Thursday, February 4, 2010

Better

warning: this post is a bit of a wanderer. and personal. so yah. if that is not of interest to you i completely understand, feel free to move along! More creative posts to come in the future!

What's up little pups?

Over here? I have been hanging, cooking, baking, crafting, organizing, reading, sleeping, procrastinating, thinking about a new job, a website as well as making a tonne of headway on some long seated issues. I will get to all the funstuff in the coming days.
Overall, In general? I would say Life has taken on a new glow. I am not sure why and am not hell bent on trying to examine it coroner style to figure out the basic elements, so regardless, I am happy to say I feel *better*.


Ok, Better. What does THAT mean?


Better to me feels like the lump in my chest, right between where my ribs meet, no longer aches. No longer burns. My tear ducts have dried. Finally, after what seems an eternity to me, i can no longer cry on command, I am no longer continually willing back an ocean of tears at the thought of the future. The going-through portion seems to be ending, maybe over and the new-normal has finally, fucking finally, shown its beautiful face. Better in my world means a spouse looking at you and saying *you are different. you look happy. you smile now* and being happy about that.


The Better hasn't just arrived. I need to clarify that. I have been looking for better for 3.5 years now. During that time I wasn't very secretive with those around me that taking my own life was on my mind. I can say that, now. Here. I would never do anything, which is why i CAN talk about it. I have seen what that has done to people. I have seen my friends scream like animals when the phone call came in to say His Body Has Been Found. etc. etc. I have luckily, luckily, witnessed the destruction Life can take in Death. I see it. I have always been able to maintain that in times of darkness. For me, personally, as far as the human experience goes, I have too wonderful a life to go anywhere. I am also fiercely curious about what is in store for me, regardless of what that means. I embrace the fact that being Human means feeling like shit some times. Weathering the storm is all part of life, and i get it. I just wasn't able to find much light in the darkness for a while there. 3.5 years. Now, it is getting Better. And I am cautiously optimistic about it. That's not an easy task for a die hard realist like me.


As far as real-life stuff goes, I am in a holding pattern with my new ideas for a website. Cash flow is nil right now, and the exciting project I wanted to announce in January has now been pushed off until the fall (with fingers crossed!). Bummer of a birthmark, Hal. I have been off for a couple of weeks now; contracts have ended; i need a new job/contract. I have a couple of irons in the fire, so we shall see. I also have a classic case of February cabin fever, in case you have missed the flurry of tweets i have been cranking out over there. I have been chat.ty.


In deeper news, i have reconnected with my Dad. This is a great thing for me. After not speaking to him for over a year, I decided that something needed to give. I could easily just keep walking away from him and not have him in my life, or i could try. Simple. One or the Other. No pressure, just a little discussion I needed to have with myself as 2010 got going. I decided, and communicated to my Dad, that it is very easy for me to cut people out of my Life. My barriers, my bullshit make it that way. I do it with ease. I decided I don't want to do that any longer with him. At one point with my father, it became easier to just not have contact with him. I was angry and unhappy being around him, and I wasn't about to try and make it any easier without a real dialogue about what had happened and how he had treated us for the years leading up to the actual split. After ignoring one note and a birthday card in the spring I finally had the distance to be able to see how awful it was without him in my Life. When he discussed seeing me this Christmas like usual, I told my brother to tell him I didn't want anything other than a conversation. And if he could do that, then I could do that. So we met for lunch. We discussed things we have never discussed before, like adults. It was amazing. Shocking. Apparently someone else had been doing some soul searching as well in 2009; I was not the only one behaving and acting different that first afternoon at lunch.


Since that meeting my dad and i have talked about some other issues I have. That is big. My dad isn't a big issues guy and prefers to talk current headlines, politics, hockey or golf when enjoying a meal. One thing that is heavy on my mind is the idea of finding my biological Father. I may have mentioned here a couple of times in passing or in another blog post, but I have been pretty tight lipped since i first hinted at it a while back.


It HAS been on my mind, however.
And I think I am ready to find out some of the details.
I am ready.


Ok, so, imagine if you will my utter amazement when my dad brings up adoption, society and wants to discuss how things were when i was born and adopted in the early 70s. Turns out he watched a documentary on CBC about women giving up children in Canada and was moved enough to call me and discuss it with me. Thanks to google i found the documentary ONLINE! last week, watched it and cried and sighed, and then talking about it with my dad earlier this week. We actually discussed finding my Father. I think my Dad and I might find my Father. Can you stand it? I am floored. I cannot believe that this is the same man I was ready to abandon forever. Life has surprised me.


So yah, things are better. How are you?

4 comments:

Heather Plett said...

Wow. That's some heavy stuff you've been dealing with. So glad "better" is a word you can use now AND that you've reconnected with your dad. That's HUGE!

By the way, my husband once attempted suicide, so I've got some pretty close connection to that kind of deep depression.

Blessings. Thanks for your honesty.

leel said...

thanks for that, friend, Heather. Better is a wonderful word! it feels good. also, thanks for sharing that about your past; i can only imagine what that was like for you. what an awful point to be in that he felt that was the ONLY answer. I was *lucky* to have seen loss in my teens and how suicide hurt people in my early 20s, otherwise, who knows how i would have handled the years after without that frame of reference.

i like to think the best is yet to come!

now i feel free to get on with some artsy baking, fun, posts!

mchen said...

Oh leel. If I could give you a huge hug right now... I'm so happy to hear you're on the upswing — that's wonderful news. And good for you for making such a tough decision (no matter how simple you say it is), and how incredible that good things are coming from it. I have bookmarked that doc and plan to watch it soon (lord love Passionate Eye).

All good things to you.

leel said...

@mchen. thanks for that sista! thats really nice of you. onward towards the spring is how i feel right now! yippee! So lemme know what you think of the doc if you get a chance. I too LOVE the passionate eye. Must make more of an effort to watch/review some more in the future.

All good things to you as well!

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