Day 21: Something I’m Proud Of

I’m proud of many things. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve put my life back together after numerous setbacks. I’m proud of my 16lbs weight loss in the last seven weeks. I’m proud of my daughters & how they inspire me to be a better mom every day. I’m proud of my yoga progress.

But my biggest source of non-parenting, personal pride is my journalism career.

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As I’ve well documented, journalism was literally my ONLY career path. I didn’t have a plan B & my legal assisting career led me to working retail. All I ever wanted to do was cover wars, report on world news & share those stories with the world.

But a conversation with the CF after my embedding training (yes, I could get a job travelling to war zones if I wanted to. I was going to refresh my training two years ago, but the person I was dating talked me out of it, citing he liked my much safer beat) about safety & my love of live local music, most notably MicLordz & Sauce Funky, led me to a different path; entertainment journalism. While it’s never been for a major magazine, I have written 26 cover stories, interviewing some of the world’s most famous people. I still have a bucket list of about 10 artists & entertainers left, which are;

1. Trish Stratus
2. David Draiman
3. U2
4. Raine Maida & Chantal Kreviazuk
5. Jennifer Lawrence
6. Oprah
7. Katy Perry
8. Morgan Freeman
9. Elton John
10. Shawn Michaels

Perhaps I’ll get a chance to interview them when I start work at a new magazine in my new city (which I move to in 70 days!), as I’ve already started applying at local mags. It’s a good way to refresh my portfolio & have more than one writing credit. But I fully intend to keep working at my craft every day, until I’m the best writer I know.

Protected: Day 19: A Letter to A Former Lover

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Day 18: Something I Miss

I miss lots of people in my life.

I miss my father, who died when I was a little girl. I miss a little boy who was just a baby when I saw him for the last time, but I struggle to discuss that even now. I miss children that I’ve never even met, because they had to go before they came into the world. I miss my best friends Gigi and Meghie, because they live 2.5 hours away and I don’t get to see them as much as I’d like and sometimes, I feel like digital communication doesn’t always properly convey emotions, sarcasm, wit & not to mention all friendships need that face time & I miss girls’ night & daiquiris. But there are two people I miss more than most and that’s my former best friend and a little girl.

I loved that little girl. I loved her as much as if she were my own little girl and she loved me. My absolute favourite memory from my time in this house was after I finished writing my second semester transcription exams and my girls were playing with her and her dad in my backyard and she saw me before anyone else and she ran to the gate to meet me, giggling and laughing and gave me the biggest hug. In that moment, we felt like a family and I can honestly say, in that moment, I was the happiest person in the entire world. During this past year, my therapist actually questioned if I missed her dad, or her. (I thought I knew the answer, until the incident at Thanksgiving that left me fleeing a bar in tears made me reevaluate). But I do miss her, especially when my youngest daughter asks for her. Fortunately, she asks less and less now that she has her new BFF Josy. But every couple of weeks, she will ask when her friend will come over and play with her and Josy and her little face still crumples when I remind her that she’s not coming over anymore. I know why I can’t see her anymore & it’s what’s best for her. I know that she’s likely forgotten me. I’m glad for that, for I know how much it pains my youngest when she sees a silver, two door car go down our street & she gets so hopeful. I hope she’s happy & healthy & has a wonderful life. I know that this is the best way, but I miss her so very much and the night @ the bar, I bombarded my companion with questions about her; had she grown, was she healthy, does she still smile that giant toothy grin when she sees a camera, does she still look just like her dad, did she still sing the word “no?” I wanted to know about her more than anything. But, unfortunately, part of life is learning that sometimes you lose people that you love, which also meant this little girl. I also learned what I can handle, & while I would have loved to be this child’s stepmother & help raise her, I know that I cannot date a man with kids. I’m too afraid of once again getting attached to a child that can be taken from me when the relationship goes to Hell. This was a good learning experience for me, if nothing else & I’ll take the lesson into my future relationships.

The other person is the person I used to call my life mate, who was my favourite guy in the whole world until he got sick of my being super depressed and found out that he lied to me about a whole bunch of stuff, including telling me to wait for the little girl’s dad, we’d work it out. For months, I let my anger fuel my refusal to miss him, because I trusted him and he lied to me over and over again. I felt betrayed. But one day, after a long period of months, I got thinking that maybe he lied because, in his mind, he was protecting me. He didn’t want to see me hurt, so he wanted to make it better. But, his lying kept me living in misery, and as my life continued to fall apart, he kept the lies up and I kept falling apart. I thought about it though; I was a super crappy friend. I was so miserable, missing a man and a little girl and flailing at school and struggling to live without journalism. I literally hated my life and I wanted something to make things better and I leaned on him so hard to make things feel a little better. So, he lied, trying to give me a silver lining. Yes, it was cruel, but his intentions weren’t. Sometimes, I want to apologize, but then I think about how he deserves an apology but I’m always the one apologizing & he’d need to apologize to me too. I was a miserable friend; but it takes two to wreck a friendship and when he wrote me the “break up” letter, he barely acknowledged his part. It was a lot of how he and another friend were blameless, and that’s not how things work. It takes two to mess things up. Just like it took two people to sever the tie that took the little girl out of my life, it took two people to wreck our friendship, and if he apologized, I would accept it and maybe he could accept my apology. He & I could talk and he could see that I’ve found my own happiness without anyone and I like my life. The Pirate Princess could tell him about her shoes. We’d go to Starbucks and laugh @ the hipsters and I’d text him tales from the new city and one name would forever be banned from conversation. But, I doubt that would happen, so I just prefer to think that he’s happy with his life. I hope he meets an amazing guy and get his six coloured wedding. I hope he does well in his career and takes a million pictures and expands his portfolio. I hope he knows I’m not mad about his actions anymore, because I understand that my actions helped him make the choice to do that and I own those actions and I’m sorry. But most of all, I hope he looks back on all of the memories and smiles.

That’s the one good thing about people; we remember. I’ll always have the awesome memories with my life mate. I’ll have the flowers from his promotion, the birthdays @ Hoi. I’ll have the blue Darknuts being stupid, the Hedley concert and our Valentine’s day date @ Olive Garden & Maroon 5. I’ll have the moments on his porch, walking his dog and the time he embarrassed me @ Chili’s. All of those plus the other memories will go with me wherever I go. I’ll always have my memories of that little girl and I can take them with me wherever I go and remember these people as the good people I loved and will always love and hope they’re happy in everything they do.

Day 17: Music

The challenge is to put your iPod on shuffle & list the first 10 songs to learn about yourself through music.

1. Come Back Down – Lifehouse
2. Burning Hearts – Silverstein
3. Fiction – Avenged Sevenfold
4. Never Gonna Be Alone – Nickelback
5. This Song Saved My Life – Simple Plan
6. Whispers In The Dark – Skillet
7. Only Hope – Mandy Moore
8. She Is Love – 3 Doors Down
9. Trip – Hedley
10. The High Road – Three Days Grace

I’m not sure what you could take from that, other than I listen to a wide range of music & a lot of Canadian artists.

I love all music. Death metal. Classical. All of it. It makes me happy. All of my song titles are song titles. I can’t go a day without listening to at least one song. Of course, there are some artists I listen to more than others (Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, Blind Pilot, Christina Aguilera, Maroon 5, Lifehouse & Ellie Goulding are my go-to’s for everything) & in my world, Christina Aguilera is the greatest voice of our generation & if you question the Queen, I may stop being your friend. I couldn’t live without it, I love all music all of the time…

…that’s not true. I really hate Wiz Khalifa. Like a lot. I hate Kanye West a lot too. But don’t worry, he loves himself enough for both of us.

Day 15: Death Row Meal

The answer is pancakes. Always pancakes.

I have a serious pancake (or pancake type food) addiction. It’s my comfort food, my favourite of all foods. Whenever I’m depressed, my friends will offer me IHOP because they know I will never turn down a pancake.

So, it would only be fitting that my last meal on Earth would be from the pancake family. But not waffles. Waffles just WISH they could be pancakes, preferably covered in Nutella, nature’s other perfect food.

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Day 10: My Biggest Fear

I’m afraid of lots of things.

I’m afraid that I’ll never fall in love again.

I’m afraid I’m not the best mom I can be.

I’m afraid I’ll never reach my fitness goals.

I’m afraid that I’ll never work in media again.

I’m claustrophobic, I’m afraid of mice & I’m not terribly fond of snakes. But my biggest fear is the most horrifying creature on Earth. The source of all terror. To demonstrate the most evil being alive, I shall post the photo that my friend Dawna made for me & posted on my Facebook.

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Day Nine: The People Who Mean Most To Me

Aside from my children that is.

Today I’m supposed to post a favourite photo of my best friend, but I couldn’t narrow it to just one. I have a group of awesome friends that I love.

Whether I’ve known them my entire life, or a few months, these are the people that have been there for me through good, bad, ugly, mopey, whiny, batsh*t crazy & everything in between. I’m lucky to call them friends. So, thanks amazing friends, for being you. I love you all lots & may have (for the purposes of this post) stolen your FB display photo because I don’t have a pic of you without my kids in it lol. ❤

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Day Seven: What Makes Me Happy

What makes me happy? Everything!

It doesn’t take much to make me happy, as I pride myself on making myself happy every day. I couldn’t imagine living a life where tiny things, such as my favourite song coming on my iPod just when I wanted to hear it, or shopping, or something funny my daughter said didn’t make my whole day awesome. So, to compile a list of things that make me happy is actually quite easy. But, for the sake of not boring you, I’ll keep the list small.

1. My daughters. Duh. They’re my pride & joy, my source of happiness every day. Nothing brings me greater happiness than my girls.

2. Yoga. I love yoga. I love how it makes my body feel better, with less back pain. I love that it’s helping me lose weight. I love that I feel so rejuvenated after a good sweat session with Stratusphere Yoga. Even while I was house hunting, or ill, & couldn’t do a full workout, I still made time for twenty minutes of yoga poses. I even have yoga goals; like someday I’ll be able to do Crow pose properly & not just prep & I’ll do those preacher curls while in Flamingo. Yoga helps the body, mind & spirit.

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3. Music. I love all music. I identify with so many songs & they take me back to snippets of time that make me happy. I couldn’t go a day without singing along with the radio or listening to my iPod. I love all music, from death metal to classical & I think it’s my second favourite non-parenting thing in the world.

4. Writing. Another duh. Never a day without a word was my former professor’s motto & I think I live that. I love to create & give my random ideas life. I love telling stories, recreating memories of concerts, sporting events, the first time you heard that song. It’s my passion & it’s everything to me. Writing is like oxygen to me. It makes me a better person, & once I’ve finished moving, I’ll have a byline again & I’ll be telling my stories again before you know it.

5. Edgar Allen Poe. My all time favourite author. I love his work so much. So much, that my favourite work by Poe is often a “How well do you know MH?” Staple. There’s just something about his macabre works that draw me in every time.

6. Tim Burton Films. I used to own his entire filmography until my ex husband pawned them all. My copy of Nightmare Before Christmas was all that survived (although I do have a copy of Edward Scissorhands as well). Jack is tattooed on my shoulder, he’s regularly my Facebook cover photo & even my phone’s lock screen. My all time favourite line from Nightmare was once a text tone on my phone, but I don’t use that one anymore.

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That’s my short list of happy things. I hope you have a quality list too. Everyone deserves a list of awesome things that makes them happy, as everyone deserves to be happy every day.

Day Six: Pet Peeves

I don’t think I have anything that truly annoys me, well aside from the standard dishonesty, abuse, etc.

I suppose all of mine are social media related.

1. People who display gross things to promote “awareness” on their Facebook page. It’s not helping, it’s freaking sick. No one needs to see a photo of someone’s black & gross frostbitten toes, or a blown up stomach, or someone’s lip half torn off. I read real news for that. I don’t need it on my Facebook news feed. Sharing that story didn’t make anyone more concerned about that health issue, it just made me & all of your other Facebook friends want to throw up.

2. Passive Aggressive Status Updates & Tweets. I love all of those status updates where someone is clearly pissed or upset with someone so they’ll use their status to talk about it rather than call that person. I’ve begun deleting people who do it. Same with subtweets. If you’re constantly crap talking a person & adding #subtweet, you’re clearly trapped in high school & that’s cool. But grown ups call people & work out issues. Try it sometime.

3. Social media narcissism. Yes, clearly I’m blogging about you, and my tweets are all about you & my Facebook status updates are all about you. Dollars to doughnuts there are at least three people who are looking at these thinking ” I can’t believe she’s calling me out like that,” & I’m rolling my eyes because it happens all of the time. Chances are, I am not talking about you. Just like that tweet wasn’t about her & Chris Hemsworth hasn’t proposed to me. Most people are likely not thinking about any one particular thing & just say random crap. The fact that you read into it because you’re desperate to be in someone’s thoughts 24/7 is cool & all, but they’re probably not talking about you. Makes you wonder how much you’re thinking about them to analyze them so much or if you engage in the first two.

Those are my big pet peeves. That and the sound of nails on a chalkboard.