Arn't I A Woman?

“Even what may seem at first sight to be an intensely negative situation--a difficult relationship, financial woes or poor health--can serve as an opportunity for the creation of positive value. A lifelong commitment to justice, for example, may arise from an early experience of having been wronged.” Ten years ago I had been dating Ryan for a month when he texted me to let me know he just didn't feel that way about me, and wanted to end things. Because he and I had been friends for awhile before, and because he was my first boyfriend, that took me awhile to get over. Even though we are great friends now again, we didn't talk for years after that.  Fast forward ten years later, to this morning. I wake up to a text from the current guy I've been dating. His name? Ryan. His text? Let’s break-up.  The absurdity theme has been relevant in my life for some time, so I am coming to accept the “hilarious yet awful” motif that is constantly being sprinkled across...

As gentle, soft spring showers subside into the blistering heat of summer, our ascent towards glistening red suns begins. We rise up, heat energy embracing us like a mother reunited with a child long lost, slowly allowing our proverbial outer layer to burn and shed off in the glowing gold light. We are raw and exposed in these moments, free falling before we grow new wings. This can leave one feeling euphorically defenseless.  In an embryonically liberating way we are guided by a passion that forsakes empirical knowledge in favor of anything new and different. Yearning for change we tumble along weeded paths because we understand nothing can stay, everything must change, even our very core. It is no coincidence then, as the air bakes crisply in the sun like a hot apple pie resting on a windowsill that many of us find our lives transitioning into unexplored territories. We are ghosts desperately searching for corporal form, not yet having found a comfortable fit as we ...

Ever heard that Leonard Cohen line “4 o'clock in the afternoon and I didn't feel like very much?” That’s usually how I feel on my groggy-I-don't-know-what’s-going-on-in-my-life-anymore days. Guess it helps me stop just short of entering into victimhood territory, because if Leonard Cohen can feel so gloomy then maybe it’s not so bad after all; there is still art to be made and stories to be told. Life goes on, and all that, in spite of the darkness. But it’s still 2:17 PM and I just arose from my bed half an hour ago, having forcibly squeezed my eyes shut upon each ever-hopeful fluttering attempts to drag me into the hellish daylight that as of recent is riddled with rather unbearable acute anxiety. I will painfully hold on to the last few hours I have left where my brain isn't functioning amidst constant chaos, thank you very much. I used to wait tables, and once during a Sunday morning brunch shift a co-worker disdainfully remarked “H...

I think I may be the world's loneliest whale. Speaking a foreign language as I slowly navigate the globe, sending out words at a frequency no one can hear. Having just reached the tender age of 28, I've hit the first wave of friends undergoing traditional rites of passages that frequently demand isolation from their friends upon completion (generally for practical purposes but hurtful none the less): the holy adulthood trinity of getting engaged/married, starting a family, and/or moving away. And instead of saying "wave" I should probably say "tsunami." In December I had ONE pregnant friend. Fast forward three months later and I know five expectant mothers; just in the past past week three friends have announced engagements on facebook; and one of my last remaining close friends is moving away, solidifying the end of a growing rift adulthood had bestowed upon us. Not to mention brutally watching a close friend bury her 31 year-old husband. As I grow...

I’m going to be really honest in this blog, because I am at the precipice of a very raw moment in my life and there are things (surprisingly) that I really do hold inside even though I tend to be very open with my life struggles and opinions, often to the chagrin of others.   But I have finally reached a place in my life where I really don’t care what other people think about what I say, because the people who are trying to silence me are the ones upholding detrimental cultural mores about mental health. Research suggests that the best treatment for poor mental health is a combination of regular active therapy and the right prescriptive medications to combat these truly insidious disorders/ diseases/ variants/CALL THEM WHATEVER YOU WANT, I DON’T FUCKING CARE WHAT YOU CALL ME I JUST WANT SOME GODDAMN HELP WITH MY MOTHER FUCKING HEALTH BILLS!!!! Fuck, you can call me crazy- don’t care. Call me whatever you like; just don’t withhold access to adequate resources and reasonable, p...

Listen up nerds: It’s time to finally start a legitimate discussion about Canada’s finest MC and rap’s go to punching bag Aubrey Graham, more affectionately known under his stage moniker, Drake. My man Drake has managed to really ruffle some public feathers since his rap career took off, launching him from the halls of Degrassi High into music’s megastar stratosphere. Why the constant hate for Drake from almost everywhere regardless of taste preferences, intelligence, race, gender, or other identifiers? Well, he rebukes the stereotypes society tries to subscribe to him for one. A Jewish childhood actor turned rapper from Canada who sings about his feelings? Wait a second, that doesn’t fit into any of these neat little boxes we have laying around! This is bullshit, Drake. If you’re gonna rap, then why are you smiling?! People are uncomfortable with Drake because he doesn’t force packaged “hardcore” rap rhetoric into his rhymes, but still frequently expresses himself as a h...

I really wanted to end the year on a great note. I wanted to tie up all these neat lessons I learned in a fancy, sparkly bow and gift it to myself to illustrate all my growth and success. A tangible, measurable growth that I would put up on my shelf with forgotten teddy bears and hoarded gold medals to gather dust in eternity, readily available for me to take down and proudly show off at any moment.  I wanted to dust the leftover fragments of inadequacy under the rug and produce a bright shiny new version of myself. Not a new me just a better one, I wanted to turn myself inside out and give the world the best of me. But how often we get trapped in the cobwebs of our minds.  It's as if someone stuck a bunch of magnets to the backs of tiny particles of stress and they are forcibly attracted to a strip inside my brain. They are all stuck there. The truth is I am going back down, down the rabbit hole....I won't know what's on the other side til I get there. ...