Time to Level Out.

It has been a while since I have posted, and that can only mean one thing. It means that I have been going through a period of time when I have been unable, or more accurately unwilling to relinquish control of my thoughts via blogging.

I think that is something I need to work on. Being less of an internal processor and finding a willingness to throw my thoughts out into the universe for feedback. I found myself doing so the other evening. Allowing myself a moment of vulnerability in the company of someone who has become quite important to me recently. It was a beneficial conversation, and has taught me that I don't really need to rely so heavily on exclusively deciphering my own thoughts or feelings about a situation. This is particularly true when there is another involved in the matter at hand, and when that other may have the very answers that I could have concluded by myself but would only truly become valid with their feedback.

I have been through a fair amount of nonsense this year. Moving around and uncovering secrets that completely disrupted my vision for the future and revised who would be a part of that future. These interruptions and discoveries have led to some changes in me. Some for the better, and some that require patch work to overcome. Anyone who has been tracking me for the past couple years knows that post-separation from my husband I have become somewhat volatile and ever changing. Well surprise! I am changing yet again.

I am tired, exhausted actually, and so I have found a place I feel I can call home for a good long while. Perhaps...permanently. A place that provided me with sense of home ever so briefly in early 2009. I transported myself back to Saskatchewan in late July of this year, all the while throwing a silent mental tantrum. I did not know whether or not I was making the right decision but hoped that it would hold some of the allure it did in the past. Thus far I have not been disappointed by what I have found here. I have a full-time job, working in a restaurant/bar. Not exactly fancy but it is certainly an experience.

I have also met someone who in a shockingly short amount of time has become very important to me. At first it would seem that perhaps our meeting came at the wrong time for both of us because we are both still sorting through thoughts and feelings relating to recent past experiences BUT I choose to believe otherwise. I like to think that the universe would only introduce us with the hope that we could enrich the other and benefit from knowing one another.

So I have made a lot of changes and a few more changes have resulted from those changes, but I am genuinely happy. I feel calm for the first time in a good long while (possibly the first time ever) and I will do whatever I can to hold on to that feeling.

Photobooth

Photobooth
Originally uploaded by dailytattler

ESL and Entrails

To my surprise England is a nation preoccupied with thoughts of disembowelment. It is unclear whether or not this is a result of paranoia or sinister thoughts, but England is unquestionably obsessed with entrails. You hear whispers of it everywhere. On the bus, in a restaurant, and even on the television. Men, women and children alike talk openly about the national pass-time of "gutting".

That is why my word for the day is "gutted". I wish it was my favourite word because I hear it all the time. The definition of the word in context is not nearly as sinister as it may seem initially. It is used to express feelings of disappointment or upset. Gutted? Pretty harsh, isn't it? Yes, it is a fairly dramatic word to use considering it also refers to the removal intestines. However it does seem to encompass a good range of feelings in one word, and it does seem a bit more sophisticated to say "I am totally gutted" than it does to say "me is oh so very sad". Poor me with my brutish Canadian English upbringing.

What is the difference? Canada and England are both predominantly English speaking nations (lets ignore French Canadians shall we? Because I am not interested in wasting time and I am from glorious western Canada.). However moving from one English speaking nation to the mother of all English speaking nations hasn't been as seamless as I had hoped it would be. Oddly enough one of my greatest complications has been communicating with people. I try very hard to understand people when I am spoken to, and throughout the years I have learned to understand many accents without much difficulty, but apparently when an English accent is involved all that is required to confuse me is a slightly heavy accent, a fast pace, or a bit of drunkenness. Any or all of these three variables turn what should be plain English into completely incoherent gibberish.

Sometimes it is a result of vocabulary. I am almost embarrassed to say that I have had difficulty accomplishing some very simple tasks because of a difference in vocabulary. Let me introduce one scenario which I wish I could say happened to a friend of mine, but it did not. Couldn't have. Why? Because I don't have any friends here, and it did in fact happen to me. Which is why this confessional begins with "I". I (told you it would) was at a pub attempting to order a soda/pop/fizzy drink/soft drink and I (just to clarify) had so much difficulty that I (just in case you didn't catch it the first two times) had to resort to listing off the ones I (getting a bit overused) knew they had in hopes that they would understand and continue to list them. Why all the trouble? Because I couldn't manage to figure out the necessary vocabulary word and as a result the bartender could not figure out what I was trying to order. In my defense the bartender was not a native English speaker, but in her defense apparently neither am I...

The English language is complex and during my first three weeks in England I have learned a bit more about it. Most importantly, I now know it does not matter if you think you are right, because you can't argue with an English person about how to speak English. An increasingly irritating fact. However, what I do know for sure is that fillet is pronounced fill-EH (a terrible Canadian joke) and not fill-IT, and it offends my mouth to say it any other way. One tiny victory for me.

Time

It used to be that time would pass and I wouldn't give it much thought. Over the last...oh I don't know... month and a half it seems that the characteristics of time have changed. It doesn't pass quite as quickly as it used to, and it is somehow richer than it was before. As though every moment is made up of two or three, and that the world I live in now is one where time is something that entirely revolves around where I need to be and when I need to be there.

Whether where I need to be is a moment or two from now or a few hours, days, or months...lets say five... I am bound by it. Although recently it has become my greatest ally and has delivered a lot of gifts to me in a rather short amount of itself, it is now three times as long as it used to be and knowing the wait I am faced with it is becoming rather bittersweet. The time that has passed is home to the most precious moments of my life, but the time that has yet to elapse... the time I..or we.. will spend waiting is passing on the same watch. Ticking away slower than it used to and even slower still because we are watching it so closely.

Closeness is the true issue, isn't it? We are waiting to be closer, and time has complete control over that. However knowing how time has been treating us over the last little while I can't help but look forward with anticipation. It has much to offer us. All we can do is be patient enough to receive what has to offer us when it decides to allow us to have it, and be grateful that it has chosen to behave for us in such an anomalous manner to begin with. I am fairly certain that had time not changed its ways for us it would have taken us much longer to get where we are right now, and right now is where I want to be. The present is your home and because you are here with me it is also mine.

Country Lane

Country Lane
Originally uploaded by Razer1953

GO AHEAD! Try to tell me Saskatchewan isn't beautiful...

The same old fairy tales

The same old fairy tales
Originally uploaded by `Vorfas

To Live

It can be rather disorienting. The immense range of opportunities, options and choices that present themselves. It just may be that we end up doing things, meeting people, being places, or making choices that we would not have ever seen ourselves doing. In a way it is the moments when I surprise myself that I enjoy the most. Because it gives me the opportunity to get to know myself a little better in the process. Take that experience, slap it on the table and slice it open...and really figure out what it means. What does it mean? At the very base level it means that I am living. What is the purpose of life? To live. Simple enough, isn't it?

What do I witness as a result of all of this self reflection? Evolution. My oh my, do I love evolution. Adaptation, change, extinction, creation...everything has a purpose and when its purpose is fulfilled it disappears. I see bits and pieces of myself disappearing. Not gone, but hidden. Forced into the caverns of my mind as a result of experiences gained. The people I know and will know. The places I have been and will be. All a promise of something. Not good, not bad, but something.