Tag Archives: friends

It's Not Just Where I Go, It's What I Leave Behind

This is a whopping 2,200 words. I’ve written it more for me than you, but I hope you too can enjoy it.
photo5When I leave on a jetplane to my unpredictable life abroad, I see myself doing a few things to officially close the door on my past.
Chief among them will be editing those who cast influence upon my life. I don’t want to ruffle feathers now, but I suspect many people who are loosely termed as “friends” of mine through social media will find themselves excised from my digital life, while I’ll choose others to be amplified and omnipresent.
I’ve made some big, long sacrifices to find myself on the road upon which I’m travelling. I’ve set goals, I’ve accomplished them. I’ve changed my worldview and fought through a lot of personal doubt. I’ve removed some excuses from my realm and have fought hard to overcome all kinds of odds. Some of those in my life are a large part of why and how I was able to beat those odds.

A Dream Takes Shape

Travel-dream-479x640

From flowliving.com.


If you’d asked me three years ago whether I thought I could do what I’m about to do — sell everything, travel for five years — I would’ve laughed at you. My health was bad, my debt was choking me, and I barely had faith I could hack it in Victoria, let alone in worldwide travelling.
But then I started demanding more of myself, convincing myself I had the power to change my situation from the unfulfilling, scary life it was, and instead fashioning something amazing from it. At the time, I was only hoping to pick a cheap country and move abroad as a desperate means to get some retirement savings in the bank.
But then it seemed like that wasn’t enough. It was a big world, how could I pick one country? Maybe I could see more of the world while still saving money.
Then some friends of mine were all out there travelling the globe. Duane was living as a digital nomad — short trips home, then back out around the world again. Jason was on a more-than-a-year trip, doing everything from looking for bats in Austin, Texas, to making the trek up to Everest Base Camp. Nadia was scuba diving her way through oceans all over the planet, creating magical marine photography.
These weren’t famous folks or celebrities, people with major Instagram accounts or book deals. They are simply friends who decided to go a different route than your average bear.
These are some of the people who inspired me to think I could do more than just escape for a while. I could drop everything, get the hell out, and cross off items one after another off my bucket list. Now on the horizon is the dream of not only travelling the world, but the possibility of doing so debt-free. What? That’s insane, but this week I’ll have finally paid off nearly 75% of the debt choking me when I moved here.

Recognizing Regret — And Ending It

Haruki-Murakami-Famous-QuotesMy birthday will fall in the week I leave the country, and this is for deeply personal reasons that I can sort of give voice to, but you’ll never understand it the way I feel it.
I’ll be 42 the week I leave. When my mother was that age, she had 15 years left to live. She had no idea of that, then. Nor did we. This weekend, two acquaintances in my age group are in hospitals battling cancers that could claim their lives. Now that’s a fight that takes everything you got. I know — I watched as the days ticked away to my mother’s cancer death.
Much of what led me to Victoria in the first place was reading the posthumous blog post by my friend Derek Miller. It went viral the world over, thanks to the simple, clear way he explained he was sorry he was dying, sad he would miss so much to come, but that, given his choices and his family, he had left this life with no regrets.8469916ee4caece12e76d122b77d8c32
I knew, reading his words, that my Vancouver life was clouded with regret. In the year that followed, I chose to end that regret by moving here. In my new Victoria life, that regret is lifting, but it’s because I’ve done the hard work to make it rise, and also only because I’m leaving on this trip soon. My travels will end a lot of the regrets I’ve had — because it will mark me becoming the person I’d dreamed I’d be, as far back as when I was 15.

How Our Friends Define Us

People tell you that success in life is often about “who you know,” and I suspect many people interpret this to mean that it’s about whether you’ve got an Elon Musk or Bill Gates in your phone as a contact, but I think it’s much more than that… while also being much simpler.
I think “who we know” translates to what we see as humanly possible, demonstrated by those in our lives. It’s those people we’re friends with who defy odds, challenge assumptions, or conquer obstacles. They’re folks who show us the realm of our possibility, our strength. If we allow them to inspire us, then we can change who we are simply because of who and what they project.
1e6063aa328c2793401ab2c5857007faAs my time here draws to a close, I’m trying to be patient with some of those in my digital world. They’re not really “friends” but they’re also not people I’m quite ready to kick out of my online life yet. Maybe some only because it’d complicate business/other friends. For some, it’s because I’m hoping they finally realize they can CHOOSE to change their life. Thing is, it means first getting over the sense of being powerless under adversity.
But come that day I’m leaving on a jetplane, the only folk I want left are the dreamers. Those who might not think everything is possible, but a hell of a lot of it is. I want people who aren’t defined by limits around them but instead are inspired by potential.

Feeling The Fear, Doing It Anyway

I can’t for a moment pretend I’m not completely terrified about my journey. I get mini-anxiety attacks even now, if I’m being honest. But then I get heart flutters of giddy excitement.
how-to-make-your-travel-dreams-come-true-by-Natasha-von-Geldern-world-travelerStill, I know there will be weepy nights when I feel a million miles from all I’ve loved, when I miss everything from the smell in the air and seasonal weather through to the cracks in familiar sidewalks. I know I’ll sometimes cower under covers, hugging the only comfort item I’m bringing with me –my Quatchi teddybear — as I fight back tears and rage with PMS in some unknown city in a foreign land.
But then I’ll wake and put on pants and steel myself to face another day, and something spellbinding but small will happen — maybe just an old man with a cart offering me a flower or a pastry as he waves off my money, or I stumble into a five-centuries-old church not “grand” enough for an admission price, or some quiet night as I’m perched on a rooftop in some city’s Old Town, staring out over rooftops that barely changed since the Renaissance, as the sun sets, as it has hundreds of thousands of times since.
And I’ll realize then what I know now: Everything in life is a push-pull. Sacrifice feeds accomplishment, and accomplishment requires sacrifice. I can’t have one without the other.
I can’t have the dream of seeing the world and philosophically transforming myself down to the core of who I am, unless I’m prepared to walk away from everything that has shaped me into who I am today. That, my friends, is the price of admission for the big show.

The Price Worth Paying

There is nothing I want more in life than to survive off writing what I want to write. Not client work, not web copy. But things like this filled with thoughtful pauses found in the myriad moments which comprise who we are.
Whether I do that through a monetized blog or it’s by way of writing a monster best-seller, it doesn’t matter. That’s what I want to do — survive solely off my writing.
ef13506c37c8141725f610c91cb8538eFor that, I cannot have the “But how will you do that” type folks who sort of believe it’s possible but doubt that they could know anyone first-hand who’s capable of eking that existence out, as if it’s some superhero-esque feat . I cannot have those folks around me, the ones I see constantly wondering why a Bad Thing has happened to them, when they could instead simply choose to accept it while they learn something about themselves in the process.
I need the dreamers. The believers. The inspirers.
For a long time, I was lost in the “why” of adversity and never understood how to learn and grow from it, that fires forging me would temper me in the future versus ever again being so badly burnt by misfortune.
Today, I’m blessed by the gift of adversity. Nothing but struggle for over a decade served to teach me that life is a constant fight but it’s the magic of the moments in between that make it so worth fighting for.

Lessons Are Gold

B782gkuIgAAIt39I’ll never be an optimist. I’ll never not fear or worry about life. I don’t believe that’s viable. Not for me. It sets people up for disappointments, I find. Instead, I favour pragmatic realism. I understand that both good and bad befall us. I know struggle often sucks. I accept bad moods and depression when they find me, because they’re valuable tools in the human condition.
But that crap’s on a clock, man. Tick-tock, start moving past it and fast. Like when I blew out my knee at the end of February. I allowed myself to be angry, depressed, and scared — for a couple days. But then I tempered that with determination and resolve. Somehow, I’d make it work out.
In the end, that injury has taught me two things that might become massively instrumental in preventing back and knee blow-outs when I’m travelling.
How much is a lesson like that worth? A month of inconvenience? More? Arguably, yes.

Who Am I? Who Are You?

In the end, there’s no way to clue other people into those epiphanies that transform us from naysayers to unbridled dreamers. There’s no surefire trick, no guaranteed route. Somehow, something unlocks that for you, and you figure it out.
45b04566ef8d638140f813c822e578dfFor me, it had to get darker and harder after my move to Victoria before I found a way to claw out of that. But I did that. I had the support of friends, but I was the one with the heavy lifting.
Years ago I heard a quote — “It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” It is the single most important quote I have ever, ever heard.
For a long time, I saw world travellers as being a specific kind of person. Luckily, I’ve learned there is no one kind of traveller. I have my friends to thank for that lesson.
When I watched my friends Jason, Duane, and Nadia circumnavigating the globe, I realized something important: None of them did it the same way. None of them did it the way I would, if I could. And none of them would travel the way I will.
I realized I didn’t have to follow their model. I didn’t have to be an adventurer of the Patagonia-wearing mountain-climbing ilk, or a big-city fan. I didn’t have to challenge nature, confront extremes, or embrace big fears.
I could eat, drink, meander my way around the planet. I could stop in strange places and simply be a part of them, if only for a day or a week. Take a piece of it with me, leave a piece of my soul behind for the next traveller. That, I could do. And I could share it with readers back home.

Look to the Little Stars

An ex-lover once told me his favourites were the little stars in the sky. The ones you squinted hardest to see, often outshone by the big ones nearby. I always liked them too.
These days, I have what I call “The Park Bench Theory” about life. In it, any day including a moment of pause (often found on a park bench or a seaside log or a museum step) is a fine day well-lived. I don’t need the big fancy days. I don’t need the black-tie events. For me, the best of life comes in the simplest moments.
david-glaser-quote-if-only-there-were-a-longer-time-between-epiphanyHere in Victoria, I’ve learned to understand what makes me tick. What I love. What I crave. Where I dream of. Knowing that, well, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s essentially the secret to life, after all.
Some people go their whole lives without ever finding th passion or want that makes them tick. I’m lucky. I not only know what my passion is, but I will have a five-year master class that will help transform me into the kind of writer I’ve only ever dreamt of being.
And I can hardly wait, even if it’s a road I’ll journey alone.*
*But no traveller is ever alone. It’s a voyage made possibly by endless strangers all conspiring to get us where we need to be. We are, indeed, shaped by who we know. Even strangers.

RANT: Guilt-Tripping: What Friends Don't Do

I had a classic big ol’ Twitter fight with an insensitive fuckwit last night, who I haven’t blocked because I’m not in Grade 5 anymore, but it basically came down to me saying, “No, I’m not coming out because I need some time to myself.”
Long story short: I’ve been up at 5 the last four days, have worked in four days what I usually work in 5, still have to work today, am trying to get back onto a fitness regime & healthy diet, and have slept far too little all week. Add to that that today I should get my period and was therefore a grumpy cunt last night, plus I worked 10 hours during the day on a very mentally-draining couple of projects, then, yes… I thought staying home was a good plan.
Asshat, however, thought he should keep pressuring me on Twitter to come out. I kept saying no, then got more forceful about it. Asshat finally got the point. I said “Toldja,” and asshat got offended that I was such a smug bitch about it.
Oh. So, you, in your insensitive and fuckish way, get to bang a drum that’s totally self-serving, because your cock somehow seems to think it’s necessary I attend a party, but when I bang any kind of a drum, I’m suddenly a cunt. Uh-huh. Ass. Continue reading

Why I (Love to) Hate Facebook

There I am, second-last day of vacation, scouring my deck and cleaning my deck chairs. I bought the chairs about eight years ago now. As I scoured them down, a flood of old memories came back — drinks drunk as planes soared in across the southern horizon, headed for the airport’s runways, conversations nattered until wee morning hours with faces that still bring a smile to mine, silent moments spent alone or with others, like one sunny perfect beautiful morning spent with a coffee and a flawless and strangely-quiet empty horizon before finding out a couple planes had earlier crashed into a building and changed America’s future.
It’s just a chair. A measley little chair I see out my window every day, and yet when I really crunch the memories as I scour it down from up-close, a world I’ve lived through in eight years come washing over me. It’s just a chair. Wow.

Imagine if everything had that kind of conjuring power? But then I log into Facebook. Continue reading

The Trouble With Writing

I have this longstanding love/hate relationship with writing.
I love the articulation of thought, the solving of ideas, the expressing of inner qualities.
The trouble with readers is, what they see is what they get.
You people, you read my blog and you somehow think what I put up here is some finite guide to the divinity of Steff, or some such.
Unfortunately, it’s not. Continue reading

I Got Nothin'

Greetlings, Earthlings.
It’s Saturday. Do you know where you are?
I’m in limbo. Sorta tired. Just rode my bike for an underwhelming ride, gonna make me some curry, then I’m heading out for an odd evening. The city’s Vespa club is doing a “ride-in theatre” tonight at some dude’s house. They’re showing Anthony Hopkins’ film from last year, the World’s Fastest Indian.
Didja know I started a scooter club here in the city? 300+ members? Yep. It’s funny, I whine about not having enough of a life, and here I am with more than 300 people at my disposal. So, yes, I’m going to do something about not having enough of a life. People are shocked to meet me at last. Yes, I’m the elusive Steff. You’ve read me, now meet me! Woot! Ha. Funny. But, beer, hot dogs, a summer night, a backyard, and new people. Hey, sounds like a plan.
What can I say? I’m good with people! I’ll be on my best tonight, me hopes.
I realized just now, on my bike ride, how lonely I’ve been feeling of late, to be honest. It’s sort of embarrassing to admit loneliness, isn’t it? We live in a society where loneliness is supposed to be a sign of weakness, yet I suspect we all know what it’s like. It dawned on me yesterday how nice it was to work in an office full of people I could talk to for the first time in months and months. Unemployment was lonely. Reducing the frequency of seeing friends and lovers and all, that too has been lonely. Add it all together, and I think I realize now how unlike ME it has been. Wow.
It’s amazing how quickly it sneaks up on you, cognization. The “holy shit, that explains it!” epiphanies that hit us all.
Sometimes, it’s hard to be social, even if you’re built to schmooze, like I suspect I am. Back in the day, I was NEVER, EVER home. I’d leave for school every morning at 7, and get home every night at 1, and somehow found a way to work a job in between all my friendships and popularity and all that shit. For a dozen or more reasons, all those people have fallen away — through happenstance, through maturing, through distance, through time. And I guess I got used to it.
I think a lot of us do. We start thinking how hard it is to meet new people. Well, the internet makes it easier than ever. I’m on an activities mailing list for the city, yet I never do a thing through it. I’ve remedied that and have plans on the horizon. I think I’m about to go from never seeing anyone, and feeling like some kind of social charity case, to being back in demand.
And that fucking ROCKS. I’m tired of having fun “sometimes.” I’m a very fun person. Where’d that go? How the fuck did it go? This weekend’s good so far. Looks to be getting better. And tomorrow morning’s World Cup Soccer/Football* on a theatre screen. Woot.
So, here’s my point: Lonely? Fucking do something about it. Yeah, it’s scary. Yeah, it’s a hit on the pride to accept that you NEED to meet new people. But when it clicks, man, you’re gonna love having grown those balls to get out there, y’know.
*I consider it “football,” regardless of the fucking North American sport of the same name, and despite my living in N.A. I mean… they CARRY the fucking ball. It touches a foot maybe 15 times a game! Hundreds of plays, and about 15 foot contacts, yet they call it FOOTball? Hello!? How about… Carryball? Or, pigball? Or, oafball? Maybe thugball? Tackleball? Fumbleball? Passball? Any of these is more accurate. I wish someone somewhere had been just a tad fuckin’ semantic-minded when the unoriginal fuckwads sitting around a boardroom decided on calling it “foot”ball. Jesus Christ. Know what? It constantly touches feet in real football. Now there’s accuracy. The gods of semantics are appeased; you may keep your sport. And for the record, I don’t care who wins. 🙂

Hey, honey, mind photocopying this — and your ass — for me?

A recent sexual harassment lawsuit was tossed out of court in the USA. It doesn’t amount to much in the scheme of things, but I’m fucking elated about it.
During writing meetings on the show “Friends,” things would get raunchy. Sex-talk and profanity would lace the meetings, and one woman got her panties in a twist as a result of it.
I’m sick and tired of the politically correct bullshit out in the world. Whether it’s no longer being able to flirt at all at work or having to check your tongue before you speak, people just take things way too goddamned seriously.
I recently had a reader object to my use of the word “chick” when talking about women. I had to rewrite my response to her because I was so pissed off at first. What the fuck? “Broad” or “skirt” or “twat” or “bitch,” yeah, those are offensive, sure. When you get an email from me, wanna know what the sign-off signature reads? “Resident Cunt.”
Words are words. Intentions behind them are what matters, and people need to start looking at the big picture, not using a macro lens to examine every little happening.
I will never, ever clean my language up for you, people. Sorry, not going to happen. Don’t like it? Read someone else. Go read fucking Miss Manners, for all I care. My blog, my words, my way. Soon, I’ll be having to watch every period and every verb when editors harangue me for perfection and for publication-quality work, but for now? I’m a rebel with a cause, baby, and my cause is “whimsy” and “spontanaeity”. I think it, I say it.
This chick, getting a job on a sitcom about sex, one of the top sitcoms of its time (this was six years ago), was LUCKY. She was FORTUNATE to have an inside fly-on-the-wall perspective of some of the best comedy writing on television. She was warned about the workplace approach when she got the job, yet she decided to rock the boat based on her own narrow perceptions.
It doesn’t work like that, honey.
This is tantamount to something we have occurring a lot here in Vancouver, home of the million-dollar apartments. Yuppies move into areas with clubs and bars and then they piss, moan, and bitch about noise after they’ve moved in. What part of “entertainment district” did you fail to fucking comprehend BEFORE you moved in, HUH? Fucking whiners.
There are a lot of standards I possess that are not met by the world at large, whether it’s cleanliness, food, manners, what have you, but when I leave my front door, I know I need to compromise. That’s life. But these whiners and wimps looking for a perfect, safe, clean, proper life, they’re spoiling it for the rest of us.
It’s one thing to say that unwanted sexual advancements are not appropriate for work, but it’s another thing to let that pendulum of so-called decency swing to extremes. Life just isn’t as fun as it used to be. Personally, I always pushed the envelope in the office. I was known as “flippant.” When I write, I have a backspace key. You think I’m off the hook here? You don’t know shit. In person, the things I say, man, I’m amazed I’ve never been beaten senseless and left for dead some days. Having a cute smile and a twinkle in ze eye serves a girl well, it would seem.
But why should I have to watch what I say? Why can’t I just say it, and if it’s too much, apologize? When did we start cutting the leg off before the gangrene set in, huh? We’re a preventative society now. Playgrounds aren’t nearly as fun as they used to be. Merry-go-rounds are practically a thing of the past. Teeter-totters? Dear god, the potential for death and dismemberment! Get that thing out of here!
We are a nation of pussies, and I don’t mean in the get-it-wet-and-get-it-now “mreow!” sort of way. We’re wimps. We’re too timid. “Park your indecency at the door and homogenize with the rest of us” seems to be the credo of the day. If we were a colour, we’d be beige, man.
So, we’ve had a small victory here with this court case being trounced. For once it seems like filth and debauchery are allowed to be a part of the creative process. But what about the rest of the world? What about workplaces that are boring and stoic? What if a little juice and impropriety was good for productivity? Maybe workers wouldn’t be so compelled to surf for tits and ass when the boss ain’t looking. Who knows. All I know is, talking about sex and swearing and being inappropriate makes me smile. Smiling means I’m happy. Happiness means I get more shit done. Getting more shit done means the wheels of this economy work better.
There’s an argument for scrapping the harassment laws. Economic benefit. Really, look at it – all this shit came into play since the whole Justice Clarence Thomas “Is that a pube on my can of Coke?!” scandal way back when. The economy? Has been tanking ever since.
A connection? Elementary, Dr. Watson.

***

Addendum: Okay, I’m being a tad facetious, but really… don’t we all hate work a little more than we used to? Isn’t impropriety, oh, I don’t know… fun?