studio · home · community · self

Post inspired by Mr. Joe Bougher’s idea to see what we’d write for our very last post. Photo taken July 7, 2004 before this blog was even a thought and before I’d done any of the growing I’ve done since then.

If I’ve met you (face to face or online, no matter) and we’ve had a conversation, you will always be in my heart.

Before I go on, I just want you to know that I wish I had blogged to you more often. Just about every day since I created this blog in April 2005 after I finished my Master’s degree, I think about things I’d like to blog about and photos that I’d like to share with you. But weeks went by and all of a sudden it was a new year.

Moving along.

One of the (many) things I’ve learned while I’ve had this blog is that my heart and my brain are very much connected. Some people can easily make decisions with their heart with which their head won’t agree. Some people can easily make decisions with their head with which their heart won’t agree. I cannot easily do either. This causes me heartache. I’ve lost many opportunities because of this. I have a hard time not being Melanie all of the time, flaws and all.

I can remember one year (I was in my teens) at Corn and Apple (the local summer festival) I really wanted a slave bracelet (“a wrist bracelet joined to a ring by a chain”) and I was very excited that I’d saved the money to buy one. I went to all the vendors and found the one I wanted. It had a yin-yang symbol on it and I loved it. I have large fingers, so I made sure it fit the finger I wanted it to fit. It was $27, which was a lot of money to me. There were a lot of people and the vendor was hurrying me along as she didn’t like that I was touching things. Now that I think about it, I was a punk kid so she probably thought that I was going to take it. So I rushed. And I bought it.

Heart before head. I wanted the bracelet bad.

As I was walking away, I tried to put it on. The ring fits. The bracelet does not. My stomach drops. I turn around to a huge “NO REFUNDS” sign. I panic. I turn around and turn on the charm while trying not to cry. It works. I have my $27 back. But no bracelet.

Why is this story important?

I’m still sick to my stomach every time I think about this. Writing this down was hard. The anxiety I felt weighed on me and the guilt I felt for making a rash decision haunted me for a very long time. I had nightmares about it and can remember coming into my parent’s bedroom one night in tears because I couldn’t get back to sleep.

What this shows about me: I think about things. I mull things over. I replay events over and over again in my head, both good and bad. What if I had said that? What if I had done that? What if I had blogged more? What if I’d tweeted less? What if I hadn’t told people that I loved them?

So. If this were my last post, this is what I’d want to say:

I love you Dad. I love you Mom. I love you little sister. I love you little brother. I love you Joe. I love all of the family members who are up in heaven watching down.

I love you Buttons. I love you Clawdia. I love you Pawlyanna. I love you Shadow. I love you Shelby. I love all of the pets who are up in heaven getting belly rubs for eternity.

To my dearest lady and gentlemen friends (in the order we met) CG, ZY, AH, VN, OH, VB, JS, EM, JD, DZ: You are loved.

To the little kiddos out there that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting: You are loved.

To all of you: If I’ve met you and we’ve had a conversation, you will always be in my heart.

My last post summed things up pretty well. I still don’t have any photos of unicorns or rainbows, but I’m working on it. Instead you can have a photo I took on Easter weekend on a chilly beach in Sudbury.

Summer is here and I’m preparing for a week of vacation in sunny Manitoba. I’m knitting up a storm because I’ve not used these past six months to finish my family’s Christmas presents. I’m one and a half down, two and a half to go. There will be many photos of finished projects once they are blocked and such, so stay tuned!

Much progress has been made in the cleaning of the apartment and the brain/soul searching I’ve been doing. Applying for jobs once again is a humbling and frustrating experience. So many of the jobs I’d love to do and I am perfectly qualified for are being posted, but it’s so obvious that they are being posted for someone already in the position. Requiring 2.46 years experience in the position is kind of a dead giveaway. Okay maybe I’m exaggerating.

I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my (very short less than five year) career. And I get caught up in them. When really I need to focus on the bills. Because sometimes little details get lost in the big picture. For the first time ever I’m working on having more than one iron in the fire (even though there is one really big iron right now that I’m not talking about for fear of jinxing it) and we’ll see how it goes.

But that will wait. At least until I get home from Manitoba. I plan on taking lots of photos. And doing yard work. And working on super secret projects. And hopefully at least once being able to dabble my toes in one of Manitoba’s fine lakes. Will it be Lake Minnewasta or Lake Winnipeg? Who knows!

But most of all I’m looking forward to spending quality time with Mom, Dad, little sister, and little brother. I love being in Toronto and I loved being in Ottawa. But I love my family like bonkers and it’s so terrible to be away from them. They worry about me being jobless and being able to provide for myself while being so far away. I worry about that too. Someday I want to have a job where I can have the flexibility to go home for a week and it not be Christmas time. I’m lucky that Joe was able to get this week off work. I’m lucky (and unlucky at the same time) that I’m able to go because I don’t have a job.

The soul searching continues. And the knitting. Oh gosh the knitting.

I’m in love with memes, even though I’m pretty terrible with passing them along. This is no exception to that rule. Which means I’ve modified the rules to suit me:

• Thank the person who gave them this award/roped them into this meme. (Thanks Bad Mummy!)
• Share 7 things about myself.
• Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who I’ve recently discovered and that I think are fantastic! I’m not very good at tagging people, so if you read this…you are tagged!

I also think it’s worth noting that seven things is really too easy. The last list I did about myself (in 2005! When I started blogging!) was 100 things. Without any further adoooo, here we go!

1. I’ve got the best boyfriend on earth. He’s the brother of a friend from Ottawa and we met at her birthday party. We started talking on the phone and the Internet and quite quickly realized that seeing each other in person quite regularly was something we wanted to do. We spent almost a year traveling between Ottawa and Toronto and then I decided that I was ready to pick up and start fresh in Toronto. And we’ve been living together ever since. I love him dearly and he doesn’t even annoy me one little bit ever.

2. I love working. I’m not a workaholic as I’m way too lazy for that. But when I have work to do that’s appreciated/that makes my brain work/that makes me feel needed I am in love! The money is of course nice, but much better is being able to communicate and collaborate and cheer each other on. And for your information, I’m on a contract right now that I LOVE TO BITS. This is big because I used to be very unhappy at work. I worked for the public service and had some very emotional and psychologically moments that affected me deeply.

3. I play World of Warcraft. In fact, I’m playing as I type this. I’ve been playing Horde since October 2006 (I think…) and I just recently started playing Alliance. I love both for different reason, but am right now really digging Alliance as it’s a whole new game. I have a level 80 druid, a level almost 80 paladin and two lowbies: a priest and a shaman. As you can tell, I love playing classes capable of healing. My favourite races to play are tauren, draenei, and night elf.  I’ve been playing Warcraft since the beginning and I love everything about it: the lore, the graphics, the everything!

4. I have gained and now lost a significant amount of weight in my 28 years on this planet. My main gain happened in university and the leadup to entering the public service. Being unceremoniously dumped added the final 20 pounds. I went to the doctor and she of course wanted me to lose weight and provided a much needed push. My little sister was also getting married and I didn’t want to be the fat sister bridesmaid. I was still a chubby sister bridesmaid, but as of the wedding I’d lost almost 50 pounds. That’s been a year now and I’ve not really made much of an effort, but thanks to changes in eating patterns my weight now starts with a two for the first time in a long time.

5. I call myself a writer these days and I’m quite happy about that. In my last list I mentioned that I wanted to call myself a writer so I’m happy to say that after five years I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I am one! I had a bit of a rough go while I was working for the public service because I had a manager who pretty much destroyed any confidence I had about any of my skills, but since then I’ve had lots of opportunities to prove to myself and others that I can make writing happen with my fingers.

6. I love food and food related activities. I used to be an emotional eater and now I’m just an eater. And a maker. I love to make and eat things, or go out and eat things, or have someone make things for me so that I can eat them. I’m not a picky eater at all, but I’ve finally learned that I can say that I don’t prefer something and be okay with that. I’m not the biggest fan of some tofu related products (and soy can be pretty evil, more on that someday) but you deep fry it and chances are it goes in my belly. My favourite food are the wings of chickens: spicy or sweet or hot or saucy or not, I love ‘em all. And P.S. coffee rules.

7. I love my family more than anything. Perfect bookends: I started with Joe and for the finale I’ll talk about how awesome my Mom, my Dad, my little sister, and my little brother are. I have grown much closer to my family in the time that I’ve been away from Manitoba, and even more closer in the time since I was dumped. I realized then the importance of my support system and keeping it healthy. The phone and the Internet are lifelines to home and my visits are less far and few between.