The Unofficial Guide to Life
Here we pay tribute to different chapters of life, honouring the passage of time. Perhaps we cling to an irretrievable past or yearn for an unknown future, all the while doing our best to live courageously in the present. We revel in monumental occasions; cherish quiet moments. Obstacles, uncertainty, regret: thank you for making us stronger. Make yourself a cup of coffee and get comfortable: this is the good stuff.
My past relationship with time was twisted. I had too much of it and then I never had enough. When I was in elementary school, I remember tapping my fingers on my desk waiting for Christmas break. Even when the air was cold, we rushed outside but we couldn’t rush fast enough: it was only lunch recess.
Continue reading “My Friend, Time”
It’s been one month since I sat down to write a blog post which I never ended up finishing. It is nearly the end of June now; it is summer. The world is soft and green, stretching out like the perfect lawn in front of the perfect house, or else like a very fine afternoon, or a very soft blanket. I’m 29 now, and in a new relationship, and applying for a Masters program at the University of Edinburgh. I’ve also had one dose of the vaccine and sat in bars, bookshops, and restaurants. I’ve felt very happy, felt very confused, felt like I stood up for myself and then felt like I should have done a better job of it.
Continue reading “On Life Going On”
For the first time in forever, I went to a café. Going to a café is a very normal thing to do but even normal things become thrilling when you haven’t experienced them in a while. Sitting at that little table, I felt like an old person revisiting a childhood home or looking through photo albums and reliving distant memories. Things came back; I remembered.
Continue reading “Remembering”
It’s May, the most gentle month of the year. So far, it’s rained every day and I’m wearing a winter jacket again but I don’t care and neither does anybody else. It rained on my walk today, the type of rain that falls sideways and makes your hair stick to your face. I passed shops I had never seen before, saw signs of life in places that were once deserted. Chairs and tables have appeared in empty spaces. People, too, seemed to have sprung out of nowhere, their shapes visible behind glass windows where I once only saw my own reflection.
Continue reading “Coming Alive”
Finding yourself on the road again is a bit like going back in time and a bit like going towards the future. It’s like the past because the scenery blurring in streaks across the window are full of ghosts: former places you used to go to or abandoned landscapes. You’re moving forwards but the melodies you’re listening to are full of memories. Only the songs that meant something to you last spring, mean something entirely different now or don’t mean anything at all.
Continue reading “On the Road”
Everybody knows that change is inevitable but somehow it still manages to take us by surprise. When I woke up this morning it was cloudy, and then it was pouring rain, and then it was hailing, and finally it was sunny. Each time the weather changed, I looked up from my computer screen in wonderment. I thought for sure the sun would stick around this time; I thought for sure the rain would keep on falling. The sky looked so certain, and confident, and set in its ways. But it changed all the same, unexpectedly and loudly and quietly, all in the span of a few hours. ‘That’s Edinburgh for you,’ people say. Yes, but it is also people, and plans. It is also everything.
Continue reading “Change”
Journal Entry Written April 15, 2014
Yesterday, I had one of the biggest disappointments of my life. I wanted to apply for the perfect marketing job at the Vancouver Canucks but when I pressed submit on my application, it said the job no longer existed even though it said “applications accepted no later than April 14th.” Ya snooze, ya lose, I guess. But boy, was I crushed. I really thought I had a chance at that job.
Continue reading “Dreams and Disappointments from 22 Year Old Me”
I have this weird obsession with being young and staying young and preserving childhood the way some people preserve peaches. Maybe you do too. In movies, which is where I got most of my ideas about how people are supposed to act and how life is supposed to be, teenage girls always seemed to be obsessed with getting older. In a heartbeat, they were willing and eager to cast everything around them aside for bigger and better things.
Continue reading “Being Young”
Just like that, it’s Monday again. It’s funny how that happens, every single week, and each time it takes me by surprise. At least there’s no longer a dread associated with it. There’s no longer any feeling of panic, or urge to stop time, or at least, slow it down. Now, there is a calmness that comes with Monday. A sigh of relief that here we are again, we made it. There is a comfort in this routine I’ve built for myself; there is safety in the regularity. I wake up in the same bed, I look out the same window, I read, I drink tea, I work, I write, I eat dinner, I go to bed. And then I do it all again the next day.
Continue reading “Monday”