New Beginnings

I know I haven't posted for a while but I fully intend to keep blogging, I'm just not sure what I want to write about here.  Alot has been going on in my life but i havent been inspired to write about it. I am starting a new job at a homeless shelter though, doing harm reduction work, so i'll try to post here every now and again just to keep you updated. I also want to let you folks know that I'm collaborating on a new blog with my good friend Barry from Life In Quotations

Our blog As You Are  came about because we both have a strong interest in some of the most important issues that people face today. I wanted a space to generally cover the heavier topics that I tend to deal with in my activism and support work, while he does alot of online support work. This seems to be a great fit and a perfect next step, for both of us. We hope it will become an interactive space where people can share their stories and experiences.

Click here to link, we hope to see you there!

Update

I know it's been awhile since i've written. In all honesty i was feeling a bit discouraged, not many people visit this blog and those that do, seem to be people that stumble into it following a google hit. That's ok though, i also should take accountability in that I dont put alot of effort into reaching out into the community. So at this point, i'm debating whether to close this blog down and start over with a new blog, stop blogging altogether, or continue with this one and see where it leads me.

As for an update on my life. I started working 6 weeks ago at the Ottawa Rape Crisis Center, It was only a 6 week contract so i'm  done now, but what a wonderful experience to have grown and learned from. I've also completed volunteer training at the Sexual Assault Support Center of Ottawa. I'm trying to find a full time job right now in my field of interest. I want to work with an organisation that supports survivors and works using an anti-oppression model. In other words, a place that empowers survivors to work towards their own healing.

Life has been going petty well lately. I've had my own ups and downs but knowing that my life is moving forward helps keep me balanced.


Anyways....that's all there is in terms of updates. I'll keep you posted as to what i plan on doing to this page. Let me know your thoughts!

So sick of bullies

A friend of mine has been harassed recently on campus for being gay. He's gained alot of attention because he's very outspoken about issues he cares deeply about. So in retaliation, apparently having no  ability to have a proper discussion around serious issues like racism, abortion, and homophobia, the people he's been having these discussion with (knowns as the campus Conservatives) decided to bully him for being gay. Of course, it's the next logical step right? Cant argue, so let's pick on his sexuality. He's asked me to spread the word far and wide. He's gone to the media, and really trying to get people to take notice of this issue, so I'm posting it here.

I've noticed alot of people have been popping in to read. Leave a comment if you feel comfortable :)  Support for such a beautiful individual like Arün, is always welcome.

Here's his story:

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/Ottawa/1305550861/ID=2235726719

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/05/17/ottawa-police-probe-homophobic-meme.html

It's Prom season!

Though i'm well out of high school it's an important time for many teens here in Ottawa. I remember how excited i was to go, I had seen it on TV and couldn't wait to experience it in real life. Unfortunately i didn't have enough money for a dress. I was not earning much and had to shop at plus size stores to find a prom dress that fit. The problem was and still is for many, that the vast majority of plus size clothing is quite expensive. A dress that should be about $100 for an average size girl would cost 200-300 or more for a bigger girl.

As i listened to the radio on my way to school one day I heard an advertisement for Fairy Godmother Ottawa, a non-profit organization that lends out prom desses donated by people in the city. I found a beautiful halter neck, purple dress, that was big and poofy and made me feel pretty. Something that came very rarely for me. They offered me shoes, jewelry, everything i needed to look perfect.

So here i am several years later, graduating University. This past year i managed to loose 46Lbs. I went down from 206-160 and though my weight loss journey isn't over I am stuck with 4 beautiful dresses I can no longer wear. So i'm paying back the Fairy Godmothers that gave me a dress that,  like Cinderella, I could not keep. The only difference is that I didn't have to return the dress at midnight and glass slippers were not part of the deal! I did have to return the dress the following day though, much to my chagrin.

Here was my prom dress...I still look at it and just love it. I apologize for the bad quality, these are pictures of pictures.

I wore this one as the maid of honour at a friend's wedding. For some reason i can't seem to find a picture of myself wearing it at the wedding, so here's me in it today! I thank my armpits for holding it up. I loved this dress because it made me think of Sleeping Beauty, I would dance around my room singing "once upon a dream". Even though I was probably 23 by then I very quickly revered to childhood in a dress that called for it.

I wore this for my gr 8 formal. A friend of my mom made it for me. I remember being upset because i wanted it to be poofier....i think i just wanted to look like a princess. I'm starting to see a recurring theme here now that I think about it. What an impact disney has on young kids.

This was at some sort of family reunion or party. Here's what it looks like now and how it looked back then.

This was for my birthday 2 years ago, I could only find pictures of me sitting, where you cant see the who dress so here's what it looks like now and what you can see of it from 2 years ago. Because it was a bit small on me at the time, the waist seem to fit now, just a little loose, the breast area is quite big now. I hope some girl out there will enjoy it.

It's great to clean out my closet, it's definitely an ego boost to see the weight i've lost, but just imagining some young girl here in the city feeling down about her size, as I always did, and even just for one night making her feel pretty, it's a good feeling.


If you happen to live in the Ottawa area or maybe are able to ship some clothes to a Brown's location, or if you just want to learn more about the organization here's the link.
http://www.brownscleaners.ca/fairygodmother/whoweare.htm

Everything is happening and Yet Nothing...The Conundrum that is my Life

I know it's been a while sine i've written. I am feeling better but i'm also quite busy.  It's almost 3:00am here and i cant sleep. I laid in bed for about an hour until i couldn't take it anymore and decided to spend some time on the internet, so I thought i'd write.  In the meantime I got a text from a friend who also couldn't sleep, which turned in to an entire conversation, which turned into support session. I find it funny how i always manage  to end up in a space where i'm supporting someone. I have to say, i do love it. What are friends for if we're not there to support each other?

The Sexual Assault Support Center here in Ottawa has begun training for support workers and although i'm already trained, it's never enough. There's always something i can learn, always a way i can improve my skills and my ability to help people. So I've started training, which runs every Saturday and some Thursdays till June. Once training is complete I will be part of their collective!* I'll be taking shifts on a support line, I'l be doing one on one in person support work, also group sessions, I'll also be accompanying womyn either to court, the police station.... or wherever it is they feel they need someone to be with them.

 I'm so excited and really believe it's what i need to get out of my rutt. Mind you i'm also graduating from University.  I got into a program as well in Toronto. (unofficially, I've been told I was accepted but i have to wait for papers) A feminist based counseling program! I'm so elated about that, and think it'll a great way to gain the experience i'm looking for. My dream is to work at a grassroots level, helping sex workers, homeless folks, addicts, runaways....the people society gave up on, look down on, and shame.


I digress....I was talking about my life. My life is at a standstill. If it's moving forward i cant quite. Yes the graduation and the counseling program but...it's all going so slow. I can't seem to find a job. Which to be fair is the same song and dance every undergraduate is facing. I wanted to graduate this summer but cant till November because i cant pay off my tuition fast enough, so the university will not allow me to apply for graduation. *Insert rant about the evils of Capitalism* So i'm paying it off one bit at a time.


In the meantime my goal is to constantly be working towards self growth. If i can grow as a person, if I can feel like i'm maturing or learning then I can wait a little longer till I find exactly what it is i'm looking for.

* A collective is an organisation of people working towards a common goal. There's no hierarchy within these kinds of groups.

Goodbye My Friend

I hate you. I hate you because I loved you, because I trusted you, because you were supposed to be my friend. In the end you allowed your pride to get in the way. I know I made mistakes, but nothing is unforgivable. At least not the things I would ever be capable of. I'm sorry you couldn't work through your own self pity to realize I was there for you. I was always there for you. I was a real friend. But, like everyone has before you, you chose to walk away and blame it on me.

Well you know what? It's not about me anymore. It's not about me not being worth it. It's about you. You're no longer worth my time, my thoughts, my energy. This is my goodbye. This is my good riddance.


It's not me It's you.

Never enough pt.2

Spot stained hands
From sins of the past
Feet torn appart
From pacing holes
In this home's wooden floors

Worn down
Torn out
Emptied
From the back and forth motions that refused to take rest

Holes burned in my heart
Pathways carved in my brain
From the repetitive thought pattern
Of the why's and why not's

Fingers can't catch up
To the the mental gymnastics

Of the..
Why do you hate me?
Why cant we go back?
And the...
Why can't I fix it?
What did I do?

The cerebral ruminations...
Such a bad friend
Such a bad person
Such a terrible human being

Is it you or me?
Where are the answers?

Tears won't desist
As they fill a bitter taste in my mouth
Not for an hour so I can rest
Not a minute so I can think
Not for a second so I can breathe

Why
am I
NEVER enough..

Never Enough

The wall around this heart of mine grows
As the organ used for loving breaks.
Yet another soul walks away
They all will eventually
No one stays
No one stay
No one...

Been crying
Been sobbing
Heart wrenching
Stomach hurting,
Unbearably sobbing

So easy it was, for you to walk
For you to leave
Me
For you turn your back
On what once was

Leaving the country
The continent
This friendship behind
Why won't you even try?

Why wasn't I worth it?
Why am I never worth it?
Will anyone ever fight for me?
To keep me
To love me

Four attempts at contact
Four attempts at mending
What ripped and tore and broke
In the end you broke me.
I'm done. 

Al-Anon

(I apologize in advance for how long this post is)

A friend of mine has been facing many hurdles with the abuse of drugs and alcohol. As I've been working towards helping her seek peace with those issues, many of my own memories have been flooding back. She recently asked me to find her some AA meetings in the area, and asked that I go with her. This eventually lead me to look up Al-Anon meetings for myself.

 Al-anon or Alateen* is a group that runs off Alchoholics anonymous, for families, friends, neighbours co-workers etc. of alcoholics. Anyone that feels they have been affected by someone's addictions. Nar-anon* works the same way but for families and children of drug addicts. Though as i child i did witness the use of opiets, it's not somethingI feel was prevalent or really affected my life.

So i went to the Al-Anon website and found this set of questions, and i could hardly believe how many of them fit me. It began with "The following questions may help you determine if Al-Anon is for you." To be honest the number of questions that related to me was shocking. I just wanted to take a moment to share them with you folks. 

Do you constantly seek approval and affirmation? 
Always. It drives me crazy but i just need the people in my life to constantly show interest in me, to show me that i'm important in their lives and that i matter.

Do you fail to recognize your accomplishments

It's not so much that I fail to recognize them but that I never feel like i've done enough or what i've done is good enough.

Do you fear criticism?

Not that i fear it but i do think there's a certain tone people should take when criticizing. Though I'm still a bit sensitive to it, I used to be much worse. I prefer someone tell me the truth and it hurt a bit than lie to me to spare my feelings.

Do you overextend yourself?

HA! Who knew this was a symptom of the child of an addict? Let's see as of right now i'm in the Vagina Monologues, Run a center on campus for Mature and Part Time students,  I'm a support worker, i'm organizing several events on campus, and i'll be starting training with Planned Parenthood, Sexual Assault Support Center of Ottawa and that's just the beginning of my commitments, because i still want to add more!!

Have you had problems with your own compulsive behaviour?

I dont  think so...unless procrastination counts as a compulsion. I also avoid things that stress me out.

Do you have a need for perfection?

In little ways, i get frustrated quickly when things aren't going as smoothly as i want them to. Or if i dont feel like i'll get the results out of something that I want to do, i'll avoid it. For example, i'll avoid studying for an exam because i'm so afraid i won't be able to retain the information.

Are you uneasy when your life is going smoothly, continually anticipating problems?

Yes. Even when things are going well, I anticipate the worst.

Do you feel more alive in the midst of a crisis?

I do feel like i can get more accomplished under pressure. I wouldn't go as far as saying I feel more alive in crisis....just more alive when i have a lot on my plate.

Do you still feel responsible for others, as you did for the problem drinker in your life?

I would say I do. I feel like it's my job to stop someone from drinking, I feel like if a friend of mine drank because i wasn't there to hang out with her, it is my fault. I should have been there.

Do you care for others easily, yet find it difficult to care for yourself?

What makes me happiest in life is making others happy. Nothing makes me feel better than knowing i've helped someone. When it comes to myself, I show little empathy. People keep telling me how strange they find it, the amount of energy I'll put into bettering others but how little I put into myself.

Do you isolate yourself from other people?

I think, often i do. To a lot of people it seems like i'm very social, that i'm surrounded by people. But the truth of the matter is, they know very little about me. I distance myself from people in hopes that they'll make the effort to become closer to me. I also distance myself from people so that i can reject them before they reject me.

Do you respond with fear to authority figures and angry people?

I'll go with no on this question. In fact i'm the exact opposite i defy authority. Alright there's one no so far...

Do you feel that individuals and society in general are taking advantage of you?

People take advantage of me all the time.  People know that i will very literally give you the shirt off my back if i think it'll help you, and I think sometimes others think it's ok to push that kindness to it's limit.

Do you have trouble with intimate relationships?

I don't really date, it takes alot for men to get close to me, because I don't trust them. I'm afraid of being too dependent on someone else. I know when I love someone whether intimately or in a friendly capacity, I do rely on them as a support system. I think i do so quite heavily without realizing it. So my biggest fear is loving someone too much. It's a terrifying concept for me, because...again they might leave, and then i'd have lost my heart to someone who walked away.

Do you confuse pity with love, as you did with the problem drinker?

hmm... I dont think so. Hey look another no!

Do you attract and/or seek people who tend to be compulsive and/or abusive?

No but i do tend to attract wounded souls. Or people that need me, people that potentially abuse themselves. Reason being, i know i can help them, these are one of the few people I put pretty much all of myself into.

Do you cling to relationships because you are afraid of being alone?

I'd have to ask my friends that. I dont think i'm clingy...but who knows.... I think i'm just someone who craves a lot of love and affection, because i'm always so afraid it'll slip. Maybe sometimes i'm a little too much?

Do you often mistrust your own feelings and the feelings expressed by others?

All. The. Time. I always second guess myself, particularly when I feel like i can trust someone. What if I'm wrong? What if they're lying? What if they just feel what way today but tomorrow they wont? 

Do you find it difficult to identify and express your emotions?

I know how I feel. I'm a generally emotional person. I hate letting on exactly how I feel. Though, as a support worker i very much give people the space to do so themselves, I can't seem to feel safe enough to express my emotions to others without later feeling ashamed, or feeling like they might be judging me or get annoyed at how emotional I am.

Do you think someone’s drinking may have affected you?

Looking at these questions, and my answers, I guess so...

If you or someone you know is looking for AA/NA or Al-Anon/ Nar-anon meetings in your area, please feel free to check out these websites:
AL-ANON: http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/

AA:  http://www.aa.org/?Media=PlayFlash

http://www.nar-anon.org/Nar-Anon/Nar-Anon_Home.html

http://www.na.org/

Thought i'd share

There's so much that's absolutely beautiful about this picture and empowering. Makes me think that for anything i may be feeling, any negativity that may be stuck within me, there are amazing survivors like this one.

Got some demons to chase

I sit here, alone in my room, with nothing but the sound of the outside's cold winds to keep me company. A nagging voice sits in the back of my mind. One that's been speaking quite loudly as of late. You are not loved. You are alone. Though I know there are people that may contest this, life has shown me that thoughts that float in my mind, do so with the utmost accuracy. You may tell me you love me today, you may say that our friendship is forever but the truth of the matter is, one day you will walk away.

These demons that lay dormant within me for periods of time rear their ugly heads every now and again and haunt my soul. "You're not good enough" They whisper in my ear. "No one really loves you all that much" Somehow I believe them.

I'm working on it, every day is a little better than the next. Hopefully someday I can look back on these posts and say to myself. You were loved, you were always loved. Not only are you good enough but you're better than you ever expected you would be.

It's not Just About Chris Brown and Rihanna, It's About so Much More Than That.

It may seem silly to rant about this. I know I said I would delve a little more into my personal life and maybe this does affect me because there are elements to this, that I feel are personal. Rihanna and Chris Brown are performing a duet. The first thing that came to mind when I found out about this was, are you serious? I saw it all over Facebook and had to google it because I honestly thought it may have been a prank or a joke or something.

I dont get it, and for some reason I take this to heart. Why is it ok for violence to happen within a relationship? Why is it ok that this man beat his girlfriend to the point where bruises covered her face?

Why has Chris Brown come back on top when he did this to another human being?

My mother had this face. My mother carried these bruises. Maybe not to the degree these pictures show but she certainly faced abuse at the hands of a man who promised in front of God and the state, to love and cherish her. I remember my mom constantly having to face my father when I was a child, I remember having to sit in a room and play with my little sister or hold her while i heard screaming and yelling and crying and hitting in the other room. I remember closing my eyes and hearing something break, wondering, what did he break this time? I remember standing and watching because he'd yell at me when my mother told me to go to my room, and feeling helpless because I was never able to do anything.

I was recently asked by a very close person to me what kind of a kid I was, and after some thought I remembered. I was an extremely insecure child, I was lonely, I felt ugly and fat, and never good enough. I still feel many of those things today. Not all the time, I've worked very hard to grow past that, but old wounds are some of the hardest to heal.

Forever I felt like i didn't fit in with people my age, that I was an adult living inside the body of a child, of a teen. I hated myself and everyone could see it but me. I lived that way because of abuse. I felt that way because I never had a safe place to go, except my very vivid imagination. My home was filled with turmoil, therefore I was too.  I couldn't forgive myself for never having been good enough. Good enough to stop him from drinking, from hitting, from very nearly killing my mom. To be honest I sometimes think he couldn't forgive himself either.

He's sober now and has done many things to make up for those years. He lives and breathes to take care of my sister and I. He's the kind of dad who'll read my 3rd year advanced stats textbook, because I cant do math to save my life. He'll drive 4-5 hours from Ottawa to Toronto every weekend for a month, so my sister can take a class that will guarantee her to pass her Nursing licence exam. He drives my mother anywhere and picks her up, because she's honestly a terrible driver. Seriously, her friends tell her they're afraid of her driving. Rather than risk her getting into an accident he'll do the work. He's a wonderful father whom I love dearly, even though we disagree on God knows how many topics. I dont want this post to be about making my life out to seem like it was tragic. Like every other human being on this planet, I've had ups and downs.

All I'm trying to say is that abuse happens to more than the people physically involved in the cycle. Children everywhere see this, and the media's unbelievably positive spin on it and think, my idol Chris Brown raised his hand to his girlfriend, his partner. He's rich, good looking, very talented, why not hit me too? So you get tweets like this:

This is what happens when we dont talk about the long lasting effects of abuse. When we don't educate our children and tell them that abuse is about much more than the physical wounds one has to bear. It's about the long lasting, heart wrenching pain someone suffers when their wounds have healed but their souls haven't.  It's about a little girl or a little boy like the kid I was, who felt so alone. Will seeing something like this normalize the behaviours? Will it make them think it's ok to hit and be hit? I can only hope not.  So here we are, these are my thoughts on the lastest celebrity gossip. I think out of it came one of my most personal post yet.

I remember...

I'm sorry it's taken me forever to write. Life has such a way of grabbing you by the hand and saying Let's go! I'll write more soon enough but I wanted to share something I wrote for myself recently. I've been taking this poetry class and one of the things we were asked to write about was a memory, specifically one from childhood. We were given examples of your mother baking cookies, or reading you stories. I did have a few of those but some of the most vivid memories of my childhood were not those happy ones, they from my dad who was an alcoholic. When he drank he was very violent, so here's what came of that poem. It's nothing amazing as i'm just getting into the rhythm but tell me what you think....

I remember...
Eyes so smooth and glossy
So full of heat and anger
A face so seemingly familiar
Yet not all the face of a man I thought I knew

I remember...
The stranger that barged his way
Into my home
Into my childhood
Into my safe spaces
A face so red and flushed
Like hot and angry molten lava coursed through those inner veins
Bitterness forming the unfamiliarity that haunted this body

I remember....
Lips that refused to hold a once affable smile
Breath that left the bitter, lingering damp smell of whiskey in the air
Eyes heated in a raging anger,
Long gone the soft smiling eyes of yesterday

I remember...
Heavy hands cast onto a body that refused them
Hands raised in fury
Pounding fists into a body once promised to be cherished till death
Broken souls revealed on broken bodies
Hues of reds, blues and purples

I remember...
The shattering of objects that once were
Items that once held shape and meaning
broken into small shards on a wall that held the dark secrets of that home

I remember...
A dark room, closed eyes
The sounds of a young girl's deafening heart beat
Though nothing could stifle the screams penetrating the doors of that space
I remember falling asleep to the sounds of violence.

It's just emotion taking me over

It's taken me a few weeks to write anything, mainly because I've been busy. Between school, work, and activism, It's been difficult to keep up. I also haven't been able to think of anything to write. But I thought I would write about this and see where it takes me; I haven't been feeling myself lately. I've been sensitive and moody, and quite sad for some reason. I'm not sure why or what brought this on, I'm usually quite happy. It's like staring out a window into a world that should be bright and full of possibilites but seeing nothing. I'm not like this every day, but it does leave me to wonder if maybe I'm driving people away by being too emotional.

I fought with a friend tonight over something so trivial it's barely worth mentioning. We were discussing the merits of test taking. I'm against them, I feel as though throwing a paper in front of a student and asking them to regurgitate everything they've learned within an increment of time is simply wrong. She says that there is no other way and that we simply dont have the money to accomodate every learning style. What a silly thing to argue over, to test or not to test. Yet somehow it became a battle of the whits; who could prove their point more thoroughly, more quickly, who could speak over the other louder. It was ridiculous.

She said I always sound like I want to win the argument and that I bulldoze over her anytime her opinion differs slightly from mine. I told her that she did the very same thing to me and that even when i'm simply having a discussion, she assumes i'm being competitive.  I told her that I felt we've only begun to fight like this within the last few months. She took that to mean it was her fault we continuously fight. She went on to say that she doesn't fight with anyone else like this and proceeded to list off several mutual friends. One of whom, in all honesty I have been feeling a little jealous over, possibly because this person is a friend I had introduced her to. Last year we fought, and though we've since made up, our friendship has never been the same. She since has become close with that person, and I cant tell you how it hurt to be compared to the very person you fear will take your place. I did tell her it was unfair to be compared to her other friends and she agreed and apologized for that part of it.

Is it me? Have my resurfaced feelings of insecurity completely taken over my ability to to disagree with people? That can't be right, i just had a conversation the other day with someone who felt that womyn should not have the right to abort an unwanted fetus. We talked for hours and in the end, he said "why cant the pro-choice/pro-life debate always be like this?" So I must have been doing something right. Nothing can become a more heated debate than whether or not life begins at conception and if abortion should be legal. (Which, in Canada it is.)

I digress, back to the original topic at hand. She said that when we talk, it's as though I'm so competitive that i must win every argument. But I've tried walking away, she says she doesn't like ending conversations that way. I'm certain we're both wrong, arguments are rarely one sided. But how do I fix this? We both agreed to spend the next few days thinking about what we could do differently and what we have been doing to create this atmosphere with one another. She said she doesn't want to lose me as a friend, I said I didn't want to lose her either.

I know it's just a matter of time and with space we'll both be fine. But there are times when i wish life's road would be a little smoother.

What Once Was and What is Yet to Come

My friend Farron and I on NYE

Of course as the year ends and this new one begins, why not start with the standard review of the year passed and the one to come. What a year it's been for me. A friend of mine once told me that I'm not someone who grows slowly and gradually, I remain stagnant for periods of time and then experience very quick and steep periods of growth. I can tell you this entire year has certainly been one of growth. I began last year depressed and not understanding my place in this world. I felt as though I had been searching for a way in which to make my mark. I think I'm beging to find it in this blog, and in my activism.

Ah my activism....how I've adored being so incredibly involved in my local and global community. I love fighting to make this world a better place. I know that as I live and breathe my goal is to ensure that I am always there for those in need, to listen, empathize, validate, and to give advice when needed. For those that have been reading this blog, I'm sure you know by now that my focus has been mainly on womyn, womyn identified, transsexual/gender folks, as well as anyone else that has ever felt oppressed or isolated.

I've learned this year that the hate isn't confined to specific situations, and certain people, it's prevalent even amongst the most surprising communities. Born female, a beautiful friend of mine, "D”, recently began to identify as androgynous. As D’s politics began to shift and grow, I watched as she was shunned within feminist communities for not being female enough. I was incredibly saddened to experience first hand, as I defended this person, the discrimination and ignorance D  faces daily, based solely on the fact that she changed her first name, and pronouns from "she" to "they" or if you like, D allows us to use "he", "she", or "they" preferably interchangeably...yes i know it's confusing but I love this person dearly for the choices she's made. 

Love..well that is certainly something I've experienced in the last year,  I've written about the loss of friends that once loved me  and the absolute despair i felt after people who had been with me since childhood chose to walk away. It's incredible how shattered I felt and how difficult it was to see those morsels of my spirits scattered around me like shards of broken glass. Though I've fallen in my life more times than i care to think of, a good friend sent me this "Falling down is part of life…Getting back up is part of living" and so i picked myself back up, put back together those pieces and began to learn to love myself more truly and deeply. I grew not only in my self love but in my love for God and the feeling of utter tranquility in the knowledge of that existence. This process of self growth has been incredibly positive even gave me the confidence put myself out there a little.

Everything happens for a reason and I know now that the loss of those friends had to happen or I would have never  met some of the most wonderful people I know today. People who have given me the space to heal in many ways, by being an ear (or a set of eyes in the case of an email or text) by providing me with sanctuary, by loving me and believing in me, and never letting me down. For that I am nothing but grateful. Life has given me the opportunity to make some very fruitful lemonade from the lemons I once held in my hands.

I guess what I look to in the new year, is for this growth to continue. For my goal of helping and supporting others in need, to evolve and reach new heights. I hope for this blog to grow as I do. I've written several posts pertaining to my politics as of late but I do wish to delve back into the personal as well. I began this blog two years ago as a means of communicating with a friend of mine, in the last several months I began to feel that I wanted to increase the visibility of this blog and I hope that 2012 bring more people to this place, new faces to meet, and new stories to read, new ways to grow, learn, and reflect.

Happy New Year, folks!