Starting Over

I've had an interesting February.  When I returned from my vacation to Manitoba and Saskatchewan, I knew a lot of things were going to change for me.  I knew that the world was going to seem like a new place and somehow I never would quite understand why.  You see when I spent my last night in Regina, I went to bed with the thought in my head that I was ready to come back to Toronto.  This may not seem like such an amazing thing to happen, but for me, it was a first.  I have been unsure about Toronto over the almost two years I have been living here and to be perfectly honest, I was never sure if I was ever going to fit into the mold of this huge city.  By thinking for the first time that I had to get back here, I was ensuring that this was a part of my future as I knew many years ago since I was almost small enough to even speak that Toronto was going to be a part of my life.

When I returned, however, the world changed more than I thought.  I was dumped by my boyfriend, a series of car accidents that I was way too close to watch occurred, a psychotic person I knew years ago got in contact with me whom I never wanted to see nor speak to again and my friends around me experienced life altering situations.  While the break-up has been the most on my mind, I knew I had to ride it out, I had to move on with everything and make some changes to my world.  I have been drifting around in a haze for the past few weeks unable to process most of my thoughts accurately and somehow I never saw the people around me and what they were doing for me.  I even avoided most of them just so I wouldn't have to face the horrible fact that they might not understand what I was going through.

The only plus about the last month has been doing to me is that the turmoil of not knowing where I was going has made me use my creativity in remarkably different ways.  Some nights when I working at the theatre, I would sit at the door position writing songs with melodies about bitterness, getting on and relationship woes that I never did before.  I decided to expand my website more and include more people around me in my world.  I have been generating more play ideas than I ever have in months on Tennessee Williams, character studies and thrilling stories.  I have even started to get back into film and video and begin preliminary work on a bear documentary.  It has been the most thrilling experience finding my creative self again and I started to become truly happy again for the first time in months.

This was the pivotal thing that happened for me: I became happy again.  Even when I was dating someone, I still felt unhappy because nothing seemed to offer me any certainty.  I hide my unhappiness very well and only a few friends saw through me who really knew how I could mask my frustration.  Unconsciously I was making headway into life changes without realizing how they were going to affect me and in the past few days, I finally found the way out of my depression.  I didn't think about the break-up or the crazy world, I just concentrated on what made me happy.

I began work on the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives newsletter as a photographer/writer/advertising and it has brought some of my best qualities in my creativity and research.  I have reconnected with friends who I had lost touch with over the past few months and I have been welcomed back into their lives.  I have placed goals in front of me to attain and they have given new hope towards improving my life for the future.  I have my finances under control and this has lifted the weight of stress off of me from a monetary perspective.  I have become interested in dating again and realized that when one relationship ends, it doesn't mean that life ends, it just changes.

Through all of these changes I have been talking about, something incredible happened that I have to admit that I thought would never happen.  I knew that people liked me, but sometimes I felt like I was the person in the friendship who held everything together, that if I disappeared from their sight, I wouldn't be missed.  I was wrong.  In the past few days, I learned that my faith in friendships was hurt badly and I seriously thought that I couldn't get it back.  What I learned though is that my friends were there all along.  Maybe they weren't saying it and sometimes they weren't sure what to do, but they were there.  Tonight I learned that my friends were waiting in the wings to take me back when I was down.  I underestimated how much my friends would be able to stick with me when my world was rocked.

Tonight I ran into a group of friends I had planned to abandon because I wasn't sure they would be there for me, that I thought would choose sides from my break-up and I hope a few of them read this.  They knew that the relationship had ended, but they didn't care about details.  They just cared that I was okay.  They asked me to come watch a movie with them, but unfortunately, I had made plans with someone else.  While its true that I did have to meet with someone tonight, the other truth is that I realized that if I had watched the movie with them, I would have started to cry.  Not sadness tears, but the ones that come from times when you never feel so happy in your life to have people in your life who care.  I held those tears in as I rode home on the subway and I held them through writing this article.  Well almost.

I'm going to leave one of the songs for people to read.  This is where I am right now and now I know I couldn't be there without the people who care about me.  Not just the ones who were there physically this evening, but everyone who has been there ready for me to talk again.  I won't say a name as to who you are, but I think if you know me well enough, you'll know who you are.  February may be a short month, but my list of good friends isn't.

Thank you.

Getting It Right

It's all in the air, but I'm here on the ground

My indecisive nature makes logic seem sound

Life's been throwing lots of curves,

Looks like it's not the best or worst

But it's never easy

When you're not sure

Where you're bound

That's the fun of life,

That's the joy of fate,

It offers many closing doors,

But there's still lots of open gates.

All I need is heart,

To keep my dreams in clear sight

Sure there's time to get it wrong

But I know,

I'm here getting it right.

People will tell me to not look ahead

That dreams are for people who stay in their beds

But I'm won't stand to hear that talk

They just know where to stuff that sock

Cause I'm gonna to fly

To prove that their words

Are all dead.

That's the rush of fear,

That's the thrill of awe,

It turns you up, it turns you down,

But it never forgets what you saw.

All I need is mind,

To keep my road to the light.

Sure there's time to get it wrong,

But I know,

I'm here getting it right.

Believe what they say,

Give up on yourself,

Many people take that line

They'll complain and they will whine.

But if your heart has what it takes

And if your mind knows what it thinks

Your ship will sail through stormy days

Without the thought that it might sink.

That's the grand of love,

That's the breathe of new,

When someone turns their back on you,

You'll be the one to sail straight through.

All I need is me

Just because I know I'm alright

Sure there's time to get it wrong,

But I know,

I'm here getting it right.