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!

Real Men Do Rape

  We believe this notion that:

But after reading this expert from Something Kate Harding (co-author of Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body) posted.... I think on her blog....maybe she's right in saying "real men do rape." Thoughts?"

"So here's a message to some of the men out there who as they're reading this may be thinking, but i'm not that guy, I've never raped a womon, i've never made fun of one, i've never called one names. But have you ever sat back silently while someone else did? This message is for you:

“Cause’ the thing is, you and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I’d-hit-that and you just can’t reason with them and you can’t live with ‘em can’t shoot ‘em and she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can’t play by the rules they don’t belong here and if they can’t take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they’re only good for fucking and cleaning and they’re not fit to be leaders and they’re too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they’d just stop overreacting and telling themselves they’re victims they’d realize they actually have… all the power in this society and white men aren’t even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.”



-Kate Harding

What do you think?

I saw this video today, a friend of mine found it funny. I don't know... am i being overly critical in feeling like this is Slut Shaming? Just as a quick definition Slut Shaming is the act of ridiculing a woman for having several sexual partners, having one night stands,  and generally acting on sexual urges. "It’s about the implication that if a woman has sex that traditional society disapproves of, she should feel guilty and inferior” (Alon Levy, Slut Shaming)

Check out this video.....do you think this falls into that category?