Remnants

As I'm sitting here with my coffee listening to the latest pop sensation and flipping through a Manga comic online (Lovely Complex) I realize that my life is remnants of past relationships. Everything from furniture and dishes to interests, hobbies and habits are all pieces of other people that I have included into my repertoire over the course of spending time with them. I can actually pinpoint the slightest nuance in my speech or thought pattern and attribute it to one of my three partners.

It's only natural though, as we spend time with our partners we pick up things that become little private jokes or shared practices. It builds intimacy and separates us from just being friends. Of course there are other things that define more than friends better...but what about those pieces of your personality that become part of each others life permanently even beyond the duration of the relationship? What do you do with them after you are no longer together? Do you erase them?

Personally I think it would be a shame to be so shallow as to deny yourself the pleasure of reading that genre or listening to that artist or eating those foods just because you are no longer with the person who introduced you to those things. I've learned not to regret and that means accepting the past and moving forward even if you are taking parts of it with you, the good parts. Leave the bad parts behind.

We are more than the sum of all of our parts but it's all of our parts that make us unique even if they are remnants of the people we have loved. We loved those parts of them so much we kept them with us through the years and continue to celebrate the best of them with each page, beat and bite.

What's the best gift you have received/given?

With it being December 24th and everyone so in the Christmas mood even though it's not as white out there as we would like, I figured I would write a blog post about a special Christmas I had with my daughter when she was young or maybe one of mine from the vaults, but no, I have something different in mind. I ask the question: What's the best gift you have received or given to someone else during a Christmas past or present?

I want you to think about that for a minute before answering as I describe what I've observed so far this Christmas season. I've seen the usual bad drivers on the roads, not letting people in or even berating other drivers with curse words or hand gestures that would make Rob Ford blush. In the malls I have been pushed aside by shoppers in a hurry, with no regard for others and witnessed the equivalent of a grown up temper tantrum over misunderstood pricing. I have read about citizens loosing their composure with Employment Insurance employees because this time of the year becomes financially stressful for everyone.

Still thinking about your best present ever? In the past I can remember stories of innocent looking grandmothers/mothers breaking into fist fights over limited numbers of dolls or electronic gadgets in toy stores. I've seen belief systems surrounding this holiday season tear families apart, ending in violence and creating rifts. Expectations become even higher for some reason and even the best intentions can be disappointing when people are measured against an unattainable scale. There is so much pressure to impress people with expensive things, outdoing each other for what?

This year I received my best gift early in the way of a simple email. One of the jobs I applied to this week sent me a short email wishing me a happy holiday and said that they would be in touch with me after the Christmas break. Hope. That is what they gave me this year when I am unemployed and fretting the winter months of making ends meet for me and my daughter. It's that simple. No fancy package. No expensive gadget. And it was exactly what I needed. Hope and faith that a job is right around the corner for me.

I'm like Tinkerbell, I need applause to live

I don't care who you are, you do much better when you receive praise for your work, your actions and even that outfit you wore to last year's Holiday office party. I know that I have had a much more pleasing attitude about work when my bosses practiced positive reinforcement, pausing to applause for just a moment. My confidence would soar to new heights, leaving sprinkles of positive energy in my wake.

But what if your boss does the opposite and constantly points out your flaws and failings in front of coworkers and your own direct reports? In my experience, you wither and die inside. You stop caring about what you are doing since nothing you do is somehow worthy. Once vibrant wings turn gray and dull. Ashes of foreboding now fill the air and surround you, creating a wall of fragility that people around you are afraid to trespass for fear of getting any of that nasty stuff on them.

The same can be said about parenting and creating an environment of hope that your child is happy to come home to and spend time. I am constantly frustrated by parents who are surprised when their children behave badly after hearing how they speak so poorly to their kids, focusing on the negative without any mention of the positive. What did they expect would happen? Positive reinforcement works better than constantly pointing out failings.

Children, employees, and basically everyone looks to their 'superiors' for guidance and example. We emulate their attitudes and actions because they are supposedly of a higher position, to which we also aspire. Inspire to aspire because in life we are constantly training our replacements. Think about that one for a second, we are training our replacements in work and in life. So why would you not applaud their achievements and help them with the challenges in a more positive and productive way?

Sometimes fairytales are better left as fairytales

Why do I build up my expectations of every situation? Because I'm a hopeless romantic and I thought that this situation was going to be one of those fairytale stories we all read about in magazines or see on Oprah. I was ready to start writing my own "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" but that didn't end so well, now did it? I have realized something about people, the more they change – the more they stay the same.

As much as I wanted him to be the Prince I pictured he grew up to be, I still maintained some semblance of lowered expectations when we met again. It was a rocky night with definite highs and some pretty low lows. Instead of having his life in order it seemed to be even more uncertain with him planning to move out of my city and having no definable job. Could this be what every 20-something is going through these days? In saying this I am made aware of two things: one – that I am done looking for security from anyone under 30, and two – I am looking for something more than a good time.

Yes, perhaps it's too soon to be looking for a new relationship but let's face it, even if I were maintaining singledom as a religion, I still want quality people in my life who have a clear path with goals and responsibilities. Is it too much of a fairytale to expect men to be men and not little boys? I see lots of gay couples around me who have been together for long or short periods of time and they have what seems like a fairytale coupling. However, I am reminded that nothing is as it seems from the outside, even my own relationships were perceived as picture perfect by some, when in fact they were not the fairytale ending I expected.

We read fairytales to our children but are we doing a disservice to both them and ourselves? I used to be more pessimistic, enjoying a more Grimm ending to any story since it mirrored real life more...realistically. Somewhere along the way I became hopeful that all my dreams would come true which can most likely be attributed to Disney and his militancy for making everything have a happy ending. He believed in fairytales so much that he had his head frozen in the hopes that someday he would be brought back to life when technology caught up with dreams. Well Walt, let me tell you something, sometimes the bull wins the fight and my Prince will not come.

Wisdom of the youth

Several times over the last few months my 14 year old daughter has surprised me with imparting seemingly sage words of advice. It's no secret that she is mature beyond her young years, as a lot of children from broken homes or of parents with disabilities often do as a way of coping. I was just surprised to hear such untainted and honest points of view coming from her when her life has been turned upside down. She has such a grounded perspective that I am now listening more to her than other parents might their own teenagers.

As adults we have been through a lot more than our teens have, however, we most likely have not adjusted completely from the lives our parents provided us to what the world at large has shown us in terms of knowing the truth of any given situation. Even though our parents offer us a two point perspective on life, it was solid and unmarred by the world's diversity and plethora of 'gray areas' that can confuse even the most scholarly. But I'm not talking about religion or politics. What I mean is the basic truth about oneself.

To thine own self be true. It sounds so easy but when you have had so many experiences in your life, you tend to confuse what you believe with what has happened to you which challenge those views. Sometimes it takes an outside source to wade through the confusion and remind you of what has always been there the whole time. It's like you had the ruby slippers all along but didn't know it. So my daughter has been reminding me to click my heels together to remember what home means to me, what I mean to me. Life is so much simpler to children.

Holy smokes Batman

Smoking was something I vowed I would never do after growing up with a smoker. In the olden days, my father would smoke in the house around his family. He even had me, at age ten, going to the store to buy him cigarettes which was perfectly acceptable back then. Convenience store owners didn't even bat an eyelash when I would ask for Export 'A' Lights and fork over the money. Eventually they started asking for a note from my parents and then finally I was no longer able to buy cigarettes at all due to stricter government laws.

As a teen I never picked up the habit and didn't have friends that did either. I thought it was stupid to fill yourself with toxins and chemicals. I didn't realize then that people who smoked would ignore the knowledge of how dangerous it could be in exchange for the temporary physical or psychological benefits they felt it added to their lives. If you ask a smoker why they started smoking you will probably hear anything from boredom to stress, most reasons are not really that valid and that's coming from a smoker.

I started smoking around the same time I came to grips with the fact that I'm gay and was stuck in a straight marriage. I was almost 30 and people asked me what the hell I was doing but they may not realize how psychological it was for me. It was rebellion for sure and only a symptom of what I was really craving, freedom to choose. By the time I figured this out, I was addicted and in a relationship with a smoker so why bother quitting? It was looking into my daughter's eyes when she would ask me to stop because she didn't want me to die that finally led me to start quitting.

I'm in week three of the third time quitting and even though I am not superstitious, I believe that 3 is lucky for me. Forget the financial benefits not smoking will have on my unemployment, I feel so much better and smell better. I always wonder what the hell was I thinking after a couple of weeks without the smoke in or around me. Sure I tend to not know what to do with myself at times and I know that will go away once the nicotine leaves my system properly. Quitting cold turkey has worked for me before when I'm not surrounded by temptation and this time I am not.

I try to never regret things, even when they are seemingly harmful. Learning from every experience is key to becoming the person I'm meant to be. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, which has always been one of my crosses to bear. At least I learned sooner than my dead great uncle who died from lung cancer with only half a lung left and smoking through his trache. Holy smokes Batman!

Objectivity, that's what other people are for

It's so hard to be objective about a situation when you are personally involved. I have been offering objective points of view to my friends for years and it has provided them a service since they also find it difficult to be objective for themselves. No matter how much one tries to separate fact from fiction, fiction being the emotional attachment to a situation, they seem to get clouded in the romantic notion of what the outcome could be rather than what logically would happen. It's almost a cruel joke to have created humankind with both the tool to derive a solution based on analytics and another that is influenced by so many unrealistic factors from conditioning to pure flights of fancy.

I'm a hopeless romantic. Plain and simple. I want the next man to walk in the door to sweep me off my feet. I forget that I've been swept before, only to realize far too late that it was not the best thing to have done at that point in my life. In saying that, I don't regret it either. I just wish I had the same perspective as my friends did when they say after the fact that they didn't see it going in the direction I was hoping for. Man up and tell me beforehand, thank you. I know that when I'm in the situation I am not soliciting honesty but the rose coloured commentary on how happy he makes me, how much better he is for me than 'what's his name' or 'he who shall not be named'. Lie to me but tell me the truth.

Be objective, be, be, be objective. If I keep saying it I will believe it right? Probably not but isn't the whole point of being inside a situation to be completely enraptured by it? Why make it so clinical and pick it apart? That takes the humanity out of living, loving and losing. Like someone said to me recently, "my heart didn't close after first meeting you." I take that as good instinct, which I believe that I have too. I've been objective about a few men lately and realized it will not go anywhere. Huge step for this serial relationship junkie, but that's another topic altogether. Let's just keep a level head and tread lightly and not the other way around. At least until I know the objective before losing it.

I was a trailer park boy

Before Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles made it hip to be white trash living in mobile homes and trying to make ends meet any way they can, I was already living the life of a recreational trailer park dweller. It all started when my father bought an outboard motor boat from a minister in the country. After one season of constantly towing the little red runabout back and forth from home to the boat launch at the lake for a day of boating, dad decided to find a permanent place to dock the boat.

One of the places considered for docking the boat in the summer, which was close enough to get to for a weekend outing, was a trailer park. Well, that opened a can of worms because after a couple weekends of driving 45 minutes both ways my parents decided we would become weekend residents to maximize our time spent away from the city as a family. They bought a cozy little trailer that had a bedroom at one end with a short galley kitchen leading to a dinner table that converted into another bed. They managed to get prime lot with a large fire pit area and close to where our boat was docked.

As a preteen/teenager I grew up with summer weekends spent in a trailer park. My sister and I made friends with the other weekenders and a few full timers too. At that age you don't really know the difference in class or station in life so everyone was equal. Thinking back now, however, we were in the minority of middle class families who used the trailer as a cheap cottage getaway. The management tried to divide the park into sections that reflected this, creating a microcosm of neighbourhoods not unlike the Sims. There were parts of the park that we didn't go, given what I just said, because our mama didn't raise no fools.

I suppose the park depicted on the TV show is not the same kind that we had experienced. Therefore we did not see the stereotypes they portrayed so vividly. I would actually have been afraid if that were the norm. Overall, we had some great times at our little mobile cottage over the years and it's something that I would like to do again someday.

Where did that loner go?

I've never really been all that reliant on friends. I used to be more of a loner as a child and would play by myself for hours either creating/building something or dreaming up an imaginary world of my own. I wasn't worried about spending time with people unless they came calling after dinner. "Can Jason come out and play?" was something I would hear from the front foyer when my mom answered the sing song tune of the doorbell. They came to find me when they wanted to spend time with me. They must have known that I would be there and would always comply with whatever games they wanted to play.

When I did gain enough confidence to do the same, most of the time I would strike out for whatever unforeseen factors were involved such as them having to do homework/chores or they were suddenly grounded for making a face at their parents. Thus began my bad romance with rejection which carries over to adulthood. Eventually the invitations lessened and I was back to being the loner. Some felt sorry for me, others dubbed me a snob. The truth is that I would have jumped at the opportunity to be part of a group of friends that hung out at a coffee shop, swapping stories and witty quips.

My experiences with friends when I was younger were never that satisfying in terms of what I saw on TV or in the movies. Friends would spend time with each other whenever and not have to schedule time together, calling on each other on the fly or dropping by workplaces or homes while helping themselves to whatever is in the fridge. Reality Bites! Even that movie had strong friendships between very different people with personalities that you wouldn't normally put together. I know this is not real life and that real life involves responsibilities, commitments, and differing schedules. How were all those characters available to hang out for a half hour each week while we judged, emulated, identified with, like, disliked, and ultimately wished we could all have as friends?

People say that it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. What about having had friends and then feeling like you've lost them because they don't stay in contact. I would rather have not known what it was like to have friends who I could rely on. Whenever a relationship ended, I have had to rebuild my friend base, for some reason I am not the one that people remember to call. I feel like I'm expected to extend the hand of friendship but just like when I was a kid, there is always an excuse for not having time for me. In turn they don't think of me. So I end up being alone. Back to creating and spending time in my own head. Embracing the loner with every blog post.

The triangle effect

I have adopted the triangle theory from my professional life into my personal life. Professionally I would have to sit a client or supervisor down to explain my triangle theory when they were getting worried or concerned about a project. The triangle has three corners and they represent: Quality, Creativity and Speed. At any given time only two of the three corners can be the base of a project at a time. So depending on what outcome they want, they can choose to have it fast and pretty, accurate and fast or pretty and accurate.

For my personal life, the three areas that represent the corners of the triangle are: Career, Partner and my Daughter. I have found that over time I would usually have two of those corners working well for me, giving me a solid base to stand on while the third corner is up in the air, somewhere. I had the peace of mind to move forward until such a time as the corners would rotate when a different area would start to become challenging. But that isn't the case right now since when it rains, it pours.

Balancing precariously on the corner that is my daughter in this theory, I have to say she is the best thing for me right now. She is mature beyond her years and usually knows the right thing to say to me for encouragement and support in both my job search and my love life. Untainted by the world of grown ups and hang ups, she will call a spade a spade and be brutally honest with me, which is refreshing and more realistic than the catch phrases people have been using. Despite the imbalance in my life, I'm still working on all areas to get at least one of them back on the ground, routing for a the job while using the other as a distraction.

Turning tables

Karma? Serendipity? Happenstance? Coincidence?

Whatever it is, it's having at me this year in a big way and it just doesn't stop. I was routing around on a frequented 'pick up' app and saw a face I knew but could not place. I took a chance and greeted him with what sounds like a common pick up line on how he seemed familiar but that I never forget a face. For the life of me I just couldn't remember how I knew this dude and it was bugging me, like a tickle in my brain I can't scratch.

He seemed to think I was someone who had brushed him off about 8-10 years ago. I didn't quite think that was right because the details did not sound right to me. We chatted more, mostly me apologizing for something I didn't remember doing, not because I was trying to score points to get a second chance but to make amends. It worried me that someone out there felt misunderstood and 'wronged' by me in some way. I was truly trying to bring resolution to both of our lives. What I didn't expect was to have a revelation that would turn the tables on both of us.

I asked one very odd/specific question about his appearance back then and it changed the whole conversation. It turns out I wasn't the guy he thought I was and he was the one that had inadvertently pushed me away with a few poorly chosen words. Well then, what transpired was nothing short of awesome. Now knowing exactly who we were, we talked about how the situation had affected us even to this day. What followed was 3 hours of funny, sarcastic and heartfelt texts. It seems there is some connection we established all those years ago that has stood the test of time, distance and even misunderstandings.

The craziest part was when he told me that he wasn't even supposed to be home that night, out of the country in fact, and had used the app on a whim after a long period of absence. The odds were really stacked against ever crossing paths again so I wonder what this means? We are both excited to see what will happen now since last time it was just bad timing for both of us. I know I'm in a better place now, ready to deal with whatever comes my way romantically or not. But no more misunderstandings.