Self Renewing Compulsion

"I am an animal and a child, an artist and a saint. So, too, are you. Find your own play, your own self-renewing compulsion, and you will become the person you are meant to be."-George Sheehan

I'm always scared to begin again. That never changes.

After days or weeks or months, with limbs locked up like diaries I lost the key to, the starting line always looks like the "you're finished" line. Like a kid all over again, my fingers hesitate when it comes to the shoe laces. My throat's in double knots and I'm scared my lungs and heart are the little engine that couldn't. I thought I could, but, this time, you have to admit you weren't born to make it up that hill. 

I'm scared like the soles of my shoes will get in touch again with the pavement, only to find the romance is dead. Like whatever carried me 10 kilometres over hard ground in cold October air will have given up the ghost and left me, breathless. Are you there yet? Are you dead yet? 

Because running might be human, but no one ever promised that being human was easy. Loving is human too. So when you mash the two together and you're aching for something that's going to make you ache, that's going to put your back to the wall, your feet to concrete, the grit in your teeth, the anger in your heart, the freedom in your spine, the tuck of Vimy Ridge soldiers in your chin– what else can you do but oblige it?

I'd rather give in to the madness and the hunger in the fibers of my muscles than give up.

....

Going to go for my first run today in a few months. Going for my first winter run ever, really. Scared. Might report back later.

Stalemate.

I'm supposed to be novel-ing right now, it's NaNo season once again, but I can't get out of my own damn head long enough to put something on paper. Everything I write down is too close to home. My narrator is too much like me, or is exactly me, or will have done the things that I have done, that I've been doing. Have I finally hit the point in life where I've become my own protagonist? Become my own force of nature?

I don't know. I don't know what to write this year. I've been spending my days penning news pieces and articles and poems and fan fictions, and I don't know that I have any words left in my head to talk about things I can't see in front of my face any longer. And it's actually very frustrating.

Anyway, sorry (Jill) for not posting for her for forever, but everything you need to know, I'll pass on by word of mouth, or else, by writing it in your Moleskine journal. SIGH. 

Dream

So I decided I have to withdraw my application from George Brown for January 2014 after a lot of angst, some tears, a heart to heart with my older sister and a realization.

The realization that just because I'm not going to pastry school straight away doesn't mean I can't learn things about pastry and baking on my own time. So I went to the library yesterday and checked out "The Pastry Chef's Apprentice" and a book on basic pastry and baking techniques by the French Culinary Institute. I want to take in as much as I can. If this stuff is a real passion of mine, I can keep the dream alive, practice and learn as much as I can before I go to school.

Then, when I get to baking school, I'll just be a total ACE, right?...Er...RIGHT? Because I don't believe in giving up, but I believe in givin' 'er. So I'll keep baking and learning, and writing essays and trying to "learn to love the skies I'm under." (Thanks, Mumford & Sons)

Take a deep breath. If things aren't alright, I've got time to make it better.

I've decided to do everything. Ever. Seriously. If reincarnation is a crock and "YOLO" is the gospel as told by Generations Y & Z, then I have too many things to get done. Write. Sing. Bake wedding cakes. Climb a mountain. Travel to Paris. Chase down every dream with fervour until I've got it under my fingertips.

Because I can, and maybe because I have to, and definitely because I want to. 

A year ago yesterday I moved to Montreal. That's crazy.

The Road Back

. Visit a new city! -- Melbourne, Australia.

2. Make proper macarons.

3. Get another tattoo. 

4. Run 10K. (Again!)

5. Accept a compliment gracefully.

6. Read 12 books. -- You Suck & A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore, Half Asleep In Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins, Hannibal, The Hunger Games trilogy, 7/12

7. Make more time for dancing. 

8. Send letters to people I love.

9. Maintain a fitness routine for 3 months. -- In progress!

10. Find my signature beer/cocktail.

11. Learn how to use dad's SLR camera.

12. GO HIKING!

13. Learn "hello" and "I love you" in 3 more languages. (Bonus: Learn simple Russian phrases to talk to Babcia.)

14. Shoot a blog video for Bite Club.

15. Finish a third slam poem, for a full set, just in case...

16. Surprise someone! -KACY'S VEGAN BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

17. Ask someone out. (Bonus points: in person. Forget texting and Facebook.)

18. Drag out on Halloween. 
19. Actually print off and frame some of the photos I've taken.  

20. Learn things about latte art. (Like, oh, I dunno, how to do it.)

21. Stay out all night, until the sun comes up, who knows how long it will be before you can't do it anymore?

22. Get rid of some old stuff.

23. Make a 24 before 25. (Never quit striving!)

Going back to school and feeling less like everything is stupid and pointless now. I'm singing in the shower and recipe hunting. I even want to write and edit a little. I no longer want to fall off the face of the earth in a bid to stop existing. So I'd say everything is going relatively well. I feel like myself. 

Q&A

Dear internet, I know I've been getting pretty dark and heavy with shit here the past couple of posts, so I feel it is my duty both to myself, as well as to the people I love and care about who read this blog, to record something positive, when there is indeed something to write about. To record for my own mind, a note that when things get tough, that doesn't mean they get impossible. Push.

I'm not feeling 100% better, to be honest, my anxiety is wobbly and my self esteem is not great, but these are things that can be worked on, and that's the point. That's fantastic. When we're weakened, we can rebuild. Today, I painted my toenails, just because I wanted to. For fun. Something completely unnecessary to my survival, something that plugged me into myself, my life, and I had the drive to do it. I slept because I was tired and not because I was sick of being awake and being alive and being aware of both.

I've turned a corner of some kind. I'm even back to worrying (lightly) about the choice I have to make between what career path I want to chase down right now, instead of shrugging it off because "whocareswhatyouchoosebecausenothingmatters."

I may not have the answers right now, but at least I'm asking questions. God, I can't wait to make up my mind, get even better, and get on with blogging about something else for once.