I got pretty close to these guys before they ran away

Me and mom shopping

Having fun!

Merry Christmas

I know it's yesterday technically... but Merry Christmas.  Thanks to everyone who reads this. =)

Merry Christmas

TOW: Going home

You see much more of your children once they leave home.
Lucille Ball

I'm going home for Christmas.

It's definitely been a while, and between September and December, a lot of things have changed.  Going home for me this year is a truly happy time.  I get to have a vacation for the first time in two years...I can sleep in for more than two days at a time and it will be quiet for a straight 8 hours in the night.  (I can't tell you how awesome that is going to be without foaming at the mouth a bit.) 

 

Coming home is going to have a lot of personal pleasure associated with it, but I'm not going home to a place, I'm going home to family.  Because I haven't had my childhood home for several years now, and I don't think of houses and being home for me anymore.  Which is weird, because I used to be the opposite way.  I used to think my childhood home was where people gathered and it was the place that mattered more, since that's where I spent all my time.  I wasn't wrong, but I wasn't exactly right, either.  People need a place to gather, but an empty house is just that...empty.

Going home now, at this time of my life, is light years of difference than two years ago.  Two years ago, I was living off a line of credit, working 2 part time jobs and going to school full time.  The second day I was home I went to the doctor because my chest hurt.  

There was nothing physically wrong with me.  I was having panic attacks.  I went for a walk outside after that and I couldn't even cry, that's how tightly wound I was. 

The worst wasn't the panic attacks, although they were bad at the time.  The worst, I distinctly remember, was going for lunch an hour later and telling my parents what was wrong and seeing the look of disappointment on their faces.  I think they felt like they did something wrong, or worse, that I was going crazy.  (No argument there...ha...ha...eh heh.  Sigh.)

 

Going home at Christmas for a while was really sad because I felt like I had a lot I had to prove, and also people didn't understand why I didn't just move back to SK if I was having such a hard time (more on that later, some time). Truth is, I wanted home to be a safe place for me, somewhere I could run away to once or twice a year when things got really bad, and I was pretty sure I was going through some kind of phase that I needed to get out of my system and that doing it closer to my family wouldn't actually help me in any way.  I wanted my family to be able to be a refuge for me.  They were my home, wherever they were during the last three years.

 

And I think I've finally realized, in an adult kind of way, what the value of a home means to me.  It's not just about being happy wherever you are...it's also about feeling that you will find a way to keep yourself and those you love safe in your own way, as much as you can.  Because being an adult means being able to create that feeling of safety and happiness in your life for those who matter and being able to do it consistently, even when things are hard.  And as I grow older, I realize just how much having a place and people to return to is so valuable.  Not everyone has that, and it's a gift when you do have it.  Some people don't have a family that they trust or even love.  Some people don't have anyone to call friend.  Some people are very,  very alone in life.

That's why it's good to create a place where people can feel welcome, whether they be family or friends.  Love is a gift not to be squandered.  Home, as they say, is where the heart is.

This is how I feel today

Wow.

Gift from Thane,  the grade seven kid I tutor. Super touched. Best gift I've gotten in a long time.

Space Cowboy Hat time!

TOW: Life Phases

You know, I had a really good talk with my friend Robert last night.  We talked a lot about life phases, and about how things were changing for both us, mostly for the better.  I mentioned that my life had taken a lot of turns in the last four years, and it seems to me that things are finally starting to be where I imagined that they would be when I first started down this new career path idea.  It only took four years for me to get there!  Er, yay, I guess?


I think it's more that there's so much adjusting to do when you move to a new city, take up a new life, new friends, new challenges, new problems of a variety of kinds.  What's interesting to me is that I seem to go through Life Phases, where I repeat things over and over again.  I've managed, in my mind, to repeat several life phases, go through several of the same problems I've had in the past, but I've repeated them in the future. Why is that?  Shouldn't I have learned my lesson the first time?

Instead of quoting a philosopher, I think the answer is much simpler than that.  The challenges you face as a youth, as someone still growing into life are not the same as the challenges you face as an adult.  No matter if you've faced a problem a million times as a child, as a teen, as anything other than someone who is really striving to become themselves as they grow older, you won't be able to apply the same solutions to your childhood problems that you did when you were a kid.  When you were a kid, your parents may have bailed you out at the last minute if you did something really stupid.  Maybe it was your friends as someone in your young twenties.  But as people get more insular in their older ages, there's not a lot of support.  There's you, maybe there's your spouse, but really, there's you.  Just you.  You and your life.  And you have to decide how to live it.

Being an adult is hard.  It's not easy to do new things as an adult.  When you were younger, safety nets existed to catch you when you fell.  What you realize as an adult, is that some of those safety nets have disappeared, but there's still a crowd of onlookers, watching to see if you'll fall. 

I'd like to think that my life will eventually be less of a tragic fall from above and more of a direct path towards the other side of the goals I'm seeking.  I'm sure most people feel the same way.

VOW: Stupid Cat

Loved this video. But there are swears, so just be careful where you listen to this. ^_^

Shopping Adventures

Out with Liz's Parents for Lunch!

Unpacking.

Christmas time is soon!

It's the first day of Christmas.  Here's a Christmas videos to get you in the season.