her real world

On being dumped: Trying to reconnect

I’m trying to scan more photos as I’m trying to piece together my life between 1999 and 2006. I did a few scans when I first bought my scanner (the photo above included) but have yet to do anymore. The time between 2006 and today has also been rough.

I don’t for a second want to go back to when I was in this photo. Even though then, both of my grandmothers were still alive and I still got to spend every day with my family. My Dad was sick. I longed for adventure.

I didn’t have a Bachelors degree in Political Science, I certainly didn’t have a Masters degree in Canadian Studies. I hadn’t been a Senate Page. I hadn’t been a Parliamentary Intern in both the House of Commons in Ottawa and in London. I hadn’t spent 4 years gaining invaluable work and life experience as a public servant in Ottawa (August 24 is my 4 year anniversary of walking into the building where i currently work).

In this photo, I’d never been kissed, never had a boyfriend. I didn’t have two glorious cats who are the best roommates on earth. I had never met Him. I hadn’t met some of the greatest people in my life (I’d name you but honestly if I forgot one of you I’d not be able to forgive myself. If you wish you were one of the people I’d name, you are one of them). I’d not been to my little sister’s beautiful wedding.  I’d not be sitting right here right now writing this blog post.

I had never been dumped.

Being dumped was a terrible experience. Being dumped meant that all of the effort that I had put into the relationship and sacrifices I had made for that relationship didn’t matter. It meant that six years of compromises and shaving off bits of myself so that we could fit better together and so that our relationship could work didn’t matter. I was left sobbing in the middle of the apartment, not eating and just waiting after every time I heard the elevator doors open (my apartment is right beside them) that there would be a knock on the door and the words that would make the nightmare stop.

I felt as though I had done a terrible thing. I had sacrificed so many things for a relationship that was over with a note duct taped to my wall. I had sacrificed time with my family every time I went home to Manitoba so that I could spend time on the phone with him. I had sacrificed friendships to develop a relationship with someone I wholly believed was my best friend and who I believed I would be with forever. Which is how I justified the sacrifices. Because they were worth it.

I’ve learned something. I’ve learned not to sacrifice bits of myself that are important, because you never know when you’re going to have to go back and make six years worth of apologies for lost time. I feel so much guilt, sometimes it’s so overwhelming that I just try and ignore it. Other times I realize that though I didn’t really burn bridges that I’d be more comfortable about asking for help if the bridges were in better repair. So this post is dedicated to repairing bridges.

I have no idea who reads my blog. I barely know how to access my site statistics, I have no idea who subscribes to the feed. I know that I import the posts as notes into my Facebook account. I know that I get lovely comments on occasion from lovely people.

But if you read this and you’d like me to repair our bridge, please let me know. I’m right now trying to do the best I can but I’m spreading myself thin and getting overwhelmed. I don’t know what bridges were out there and who cares to reconnect. So if you read this and you want me to make you cookies or go to coffee or let you yell at me while I sit quietly, let me know.

For those of you who don’t want to let me know, I’m in the process of importing all of the blog entries I’ve ever written into this blog. For the longest time I have struggled with what I wanted to share and what I’ve shared. I figure at the very least that you all deserve to root through the contents of my last six years and see if there is anything good.

I’ve hung the big old “Under Construction” sign on my network of bridges people. Through the power of the Internet I hope we can get in touch.

http://herrealworld.com/

http://flickr.com/photos/herrealworld/

http://twitter.com/herrealworld/

http://facebook.com/herrealworld/

http://youtube.com/herrealworld/

http://delicious.com/herrealworld/

http://www.allconsuming.net/person/herrealworld/

http://blip.fm/herrealworld

On being dumped: When I say forever, I mean it

The precursor to this story begins in my first year of university during reading week. Those who were close enough to family had gone home to visit them, those of us who weren’t stayed and did more of nothing than usual. It was just after Valentine’s Day and I had been lamenting to myself over the fact that for the 18th time in a row, I was single.

My roommate had her boyfriend come to visit her and he had gotten her two dozen roses and I was a tad jealous but quite happy that I was able to help him get a really good deal on them in the Byward Market. I helped her modify of my big water bottles as a vase and I was able to enjoy them as we shared a room.

There was a guy on our floor that was always very sweet and often girls would say “Oh I wish I could marry you!” to him. Very friendly, open hearted, kind. I will admit that I had developed crushes on many of the guys on the floor (you were all so awesome!), but one evening (and for the first time ever) that crush became something more.

I’d been waiting for this forever. This being a relationship. I had no idea what I was getting into; I just knew that I wanted it. And all of a sudden it was almost seven years later and I was sobbing into my telephone to anyone who would listen about how he left me that night and shoved his keys under the door. I have never spoken to him since.

It’s strange how things work out. The end of that story was a typed note signed with a red marker duct taped to my wall that told me how fucking much he loved me and that he’d call me in a few days about bills. The beginning of this story was a note that I found stuffed into my hardcopy of the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service while cleaning my office for our move across the river. The note was attached to a dozen roses (one of which is pictured above) that was sent to my workplace and said “love me forever, the ex”. I looked at it, shook my head, and threw it in the recycling bin.

This story won’t be about my relationship with my ex. That ended rather crudely on December 5, 2006. This story will be about how being dumped made me into the woman I am today. And though there will be bits and pieces of the story of that relationship mixed up in this story and even though I (and a number of medical professionals and therapists) think what he did to me was inhumane, I’m going to do my best to respect the ex’s privacy.

I hope you learn as much from this as I did, I am certainly going to learn a lot from writing this.

An ode to Google Reader

I was on a conference call this week and was confronted by the question: well who reads blogs anyways? Or something like that. I’m not too worried about getting the quote exactly right, since I’m pretty sure the person who said it won’t be reading this here blog.

But it got me to thinking. Who reads blogs?

I sure do. I read them constantly. Along with my email, Twitter and facebook, Google Reader is one of my main internet hangouts. To prove how much I heart it, I just finished cleaning out my subscription list so that I could give you a grand total of the number of feeds I follow daily.

Ready for it?

194.

In my conference call I said 200, but I wasn’t far off. And when I said it? Shocked silence.

And then something along the lines of: But how?

My answer: Google Reader. I won’t read a blog if they don’t have a feed. Cause if they don’t have a feed, I can’t follow them in Google Reader. I don’t have a list of bookmarked websites that I go to every day to see if they have new content.

I wake up to 1000+ posts from 194 blogs and I read them all from Google Reader.

Now, before you fall off your chair and then wake up and then ask me how I could possibly read 1000+ posts a day and still keep my job, let me explain something. I use the term “read” loosely.

There are some posts that I read in their entirety. Anything from the “people I know” or “people I don’t know” category is read, as they are actual people whose lives I follow from my corner of the blogosphere. I also “read” all of my webcomics (22 in total, not all are updated daily).

I browse all of the home blogs/craft blogs/design blogs quickly, scanning to see if any of the pictures catch my eye. Basically if your blog doesn’t have photos or you clip them or the text out to make me click through so I can pad the stats on your site, I don’t go. I mark any of the ideas I like either ‘design ideas’ or ‘crafting inspiration’ and move on.

On to food blogs. I browse Tastespotting constantly, it’s super easy as it’s just photo after photo after photo of food porn. Sometimes I’ll tag the posts for my recipe file without even reading the recipe, sometimes I click through to get more details. I follow a number of food blogs and I savour those posts the most, I’ll read all of them regardless of whether or not they make me click through or not because I don’t subscribe to any food blog that I’m not in love with.

I browse my “Toronto” blogs quite often as I like to keep up to speed on one of my most favourite places on earth. I also keep super up to date on my public service renewal type friends because they are oh so witty and wonderful.

If I’m having a slow brain day I’ll flip through my photo blogs/art blogs and the Flickr streams that I subscribe to for inspiration and a kick start.

Ummm. Oh then come my “culture” and “life” blogs. Now, I really don’t know how I choose blogs to go into either of these categories other than “culture” blogs tend to have something to do with societies or a society at large and “life” has to do with everything else. Basically the “life” category is the general category that I don’t use because I hate general categories.

I think that’s pretty much it. There are a few others that I kind of keep up with, but they aren’t updated often so I don’t really count them as part of my daily reads. So yeah.

Part of the reason I’m sharing this with you is because I’m going to start writing more about the things I read about, in hopes that I can start a dialogue here and get you all (and by you all I mean my millions of readers) exposed to some new things to read.

Oh and of course, get you on Google Reader to read them. Cause really….how else are you going to keep up!