Comfortable Discomfort

It's been a long year.

On New Year's Eve last year, J and I sat in our new home drinking wine and discussing how much we looked forward to 2012. We talked having another baby, his going back to school, F growing up, and buying a home in Halifax. I meant every word I said, I wonder now if he meant any of them. A month later, we had agreed to separate.

This morning was hardly the first time I've found myself looking back, comparing my then and now. It's not even comparable.

If I lay it all out on paper, the list of good things is a lot longer than the list of bad. In March, I scored a job I always thought I wanted - I was dining room manager at a popular restaurant. Me. Management material? My joy was shortlived when I had to leave due to personal issues in August, but I learned a lot and made an impression on the community.

I gave up my home - the home that I had spent hours and energy making my own - but I've settled comfortably and happily into my new apartment. I returned to school and for the first time in years, I made myself a priority. For the first time in my life, I've stopped denying myself the emotions I needed to feel.

The past six weeks alone were filled with enough BS for a whole year. The apartment fiasco itself was enough, actually. The stress of moving, the stress of leaving F, the stress of coming back to school... sheesh. I can't count the times I laid in bed wondering if I'd made a big mistake.

I didn't.

My blog has skyrocketed in the past month. I hit my six-month goal in less than three. I've been offered a contract writing position.

I applied for a Public Relations job for giggles, went to the interview for experience and collapsed into tears when I discovered an offer of employment in my inbox.

I've made wonderful friends. I've had great experiences. I've found myself again, and better, I'm reinventing myself. Imagine if I'd given up? Imagine all I'd be missing out on. It's easy to back out when things get tough. I know, because I've done it a million times. It's easy to return to what's comfortable, what we know.

It's important to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Life is uncomfortable sometimes. If it was comfortable all the time, we'd never progress. We'd never learn or grow.

Unstuck

I have a really bad habit of getting stuck in my own head.

All manner of little things can do it to me. I worry about this and that, one stressor feeds another and the next thing I know I'm on the verge of tearing my hair out and crying into a glass of something alcoholic. This last month has certainly taken it's toll on me. Tomorrow, for example, will be one month since the day I found all of my belongings missing from my old apartment. The property rental company finally settled last week, and while it was only half of what it should have been, I just couldn't do it anymore. I was too tired.

I've left the dishes to pile up in the kitchen, laundry overflowing in the baskets, clothes strewn across my closet and eaten more than one bag of popcorn for lunch. I was tired, and most of it was my own damn fault.

Yesterday, I woke up sour. It may have been the fact that it was day two of a hangover (it would seem I'm not 19 any more), and it could have had something to do with the fact that my neighbours choose 4:48AM as the perfect time to blast really loud, really bad music. Must be nice to not have to get up and do anything in the morning. I texted my friend and expressed my displeasure at the whole thing. The texts ranged from "Are you going to go to class?" to "Today might be the day I finally lose my shit," but I managed to put on pants (real ones, with a button), and I went to class.

I went grocery shopping with one friend and ranted about how tired and frustrated I was. Another friend came over for movies and dinner and she and I ranted about how frustrated we both were. Then we put on hilarious music and danced. We went for hot chocolates, and I came home to a hot bath and I sat in front of my laptop for the better part of two hours, too wrapped up in my own head to write anything.

It was past my bedtime before I finally got out of my head, and it took a Skype call and a 5-minute laughing fit to do it. As it turned out, I went to bed two hours later than I should have and woke up positively exhausted with bad hair and a smile on my face. I needed a good laugh it would appear.

And I've already watched the 19-second video evidence I have of the hilarity twice.

Big Girl Bed

In under three hours, I'll be saying those little big words that break my heart and kissing F goodbye. Just the though of saying those words so soon after arriving home makes my heart ache and my nose tingle in the way only noses can tingle before you cry. I'll see him again in a few days - a week at most - but I'll miss him dearly until I see that big smile and bounds of energy running towards me for a hug.

I can still remember the first time I held F - he was twelve minutes old before he was laid in my arms. I held him for less than ten minutes before he was whisked away to the nursery for his first bath, J and both of our mothers in tow. It had been a long day, spent walking around the hospital and anxiously waiting to become parents and grandparents. My own wellbeing was in question, and so I spent over an hour hooked up to monitors waiting [im]patiently for my blood pressure to return to normal. I wasn't even allowed to stand up, much less walk to my room so I sat anxiously in the wheelchair as a nurse pushed me through the hallways to the Mother-Baby unit.

I can still see him wrapped in soft, white flannel looking absolutely perfect and knowing he was mine. I sat on my hospital bed, still hooked up to this monitor and that monitor, watching everyone else hold my baby. We took photos, I ate my first meal of the day, and we laughed and cried together while my heart burst with love and pride. Within a day or two of my return home, after J had gone back to work in the city, I gave up on F's bassinet: he hated it. We set up his crib, and he hated that too. Finally, after making several trips between my bed and his crib and bassinet, I stripped my bed of pillows and blankets and I laid him next to me. He was asleep within minutes, and our co-sleeping arrangement was born.

I was on the receiving end of a lot of flak over my decision to co-sleep. I had never realized the way my sleeping habits affected those of others (nor did I or do I care). F rarely has nightmares, and has never been afraid of the dark. When he turned two and we had our own home, I bought him a toddler bed and hoped he would sleep in his own room. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. While I enjoyed having the bed to myself, I always missed him and from time to time I slept in the toddler bed with him. Sharing my bed with him this weekend, after a week of sleeping my my new queen-sized bed alone, was wonderful. My own "big girl" bed will be extra lonely tonight.

The moment of "good-bye" is anxiety-ridden and downright frightening. My heart will break into a million pieces when I put my car in drive and knowing that doesn't make it any easier. But, it's not just leaving that scares me. It's coming home, too. Two weeks ago, F saw his father for the first time in months and referred to him first as "man" and then as "guy". He eventually settled on calling him Smokey, the nickname all of J's friends and family members refer to him by. My son didn't even know his father. What if I come home one day and he doesn't know me? I don't think I could possibly cope.

What if the hurtful words slung at me earlier this year are right: what if I'm a bad mom for going back to school? As much as I've missed F, I've also enjoyed time on my own. I've enjoyed meeting new people and - dare I say it - going out and having fun. For the first time in 4 years, I have been able to explore myself and grow as a person. In spite of missing F every minute of every day, I'm enjoying myself: I love my class, my apartment and my new friends. Even though I miss him, I'm the happiest I have been in years, and as much as I decided to go back to school for me, I'm back in school for him.

When all is said and done, I hope F realizes that I had to go to make his life better and I hope that one day, he will be half as proud of me as I am of him.

Beneath the Big Top

My life is a Circus.

The only things missing are the elephant, abundance of candy and of course, a tent. I haven’t quite decided if I’m the clown or a part of the freak-show. Probably the freak-show, ‘cause clowns are just creepy even if the name Bozo does apply to me from time to time.

I’d like to think myself to be fairly imaginative and I’ve been known to fabricate a story to pacify the parents and, OK, sometimes the public, but there is no way that I could possibly make up the shit-storm that has been my life for the past month (or year, if we’re being real here). This is the stuff of bad soap operas and made-for-TV film – bad plot, great shoes. I’m sitting on the cold, hardwood floor of my new apartment typing this because I have no furniture – a tidbit you would know if you follow me on Twitter (@finnsnbranches). If you don’t, shame on you. But, I digress… No furniture.

Sadly, it doesn’t end there: I am also without all 32 pieces of my Corelle Hearthstone dishes, 12 wine glasses, 16 drinking glasses, 16 piece Corningware set, towels, toiletries, personal items, antique dishes, Paderno pot sets, dressers, tables, dining room set and a whole slew of other things I’m too angry and too tired to type. Remember when I said I had a bad feeling about coming back to school? It turns out the bad feeling had nothing to do with school – it was just that [enter descriptive profanity here] apartment building. *Sigh*

My LIFE was in that unit. Without the contents of the apartment – the contents I went to get on Monday evening only to find them missing – I can’t even make myself a cup of tea, because I don’t actually have a cup to drink from. I couldn’t make my son the egg he wanted for breakfast because I don’t have a frying pan. (Interjection: my bony ass hurts from sitting on the hardwood floor.) Needless to say, the beginning of my first week in regular classes was not off to a good start. I spent Monday night with the police officer, and most of Tuesday yawning, trying to joke about it, meeting my instructor and classmates and then on the phone with everyone from the head of the rental company to lawyers, the police and residential tenancies reps.

 Ya just can’t make this stuff up, kids.

If you’ve never experienced a “robbery”, you’re very lucky and I pray you never do. It’s the stuff that we read about in the news, but doesn’t actually happen to people like us, right? WRONG. It does happen, and it leaves you with an empty feeling, and it’s not just your belongings that you are robbed of in that moment. No, it’s more than that. You are robbed of your sense of security and your ability to trust. That and your sanity (which can be restored through the consumption of a good wine and lots of dry humour). It’s hard to believe that these things can really happen – and while the rental company has tried to twist it into a “miscommunication”, the fact is that my apartment was entered into and the contents removed with no legal basis, no permission and without any logical reason. Oh, did I mention that they were kind enough to lock the door this time? You might remember my concern at having found the door left unlocked two weeks ago. Ironic, no? They were also kind enough to turn every bloody light on and then leave them on. Thanks for wasting power and driving up my energy bill, assholes. (End rant)

While it’s been an awful experience, filled with sadness and a lot of anger, I know I’m going to come through stronger on the other end. It’s pretty incredible, and no amount of compensation is going to replace my trust, sense of security or the personal items and antique bowls that belonged to my Great Aunt. Those things are gone forever. It’s like being cheated on, only with less sex and absolutely no furniture. For the first time in my life, I was a complete bitch to the customer service reps and while I feel bad for taking my anger out on the people who weren’t responsible, I’m not a bit sorry for standing up for myself. At the end of the day, I’m pretty sorry that I didn’t follow my gut and remove my things sooner.

But I’m totally not sorry about laying eyes on that officer. Eye candy almost makes it easier to take.