nothing planned. Boy if I knew then what I knew now.

Signing my letter of offer was the beginning of the worst phases of my career to date, and I hope the last “worst” phase that I have. Most people would have been happy to slap on those golden handcuffs, but it turned out I was the opposite. Up until that point I had a great manager who had confidence in me and allowed me to do great work. I worked with and helped oversee a team that had our ups and downs, but I thoroughly enjoyed working with all of them. But when I signed that letter my position changed. I no longer went from being superstar organizer to bottom-of-the-dog-pile wonk. I was excited about being a policy wonk as I had two degrees in Political Science and a job in the Canadian Public Service as a policy wonk was a highly coveted prize. I was even lucky enough to be working in my academic area of expertise. I was full of hope and so ready to learn.

None of my managers had time for me anymore. I was no longer needed, so I sat in my cubicle and stared at my computer screen for weeks at a time. Sometimes I’d be given the work that no one else wanted to do, but my motivation to do it was at an all time low. So I’d do it. Well before the deadline. I’d put it in my manager’s inbox and it would sit there and rot until past the deadline. It would finally get read and it would be deemed terrible and not at all what was wanted, but by then it was too late to do revisions so a half-assed job would be done. This would be repeated and I’d soon get the reputation of being a slacker for having a lot of “late” things, even though I’d done them well before the deadline. So my new strategy would be to not do my work right away and then hand it in closer to the deadline so it seemed like I worked on it longer. Chances are it would be deemed unacceptable and no constructive reasons would be given and I began to think that I didn’t deserve my Master’s degree because I was obviously such a terrible writer and person that I didn’t deserve it. This got me the title of “procrastinator” as I would be seen “fooling around on the internet” (a.k.a reading blogs on Google Reader) instead of doing my work. A few months of this battered my poor overachieving soul pretty badly. And the worst feeling was that I had just signed up to do this job for the next 35 years of my life and I felt like all that I had done in the first 25 had been a waste.

A few months of this was all it took for my unsupportive (freeloading, SOB of an) ex to jump ship. I had done a good job of alienating all of my support networks defending my relationship with him. For six  years I’d neglected relationships forged in high school and university trying to keep the relationship alive. I hadn’t become great friends with any of my Senate Page friends as I’d spent more time coddling a moody ex who didn’t want to go to Parliamentary receptions, rather than going out for drinks with a fantastic group of people. I cut my trip to London, England shorter than it needed to be because I was bleeding money because the ex couldn’t hold a job and I was paying rent in both Ottawa and England. I had lied to my family about my financial situation, my relationship, my happiness, my job. Everything. And it all came crashing down.

I was left alone in an apartment I couldn’t afford (even on my permanent salary, juniors make very little compared to the rest of public servants) in a city where I had no family or close friends. I broke.

I spent a week at home sick and then went in to work and told everyone I had the flu. I explained to my managers what happened and was given a cool reception when mental health issues were mentioned. I had enough leave to go home to Manitoba, so I did. I made a trip to the doctor for my physical before I hopped on the plane (as I was trying to maintain the illusion that I was okay and everything was normal) and received another blow. I was fifty pounds heavier than I thought I was. The doctor prescribed me Paxil and sent me on my way.

I went home and my family took care of me. Mom made sure I took my meds and Dad tried to be supportive but he was terribly mad at the ex for what he did. I don’t really remember much else other than I would hope that the phone would ring (as the ex had told me he “fucking loved me” in the note he left and promised to call me in a few days to talk about rent and bills) and that the nightmare would be over. The phone never rang. The vacation ended and I had to go back to Ottawa alone. My flight connected through Toronto and I was grounded due to mechanical failure. After a million cancellations and reschedulings, they finally sent us to a hotel where I was able to get three hours of sleep before I had to get the shuttle to be back at the airport. I had to carry my physical luggage all over hell and gone while my emotional luggage was crushing me.

Work made me numb. The situation wasn’t any better, I wasn’t being given any meaningful work and now I had the added stigma of people whispering about why I was gone. I decided to get help.

I called the clinic where they gave me the Paxil as they had a poster on the wall in the room where I waited about the fact that they offered counseling services. That were covered by my health plan. I chose the doctor that was easiest to get to (as my motivation to do anything was at an all time low) and for the weeks between mid-February and the following September I spent every Friday after work exploring myself in that office.

I started off talking about being abandoned, but it quickly turned to my unhappiness at work and my broken support network. My journey in that office deserves much more than a quick mention at the end of a long post, so we’ll save that story for another time as well.

But I was given the tools to cope better with the curve balls that life sends my way. I was able to see a psychiatrist (who told me the way I was left was “inhumane”, that made me feel better) who adjusted my medication and I’ve been more stable ever since. My meds make me feel “normal”, which I know is a funny thing to say. But for those of you who know me, I am a passionate and dramatic person: being able to control that passion and drama is a good thing. I was able to repair some of the broken bridges, especially with my family. I was more honest with myself and others about what made me feel happy or upset. I stopped pretending to be happy with things to make other people happy. I learned that I have favourite foods (chicken wings! sushi!) and that I’m allowed to disagree.

I learned to ask for help.

So what happened at work you say? What happened to my financial situation? My increased waistline? Oh the mystery and intrigue. If you’re half as exhausted from reading this as I am from writing this, I’m sure you’ll be okay with me saying that those stories can wait for another day. I’ve promised you a lot of stories, and I intend to deliver.

But for now: This is Mental Health Week and people you know suffer from mental health issues. They probably feel overwhelmed and alone. They probably don’t know how to ask for help. They probably think that asking for help makes them weak. They probably think they can figure it out all on their own. Please help them.