So just for some perspective this letter is to someone i was involved with. I initially thought that we would end up in a relationship only to realize that they chose to go back to their previous partner.
I feel as though I have a ball in the pit of my stomach; one that seems to tighten at the thought of you. As it tightens it seems to spread, and never fails to reach my heart, this heart of mine so vulnerable and ready for the taking. Why do I do this to myself? Why must I leave this precious part of me so open to pain? While I use all my energy to heal others, who’s left to heal me? I pour my soul into the healing of another human being and yet when I looked to you for a little affection a little indication that maybe you can give me a piece of what I so long for, you leave me disappointed.
You who walks like you own those around you, as though you have something superior to them all, when in reality you are just as lost as I am. You think you can hide it behind those shadowed blue eyes that you excel at making look strong and empty. You think that it will keep you from experiencing pain? I think you hide behind a mask of anger to keep people from knowing just how alone you are. You express yourself through cryptic messages almost as though you’re begging people to see you, the real you. The thing is, they don’t and they never will. Not through these one lined messages you post on a social network people use to escape reality. Though for you that message is a small indication of what your reality looks like and yet not enough for people to really truly understand what lies beneath your façade.
Isn’t that interesting? I let people in too much and you don’t let them in at all. You don’t allow them to touch your soul for fear of pain and I allow everyone a piece of myself, which chips away each time someone comes in a little too deeply. Neither are any better than the other but both keep us from the happiness we deserve. Why do you allow yourself to remain so unhappy? Almost as though if you keep yourself in this state, so you can remain in control of yourself and your emotions. The thing is I know you’re attracted to me. I know that we have something good, but somehow you’re missing the big picture when you communicate your lack of desire for a relationship. I could rid you of that anger, I could rid you of that wall you build to protect yourself. But you chose to look the other way, you chose to move towards a what was already a once failed relationship all the while silently turning your back to me.
I hold no ill feelings towards you….or at least I try not to. I get it, it’s much easier to pick what ‘s been so familiar. It’s easier to look at a person who’s eyes you’ve stared into many times before. But what I cant get rid of is the feeling of “why not me” why could you not choose something new, something different? As I look deeper into those thoughts as I analyse the very origin of those thoughts, I begin to realize my heart feels empty, hollow, void of the affection I so long to feel
The difference is while you turn your back on what would be a leap of faith, while you continue to claim you have no faith, again a means of protecting yourself, mine grows by the moment. I know that along side my footprints in life are His, what do you have? That mask. I hope that mask keeps you warm at night, I hope that protective layer you put up in front of yourself protects you from whatever it I you fear.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Letter from a 40 something to a 20 something
I found this article...well more like an advice column the other day on a friend's facebook page.I've been struggling alot lately with myself and trying to find peace and tranquility in this soul of mine.Interestingly enough it feels as though i stumbled upon this at the right time. Sugar is an advice columnist and someone wrote in asking what advice she would give, now at approximately 40, to herself in her 20s. What came out of it was insightful and beautiful and uplifting. I felt like she was talking to me. All these doubts that have recently clouded my mind, it was like she heard them and answered every one of those little demons in my head. Without further adieu i introduce to you, Sugar.
Dear Sugar,
I read your column religiously. I’m 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early 40s. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?
Dear [Writer]
Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.
In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.
You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.
Click here to purchase a Sugar Shirt.
When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.
There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.
One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.
Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.
One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.
Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.
When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.
The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.
One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.
Say thank you.
Yours,
Sugar
http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/
Dear Sugar,
I read your column religiously. I’m 22. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early 40s. My question is short and sweet: what would you tell your 20-something self if you could talk to her now?
Dear [Writer]
Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea.
In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her.
You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart.
Click here to purchase a Sugar Shirt.
When that really sweet but fucked up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do ecstasy with them, say no.
There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness.
One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay.
Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.
You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else.
Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.
One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do.
Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.
When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.
The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.
One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life.
Say thank you.
Yours,
Sugar
http://therumpus.net/2011/02/dear-sugar-the-rumpus-advice-column-64/
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Canada goes postal
A great piece from a friend of mine
Canadian politics piqued the interest again of the international community and gripped the nation by their mailbox. The debate in parliament that fixed time and set a new record for debate was over the issue of the mail.
It all began on the 2nd of June when the Postal Workers Union went on strike (CUPW) over negotiations over their contract and concerns regarding the health of their workers surrounding new machinery that has been introduced for sorting the mail. The Union launched a rotating strike that went around the country freezing paper communications in one city and then the next. This action lasted for twelve days to no avail.
Canada Post then took the step on the 14th of June to ‘Lock Out’ their workers once the strike hit its Toronto Office, the reason they claimed was that it was costing them millions of dollars. They were planning in a move that has been echoed across numerous public bodies in Canada and the West in an attempt to bring down costs, they suggested new employs begin at a lower pay grade than before but are able to work up to the same pay point as their colleagues. This claims the Union would have lead to a clear ‘two tiered’ system where two people doing the same job would get different pay.
Other mail companies such as Puralator were counting their lucky starts as soon as negotiations broke down between the two sides as neither one were willing to budge on principles. With increases in their deliveries reaching the triple digits as people desperate to pass on messages and packages had to turn to the private sector. The government however and its vast bureaucracy was left caught in the hell fire caused over the lock out.
On Monday the 20th six days later a Bill was introduced to Parliament, the get Canada Post back to work bill was immediately deplored by the new Opposition the New Democrat Party as draconian and an attack on the principles of fair bargaining with clauses covering final offer binding arbitration. They also opposed the fact that the Bill specifically outlined the wages for the workers, which was set to lower to than what Canada had offered the Union at the last negotiations. The Conservative government however retaliated claiming that the debacle was costing the economy between 9 million and 35 million a week and was particularly troublesome for those depending on government assistance.
What happened between the 23rd and now is monumental. As debate opened on Thursday the 23rd the parliamentary calendar was set to that work day, the NDP however were determined to call the Conservatives to account for perceived anti-labour overtures. The ensuing filibuster lasted over 3 days and two nights. The epic 56 hour debating session broke the previous record set in the 80’s and the true hero of it all must truly have been Elizabeth May, the only and also the leader of the Green Party she represented a caucus of one and remained at the debate for at least 30 hours only leaving for brief breaks. The two entrenched oppositions parties battled it out, at one point with the NDP tabling a ‘hoist’ motioned which would have pushed the issue back six months. The Liberals and Conservatives however shot it down. Eventually the Conservative majority steam rolled the Bill through and at 8pm on Saturday it was passed through the lower house. It will be going to Senate on Sunday morning and is expected to face no real opposition there. It looks set that the now unedited Bill will be ordering the 46 thousand postal workers back to work by the middle of next week.
A real record has been set this week, as the Parliament calendar passes onto the next work day confused to discover its now Sunday, the crunch on postal workers to clear the back log by Canada Day will be a gruelling task and probably highly opposed to the now further disgruntled Union. The Conservatives have flexed their muscles to get this Bill through, but there has been little doubt at all that the 56 hour filibuster is just the beginning of the fight that going to be put up by the novice Official Opposition Party.
Canadian politics piqued the interest again of the international community and gripped the nation by their mailbox. The debate in parliament that fixed time and set a new record for debate was over the issue of the mail.
It all began on the 2nd of June when the Postal Workers Union went on strike (CUPW) over negotiations over their contract and concerns regarding the health of their workers surrounding new machinery that has been introduced for sorting the mail. The Union launched a rotating strike that went around the country freezing paper communications in one city and then the next. This action lasted for twelve days to no avail.
Canada Post then took the step on the 14th of June to ‘Lock Out’ their workers once the strike hit its Toronto Office, the reason they claimed was that it was costing them millions of dollars. They were planning in a move that has been echoed across numerous public bodies in Canada and the West in an attempt to bring down costs, they suggested new employs begin at a lower pay grade than before but are able to work up to the same pay point as their colleagues. This claims the Union would have lead to a clear ‘two tiered’ system where two people doing the same job would get different pay.
Other mail companies such as Puralator were counting their lucky starts as soon as negotiations broke down between the two sides as neither one were willing to budge on principles. With increases in their deliveries reaching the triple digits as people desperate to pass on messages and packages had to turn to the private sector. The government however and its vast bureaucracy was left caught in the hell fire caused over the lock out.
On Monday the 20th six days later a Bill was introduced to Parliament, the get Canada Post back to work bill was immediately deplored by the new Opposition the New Democrat Party as draconian and an attack on the principles of fair bargaining with clauses covering final offer binding arbitration. They also opposed the fact that the Bill specifically outlined the wages for the workers, which was set to lower to than what Canada had offered the Union at the last negotiations. The Conservative government however retaliated claiming that the debacle was costing the economy between 9 million and 35 million a week and was particularly troublesome for those depending on government assistance.
What happened between the 23rd and now is monumental. As debate opened on Thursday the 23rd the parliamentary calendar was set to that work day, the NDP however were determined to call the Conservatives to account for perceived anti-labour overtures. The ensuing filibuster lasted over 3 days and two nights. The epic 56 hour debating session broke the previous record set in the 80’s and the true hero of it all must truly have been Elizabeth May, the only and also the leader of the Green Party she represented a caucus of one and remained at the debate for at least 30 hours only leaving for brief breaks. The two entrenched oppositions parties battled it out, at one point with the NDP tabling a ‘hoist’ motioned which would have pushed the issue back six months. The Liberals and Conservatives however shot it down. Eventually the Conservative majority steam rolled the Bill through and at 8pm on Saturday it was passed through the lower house. It will be going to Senate on Sunday morning and is expected to face no real opposition there. It looks set that the now unedited Bill will be ordering the 46 thousand postal workers back to work by the middle of next week.
A real record has been set this week, as the Parliament calendar passes onto the next work day confused to discover its now Sunday, the crunch on postal workers to clear the back log by Canada Day will be a gruelling task and probably highly opposed to the now further disgruntled Union. The Conservatives have flexed their muscles to get this Bill through, but there has been little doubt at all that the 56 hour filibuster is just the beginning of the fight that going to be put up by the novice Official Opposition Party.
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