I love this life. My life.

 

For as much as I complain about me not doing what I want to be doing..blah blah blah.  I really do love my life. 

My 7-4 job might obscure my vision sometimes and make me believe that my life is not quite where I want it to be..but when I legit stop at look at this life, my life, it is (chm)awesome. 

I have this happy book that sits on my coffee table, it’s a notebook that I started many many much years ago, when I gifted it to Nicole telling her how blessed I was to have a friend like her..she wrote a reply to me that I never saw until over seven years later…after discovering this epic gem we decided we would record the happy things that occur to us in this notebook.  Just in case one day, if ever we feel life is less than pretty-okay, we can open this ‘happy book’ and smile real big like. 

It works too. 

I have this life where I skip down the street and sing ‘why can’t we be friends’ to grumpy passers by who bemoan the circumstances they are in.  I walk through the park and marvel at the ‘unicorn horns’ that are scattered throughout the quaintest park…that is literally 30 seconds away.  Epic. 

When I walk to work every morning I pass the same people.  And I smile at them.  There’s the man who eats toast with his bare hands no matter the weather.  The short young Asian guy who has slowly gotten the courage to say hello as I smile and walk by, and the middle aged my who does an awkward wave that accompanies his quick hello each time we pass.  How could I not smile. 

Every Sunday, (or sometimes Tuesday) I go to the library.  It’s small, but the security guard is lovely.  I always smile and ask how he’s doing…usually make a little small talk.  Last time I went in it was Tuesday, he told me to always smile and I assured him I would…always.  Then I walked home with a bag full of library dvd’s…watching Disney’s Anastasia moments after I walked in the door of my home.  Not my house, but my home.  This is my life.  

I am loved.  So. Very. Loved. 

I can wander the streets for hours and hours and just be.  Be happy.  Be mindful.  Be content.  Be watchful.  Be intentional. Be awesome.

So many days I lose patience with myself.  I want to be somewhere…but I’m not sure where…or why..or how..or with who.  I only know that I don’t want to end up walking down the street, looking at my toes while I go to the same job that I’ve hated for the past many many much too many years.  I don’t want to be the grumpy person I sing to on Saturday mornings, or the cars that beep at skipping pedestrians while they rush off to their important, unimportant jobs. .  .   .  I know I won’t. 

I love this life.  My life.

Brunches. Babies.  Potlucks.  Pies.  Diners.  Dinners.  Friends.  Front Porches. Housecoats.  Hugs. 

That is my life.  My awesome, awesome, epic, life. 

Wise Words.

 

Care more than others think wise..

Risk more than others think safe.

Dream more than others think practical.

Expect more than others think possible.

--Henry Schultz.

Patience.

 

What am I doing?

It’s the same question I keep coming back to, day after day, week after week, month after month.

Why am I putting 8 hours a day in to something that kills my soul slowly every day?  How much do I wish I was somewhere else from 7:30 until 4:00 from Monday until Friday?  What am I accomplishing?

I’d leave in a heartbeat.  But honestly, I don’t know where to go. 

But.  At least when the work day is done, I have a happy home to come home to.  I called my mom today and asked if she had looked at our ‘family portraits’  -- a series of pictures my roommate/bestie took on Sunday in our matching vests.  I went on to talk about our home-strung popcorn strings, hand-made angel and homemade scuffles.  My mom knows my professional life makes my heart sad, but she said to me, Brenna, we’re going to have to come see this home of yours, things are working out better here, every story is happy now.  And really, they are.  I’m glad I found an old friend who re-became new friends. 

Today someone was talking with Nik and I said, why doesn’t she ask me that too? (instead of just asking her), NIk said, Brenna.  she doesn’t know you anymore.  But, I replied, no one does.  She told me last year, she didn’t really either, but she figured that if our bff pact held true, it’d be smooth sailing.  See, I always said that no matter when, no matter where – us two could leave for years and when we reunited, we could pick up just where we left off.  And we did. And it’s awesome.

But.

I’ve got to grow some patience while life decides where to take me.

(because I really want adventure, or to kiss baby heads in China, or baby heads at my nephew’s house, or just be excited to wake up and live.)

So. How's life?

 

How is life?  A simple question with a complicated answer. 

My usual answer is “could be better, could be worse…you know…”

I know that life most definitely could be worse; I could be buried under a pile of rubble in the aftermath of an earthquake, I could be jobless, homeless, or hungry, I could be diagnosed with a terrible, incurable disease or find myself wallowing in a pit of self despair; thankfully I am not.

At the same time, I struggle daily with where I am now. 

This transition period between student and professional is by no means an easy one.  I am bombarded with suggestions from friends, family, and strangers daily.  I am bombarded with societal pressures on what I should be doing, where I should be doing it, and how I should be going about it.  I feel as though I am perpetually looking for something that cannot be found.  Honestly, I don’t even know what I am looking for.

For the past seven months I have been searching, searching for a job whose title I don’t know, for a city to call home, for relationships that will fulfill the desires of my heart.  For these months I have searched and researched for countless hours, I have written cover letter after cover letter, resume after resume, I have put my passions on paper only to be rejected time after time.  Today I am not one step closer to the something I am blindly looking for.  Frankly, it’s tiring. 

Life for me, right now, feels aimless, feels daunting, feels out of my hands.  I feel that I am not even close to where I want to be, but have done more than I could have dreamed possible.  I feel scared.  I feel alone. I feel worried but hopeful.  It’s not bad, but it could be better.  It’s not great, but it could be worse.  It’s more than the three word answer you were expecting.  I wish I knew the answer to the question.  I wish I knew I the question. 

BFF.

 

You know when you were a kid and you had a bff.

I had one of those.  She was my rock when I needed a friend most.  I can’t even  remember how many nights I spent in her basement being ridiculous, being us. 

Then one day I moved away.

I changed.  She changed.  We changed.

Then one day I came back.  But then one day too soon I moved away.

I changed.  She changed.  and I could count how many days I spent with her; not nearly enough.

Then one day I moved away.

I changed.  She changed.  We got to talking.

And really, nothing changed.

It was like I was 16 again, and nothing she could do or say would ever make me think any less of her, and nothing I had said or done or failed to do over the last six years could make her think less of me; because she is like my sister.

Now.  We are laughing because through all these years, all this changing, and growing up, and moving on, in spite of it all, somehow we ended moving into the perfect house together. 

Somehow we changed, but never grew apart.  

Magic. 

double high five.

 

Three months ago my plans to leave Calgary were laid to rest when I got a job offer downtown; and I was happy, but not.

Something didn’t feel right, it felt like it was always as if I’d have a less than epic day at the office and come home to a house that didn’t really feel like a home.  I was struggling to feel grateful for all I had because I was being blinded by little things that were growing…and slowly crushing my spirit. 

Then one day a line was crossed and I made a decision that I needed something to change, because I couldn’t handle another month of me being this angry person.  I confided in my roommate and friend about my decision and she asked if she could come with me.  Of course.  So we began the search for a house that we could make a home.  Two days later, we were walking through a 100 year old brick house in Calgary’s artsy district downtown.  It was walking distance to our offices, was in our price range and fit both our personalities to a T.  The landlady said she liked us, and if we wanted the place, we could leave a security deposit with her today.

We knew it was perfect.  We knew we would be happy in a neighborhood where we could sit on the porch and people watch while strumming a guitar.  We signed a cheque and went home to break the news to our other roommate who we had been sub-letting from.

The news didn’t go over well.  Five days before we were friends, three days earlier shit was lost and there was a temporary friends off period, then we broke the news that we were moving, and it was no longer a temporary friends off…it became a permanent, angry, friends off. 

I always like to see the best in people, to give people the benefit of the doubt.  But at that moment, I had to do what was best for me.  Because I couldn’t live with the person I was becoming.  Because I had to stop being angry and negative and bitter.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m still a little bitter, a little negative, and a little angry.  But comparatively speaking, I’m a little happier, a little brighter, a little more excited to go home at the end of the day.  Yesterday I looked at Nicole and said; hey Nik, isn’t this crazy?  She replied, what?  This.  Me and you living together in the cutest house, in the cutest neighborhood.  How did this happen? :)  (double high five)

I met Nik 12 years ago when my family moved to Melfort.  We weren’t friends immediately.  But that one year when I really needed a friend, Nikki became my sister.  Her home was my home, her parents were my parents…hell, I even gave Willy a new name…stinky face (and it’s stuck even after all these years).  We made high school memorable, but then I moved away to China and we changed.  I remember sometime after I got back, Nik had something big to tell me and she was scared that she would let me down, that I would be disappointed in her; I never was, and I never will be.  And that is why 12 years later, after years of living in the same city and not seeing each other, of changing and growing and falling and getting back up…we’re still best friends.  It doesn’t matter how many years pass; Nik, you’ll always be a sister. 

If Home is Where the Heart is…

 

…where’s my home?

Because my heart isn’t really in Calgary.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m super grateful to have a “real” job, a roof over my head, two roommates who are super swell and a couple good friends in the near vicinity…but I’m not fooling anyone if I were to say that Calgary is home.

I’ve come to the decision that I should either be living in Saskatchewan so that I can be near my amazing family, or I should be in China so I can be excited about living an adventure everyday. 

Last time I was home, I got to hold my new baby nephew; hear his giggles and watch him be beautiful.  I got to chit chat with my little sister who grew up sometime between my high school days and now and bond over China with my ‘little’ twin brother who’s know soaking in the culture that I miss.  And when I had to say goodbye four days later…I cried and cried. 

When I got back to Calgary and retold my Saskatchewan adventures…I cried again.  And realized that half my heart is with my family in Saskatchewan.

So some friends say, well if saying good bye to come back to Calgary breaks your heart….how would you ever manage China?  Obviously they’ve never seen me in mad Mandarin action; because when I get the opportunity to reminisce with China folk in their native tongue…I get that twinkle in my eye and my whole week is made. 

I’ve almost come to the conclusion that I can’t have both.  I can’t have my family and my China adventure dreams.  I can have one, or the other…right now I have neither.

Half my heart is in Saskatchewan.  Half my heart is in China.  My body is in a city where it doesn’t belong and I’m doing all I can to try and find a home.  But I’ve been trying to find this home for a year come August, and for some reason it doesn’t want to be found.

So.  Good things better come to those who wait.