Meaning

I've been thinking a lot about loss lately. And life. And the way those two things intermingle.

One of my least favourite sayings is that everything happens for a reason. This is ludicrous. Many things happen for no reason, with no benefit to anyone. "Everything happens for a reason" is used to justify some pretty inhumane stances in life like, for example, forced pregnancy for rape victims.

No, I don't care for that one bit. People's hearts get broken, sometimes arbitrarily and through betrayal because they dated a jerk. Rainforests are destroyed, not for any nobler use of the land. People are murdered because bad people exist. Sometimes there is no higher purpose or reason because the world we live in is chaotic and random shit goes down.

There is no proof of any higher being orchestrating the details of our existence, formulating a divine cause and effect to bring us joy. I mean, hell. People are being slaughtered en masse in Sierra Leone, starved in the Sudan and raped to death in Congo. I fail to see how any of that is happening for a reason.

Actually, it's sort of a privileged belief that our lives in this hemisphere are somehow fated and organized into better things after pain when such mindless, godless suffering is happening elsewhere for no rhyme or reason. Frankly, life is a crapshoot, and opportunities in many ways are luck of the draw, sometimes boiling down to where and when and to whom you were born.

Having said that, I think of my own losses. I mention my mother a lot because to date she's the single greatest loss of my life. I was visiting my aunt in Vancouver and she was musing over how things would be different if my mother had lived.

Very different. Undoubtably better in some ways because I think the world was a better place with her in it. But my life would be unrecognizable and I have no idea where I'd be right now and if I'd be truly better off in every respect. That's impossible to gauge.

For instance, I inherited enough money to leave my hometown and go to college in the GTA without taking out a loan, and then taking whatever program I was qualified for without concern for paying for it. Starting out life without debt changed the course of my life.

I moved into downtown Toronto with only an internship and no job and was able to sustain myself for half a year while I looked for good work, while also taking a three-week trip to Europe alone, something that helped me grow as a person. This changed me as well. Without that money, I would have had to move back home to my mom and I likely then would not have found my job, the job I still hold today, and all the enhancements to my quality of life that has brought me.

I thus wouldn't have met my first love (In Toronto) and had that meaningful two-year experience. That break-up coincided at the perfect time to reconnect with the Dude and here we are, married and expecting a child. I'm happy, contented and comfortable. There is no way I can see how I'd have married the Dude had this chain of events (which also shaped who I am and taught me valuable lessons) not occurred.

Had my mother lived, my aunt would not have moved to Vancouver, something she's always firmly maintained. Thus her children would not have moved there, something they did to stay together. My cousin met her husband in Vancouver. Their lives have altered forever too.

A person's death has a ripple effect that spreads wide and far and changes people and their lives forever, making permanent diversions from the path they were taking. When those paths are negative, it's easy to pinpoint the cause of suffering. When they're positive it's tempting to say it was all for a reason.

But no, I think it's simpler than that. I think that when we reach a healthy place with our loss we're able to manage to find joy in our new situation and get on with the business of life. My mom didn't die so that I could marry the Dude one day and have a baby with him. There was no cosmic force behind that. That's what "Everything happens for a reason" thinking suggests. Rather, after my mom died, I made a point of living the new life I was given as well as I could and this is the result.

So, as much as I want my mother here for the birth of my baby, I have to accept the reality that this specific baby I'm having wouldn't be here had my mother lived. My baby, the one I'm having in this life, can't coexist with my mother. The loss of one lead me indirectly to the creation of the other. In another reality, where my mother lived, I may have met someone else and had a different child, one who would have been meant to meet his or her maternal grandmother. But that's not the life I'm living.

I don't think my mother died for any particular reason or for a grander scheme. But what I do know is that every beautiful thing that happens to me in life that I couldn't guarantee would've happened had she lived serves to reconcile me to my life the way it is and the loss I suffered. It wasn't all for a reason, but one can still find meaning in one's pain.

Gen Y - No Future

I think about the future a lot, especially lately. Article after article is out about my generation, Gen Y. And although 1980 - 1982 is a hazy grey area, which is where the Dude and I fall under, I identify with Y. My teen years had the internet, which frankly I think set the tone for Gen Y's understanding of the world. Gen X grew up without it, for the most part, and didn't get cell phones till well after college. I think in many ways the technology we have as kids and teens is what really changes our cultural experiences.

But being at the very front of this generation has meant not having been inundated from a young age with everything we've come to take for granted. It's also meant getting into the job market before the larger wave of us hit the scene right in time for the Great Recession. And in my case, not getting the university degree, opting for three years college, I really got in the door at the right time. My job would be impossible to get at my pay grade now, and it's union protected.

So I'm lucky. I'm not in my dream job and there's no room for advancement, but I make okay money, I have benefits and a defined benefit pension plan and therefore I'm better off than a lot of graduates with masters degrees looking for work right now. By virtue of being older, basically, because I was at the front of the new cohort of young adults and didn't take much time in post-secondary. That's it. That wound up being the magic key.

Something I didn't get in the door for: a house. A house! That just plain ain't happening. We can't afford it in this city. Toronto is insane. Something drastic would have to happen to the housing market, decimating prices, which would of course rock the economy and ruin us all, so nothing really can be done and there's nothing to hope for except stagnated prices, perhaps a small drop that won't ruin anyone's lives, and then give frugal living a chance to build some savings. Sigh.

And yet I still worry. With all the stability I've just mentioned, I still have concerns about my future, I guess because it's not as bright as I'd hoped it would be. Letting go of the dream of home ownership has been a small blow. I mean, I love renting because I don't have to pay for any repairs and my water bill is included. I don't get hit with property taxes. I like that. But psychologically, it's hard to feel like a proper middle class adult when you can't buy your own house at nearly 30 years of age.

I wonder what the next 10 years will be like. For the first time in this country's history, the parents have not left the country in better shape for their kids. Honestly, I think Gen Y is lost, with the youngest of us in the worst shape of all. Over educated, under-employed and without opportunity. Crappy interest rates making saving a nightmare, housing prices through the roof (which only benefits the boomers who are downsizing and getting a massive return on investment), and food and transportation is more expensive than ever. Throw in the income gap between rich and poor, which hasn't been this pronounced since what? The Great Depression? To put it plainly, I'm not terribly optimistic.

Urban Farming, Modern Life

The garden, she's growing! Growing! I posted a wee while ago about the garden and photographed the work we did planting it. Here be the update, yo.

The flowers are growing nicely!

The tomato plant is sprouting up. 

The bell pepper plant is growing taller and more robust.

The beans have sprouted!
We're going to lace them up the metal.

The initial leaves on this zucchini plant died and these larger ones grew instead.

The strawberry plants are now growing 17 strawberries.

Flowers have blossomed!

The Dude gave me a rosebush.
You can't see in this photo, but buds have formed.

We're pretty much in love with this garden. I spend the most amount of time on it, being the one who's home the most. It's relaxing, the plucking out of weeds, watering, and eventually harvesting. We planted garlic last spring that didn't grow and didn't die. It did develop tiny bulbs, which in my ignorance I never separated. So I gentled wrenched them away from each other and dispersed them around the soil and so maybe we'll also have home-grown garlic.

Speaking of gardens, two of our friends just moved into this lovely house on the east end, a stone's throw from McPal and his fiance, and their backyard was recently landscaped, something the McPal house is planning on as well. There's something magical about a private outdoor space in the city. You take it for granted in the burbs or in smaller municipalities, but in Toronto, it's rather rare and special. Now the six of us, in three households, have backyards for gardening, barbecues and general glee. Though of course we're not going to be doing any landscaping. This is, after all, a rental.

We all had a barbecue together at the new house. Two dogs were playing, meat was grilling, beer was being consumed and homemade cream soda was being concocted. Some of us are in our 30s already, and others are approaching it quickly (Me. ME!) and it was sort of wild to speculate that we were all adults, moving forward. Though in my mind I was also gently noticing some key differences. I'm a renter, not a home owner. A cat(s) owner, not a dog owner. A west-ender, not an east-ender. And funnily, three of the four all work at the same company. It was a strange sensation of feeling sort of out of the loop. Not sad or negative in any way, just a tickling in my mind, noticing these details.

We've been spending less and less time with our friends. This is mostly due to the Dude. His work schedule is crazy. He works 60 hours many weeks. Overnight trips are not infrequent. Weekend work happens. The money is nice, though sometimes those long nights are just par for the course on photo shoots and don't actually translate into more cash, only less energy. He'll come home exhausted, occasionally cranky, unwilling or unable to consider a social life. Sometimes I'll have one without him, other times I've missed him and I'll take his lethargic couch hugging over more time apart spent with others.

I'd say we're weathering some challenges. It's not the first time. After he graduated, the Dude took awhile to find steady work and that was also hard. He and I are communicating and doing our best, handling crankiness, trying to carve out room for each other, managing our obligations and still trying to have a social life. We're figuring it out and I think it's making us a stronger couple. I have one week left of vacation. I wish he was off too.

Sweet Nothings

Yeah, it's 3:00 a.m. and I should be in bed. Not being able to sleep stinks. So I changed my blog around a bit. I was kind of over the old design. This is a bit cleaner, more contemporary. And adult.

So, after the show aired, suddenly it was like there was nothing going on. I had spent a solid year planning the wedding. Then there was the show to do, which took up emotional energy and time. Then after the wedding there was still the reveal, then planning our honeymoon, then waiting for the show to air.

It all came with either anxiety or excitement. Once the show aired, there was an abundance of nothing and I was overwhelmed by how ordinary things suddenly were. I had gotten used to feeling like things were immediately impending, with a certain level of worry. And then it was gone. And that made me feel weird and anxious. And then that went away.

And now? Now I'm enjoying the nothingness. I'm finally writing my book, I'm spending time with my friends, playing with the kitties, collecting dresses and seeing movies. It's remarkably pleasant to have such calmness and peacefulness again.

But that doesn't mean there is nothing on the horizon. Other than writing my book, I'm starting a savings plan for a 2013 trip. It'll be a final hurrah before we begin trying for a baby. I'll be 30 then and it'll be time. Emotionally it feels time now, but biologically it would be foolhardy not to get on that when I'm certain I want a family.

One thing we're not going to do is buy a house. We've talked about it extensively and looking at A. Our income, B. Our savings, C. Interest rates presumably going up, and D. Other more detailed extenuating circumstances, it's not in the cards. If we were living in our hometown, we could easily afford a house, something really nice for $200,000 or modest and charming for $175,000. But here in Toronto, where the average house costs $500,000? No.

So we're going to rent. We're going to rent indefinitely. We'll stay here for several more years and when we grow out of it we'll re-examine our finances and the housing market and go from there. We have a space downstairs that can convert into a nursery, we have a yard, and we can afford to save and travel. It's difficult to reconcile not buying a house with feeling financially secure, but times are changing. There's more than one way to achieve success, and a house is not for everyone.

And of course it'd suck to be house poor, which we would be, and not be able to add to my growing dress collection.

I have this dress on the way. w00t!

I heart this. How adorable is it?
No really, it's perfect.

I love this. It's by Knitted Dove, which I'm in love with right now.

No, we're not putting off buying a home so I can be pretty. Ha! But it is a lovely side effect to low housing costs to be able to have nice things.

Free

I have not stopped coughing for days, roughly 8 days. It wakes me up from a dead sleep at 5:00 a.m. I am losing my mind. I've been taking Buckley's before bed, and yes it tastes awful and it works. Until it stops working and I jolt awake to a hacking cough that sounds as though it belongs to a 70-year-old smoker.

I'm supposed to see a movie tonight, but I'm afraid my cough will strike and I'll annoy people and have to leave. I've been dousing myself with remedies to bring on the cough so I can get it over with already, but it drags on and on.

The week has also been spent feeling very introspective. I'm almost always a reflective person. The Dude catches me staring into space, deep in thought, and usually has poor enough judgement to snap me out of it to ask what I'm thinking about, to which I never give him a good answer. But with my alone time I've been really digging into some old memories that pop up. But not really memories, more like old feelings associated with the past.

I've thought a lot about my childhood. And while I think I had a reasonably good one, suddenly and abrasively I'm grateful it's over. I've thought about my teen years, which had its moments, but was mostly a painful and anxious time for me, and I remember the sense of dread I walked around with almost all the time. And it's weird because I'd forgotten about it, I'd forgotten the real way it felt. I intellectually know I hated high school and felt trapped there, but the actual feelings were long gone and I couldn't feel them again.

And then suddenly there they were. A sense of isolation, feeling misunderstood, mild despair and frequent self-loathing. And childhood was confusing and lonely. I always felt trapped. I needed so much alone time, which I was rarely given, and yet when I needed companionship I often didn't have any, courtesy of being someone who liked being by myself.

So here I am, at my desk during work hours, and I'm suddenly hit by a wave of feelings I'd forgotten about, and then all sorts of gratitude it was no longer something I was feeling. And this all happened the week after I got married. I think I experienced the emotional residue of a major life milestone. Like an aftertaste of past experiences that are officially over.

It's weird. My day to day life is the same. I'm the same person and my relationship is unchanged. But there's something in the air, a sense that the future is now more important than the past. I've always looked to the past. That's what being a reflective person is like. You always look backwards to try and understand where you've been. Now I'm looking forward and now that those random waves of past emotions have stopped coming over me, I feel really done with them.

Nothing in my life has changed, except the way I think, which actually might be an incredibly large change, and a good one. I'm excited to think about the future, I mean, to really think about it. And I feel free.