i had too much going on outside of school to give a damn about what people had to say about me while i was there. life when i was fifteen wasn’t easy, and it had nothing to do with that little p-side world. when i came home, my homework was typically the least of my concerns. and i was okay with that. in fact, i didn’t even give it much thought at the time. when you’re forced to deal with something bigger than yourself, you push through it without recognizing it. it isn’t until later that you look back and see what you achieved.

the point is that when all the craziness was going down in my sad little high school, there were four or five people i was able to turn to. people who didn’t hear the stories about me because they didn’t spend much of their time in class or the cafeteria. people who wouldn’t have cared even if they had heard the stories. people who learned to love me, despite how terrible i could be to them (and them to me) at times. the kind of love that is built in high school, blended with loyalty and certainty that will probably be intact until the end of time, whether or not you know it or believe it.

as much as i loved them, i lost them all when my four years ended in 2003. i kept in touch for about a year and then i moved on. i had little choice. things happen. they were always there though. and so was i, waiting, just in case. if they had called i would have answered. sometimes i even believed that they’d do the same.

and now, six years later, baby steps are being made. i don’t want to attribute this entirely to facebook and twitter, but what can i say. messages and comments and likes. whatever. it is what it is! and i love how in the end, after everything, after what’s happened over the past ten years of my life, it comes down to the same people it did in the beginning.

i know that this is rare and i’m lucky. i know that things don’t always come full circle, not for everyone. sometimes people lose their best friend, someone they’ve known since the first grade, and they never get them back. they don’t even get the chance for baby steps. i never really considered it. i left things as they were. but now that i see there’s a chance, i’m taking it. i can’t afford to pass it up. i know what i’d be losing.

i’ve read a lot, though not as much as i’d wanted to. i scrapbooked a little bit and will probably do more of that as i get bored in august. and the apartment is pretty much the way i wanted it to be… but i didn’t get around to doing anything to the patio (next year!). mostly i just lounge around and get sun and drink coffee and am happy. and i go to work almost every evening. and i got a trip back to dundas in there, which was relaxing and nice and filled with family time. can’t ask for much more. i wouldn’t.

flamborough sunsets

for everything i thought i’d do that i didn’t, i did a lot that i never expected i would. i met new people and made new friends. i saw kristina more than never, a first for us out of the past three summers. i stopped biting my nails, hopefully for good. i bought flip flops and, one day, i will get to the beach. i even convinced matt to buy a bathing suit (though i didn’t have to convince him to get the flip flops, hah, that was all him). i set a goal for my legs, to get rid of all the winter yuckiness that happens to legs, and i had that done by the middle of june. damn straight. i walked a LOT. so much walking! to and from work every single day, but also down to bank street and all the way to downtown. pretty often. i haven’t been on a bus since the last time i went to visit my sister at tunney’s pasture (and now that i know how far it is, i think i can walk next time). so much walking! it feels good.

i’ve started this weird thing in the past few months, since spring. where i don’t care about what has already happened. things build up all the time only to unravel. i don’t want to be attached to that when it starts to fall apart. i’d rather look forward, constantly, so that when i look back it feels as good as it does this one last summer. :)

i’ve always hated writing in the summertime. i even started this blog last august as a last-ditch effort to get myself writing more. i don’t want to seem like a whiner or anything, but it’s just too hot. and heavy. and i get lazy. and tired. it would help if even the evenings were cool, but there’s been no relief from the heat for days. the kind of weighted, constricting heat that makes me forget what canadian winters are really like. and it’s not like i exactly want to remember what our winters are capable of doing, especially in the first week of july, but this is a little intense.

in the spirit of this exhausting, thick summer heat wave:

your breeze provides
little relief to
the hairs on the back
of my neck,
the creaking swing to
my shadows, aims,
the uncut grass to another
sleepy dreamy afternoon

google, june 14/10

google, you’re so cute!