Depression was known to plague Koenig. He got off his anti-depressants sometime last year, and clearly the rest is a story still developing.

I’ve been depressed. Very, very, very badly depressed. And I hate that so many of you probably don’t understand fully what all that means.

Honestly? I am almost guaranteed to face periods of depression for the rest of my life, when situational life gives me reason to do so, and at a greater depth than the average person will face it.

Not just “huh, I feel sad today” kind of depression, but the kind that affects my relationships and the goings-on of my day-to-day and even my job, immensely.

Right now? No, not really. I have ups and downs like anyone.

I’m lucky. I’ve discovered that much of my extreme depression steams from woeful diet and lacking exercise. I’m able to correct my chemistry through pretty natural means.

But when you can’t? Thanks to chemically fucking myself up on birth control pills back in ‘06, I know what that’s like. And, oh, my god. Crippling. C-r-i-p-p-l-i-n-g.

It’s not like the “normal” depressions I’ve experienced. Normally I know, hey, if I’m pissed at the world, I can play any of a few songs and maybe remedy that, or I can ditch some plans and find some “me” time, or make a bike ride happen. Whatever. I know there’s a good chance one of those things will help me past the hump.

Chemical depression, when your body’s not on track?

Nothing helps. Nothing.

If you don’t know what it’s like to live under the darkness of an intense chemical depression, then pray you never learn.

William Styron probably wrote the single best reference about what depression feels like — and perhaps its links to artists & genius — and something I think anyone with a passing interest should definitely read. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness speaks to Styron’s experience descending into a suicidal depression as a result of the sleeping pill he was taking causing more intense depression and leading to his desire to end his life.

“In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come- not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision-making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying — or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity — but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience — one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devistation would by lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.”

-William Styron, Darkness Visible

The trouble with a chemical depression is the mental fog that comes with. The realization that something just isn’t right? Not necessarily even going to occur. It’s just utter hopelessness, like life has no point and every single fucking thing you do requires an effort similar to that dialed up by climbers at the Everest Base Camp the morning of making their daunting ascents.

Unfortunately for me, my chemical depression happened at a time when my relationship was crumbling, I was potentially about to lose my apartment, and pretty much zero areas of my life were going where I wanted them to go.

I had no reason to cheer up; with chemistry fucked, I had no hope of it, either.

For the second time in my life, after this breakdown, I went on anti-depressants.

That was August, 2006. By March, 2008, despite my DEEP depression lasting me 14 months straight, I had to get off the pills pronto — with diet and exercise I had regulated my chemistry and now the pills that had leveled my equilibrium were hurtling me BACK into depression.

I’m still a moody person. I’m very intelligent, acutely observant, perceptive, sensitive, and, as a writer, deeply introspective. These things make me prone to depression and moodiness. Fortunately, I’m nearly always funny, and I can think or act my way out of many of my moods. That’s “Normal” Steff.

Styron, in Darkness Visible, asserts that writers are probably the most prone group for when it comes to suicide and depression. Hemingway, Virginia Wolf, David Foster Wallace, Sylvia Plath, Spalding Gray, and the list goes on.

These aren’t stupid people.

They aren’t people who don’t understand society and the way we work within it.

They are brilliant writers most of us lowly bloggers would sell souls to acquire the skills of.

And yet. They left all too soon.

Suicide isn’t for the weak. Depression isn’t for losers.

I can probably mentally process just about any adversity that could befall me. I could tear it apart within the hour and tell you all the things I’ll learn from the troubles and whatever hurts it’ll cause, too. I’m a smart cookie. I accept adversity and trouble as a necessary ingredient to my life.

Yet I fell into a depression I couldn’t shake, then, as I was just beginning to emerge from it, I got a job working for the most negative and depressed person I’ve ever known.

And while my depression DID come back, this time it was situational. I was regulating my chemistry, you see, with pills.

So when the “natural” depression came on, I knew it wasn’t my chemistry. I began exercising and eating better. Next thing you know, I was down 30 pounds. I was still myself — funny, then intermittently Happy or Not — until one day my moods started going ENTIRELY wonky again. Speaking with my doctor, we chose to end the medication.

Poof. Normal Steff underwent life without Ze Meds.

Nowadays — like, say, now — I still volley with moods. Right now is a bad time — I need the Olympics to end because my ADHD self has never been so overwhelmed with the world around me. I can’t find the time to exercise or eat as well as I ought to be, and I know my chemistry and resiliency are on the downswing because of the neglect they’re receiving.

It’s not just the Olympics, it’s February, when 2 of the worst 3 Dead Mom Anniversaries fall. I expect yearly to hit a depression around this time. I don’t particularly sweat it. The Olympicky stuff is dealable and soon to end. The Dead Mom stuff passes too. It is what it is.

Long before my mother died, she attempted suicide with the same sleeping pills as William Styron. I walked in on the attempt.

I can’t explain to you what that’s like at 17, or how it affected me then. But I sure as shit learned about psychology and moods.

Even today, I’m stunned when I remember the days I spent under the black-as-fuck choke-hold of a full-on chemical depression. It culminated with a d-a-r-k full-on breakdown working alone in an office one day. I placed an emergency call to a shrink I’d seen once, and she called me back within the hour, me sitting on the middle of a big planked-wooden floor, tears rolling down my completely-unstrung face as I finalized the breakdown then and there, on that hour-long phonecall where she talked me back from the ledge and into hope.

I was a fucking nutcase that day. Inexplicably. If ever there was a day when I was close to suicide, it was that gorgeous sunny August afternoon.

Tonight, sitting here in my moody exhaustion, I can’t even fathom ever again being the woman I was that day. I can’t. So scared and hopeless and devastated and overcome with every physical manifestation of unease you could imagine — sweating, breathless, pain, tension, shaking.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND how someone as SMART as I am could become that lost! I don’t understand it at all.

Oh, sure, I can rattle off some science that sort of “explains” it. You can try, too. But I live in my head. I know how on top of it all I can be. I know how great I am at balancing perspective when it’s needed.

How could I have become that? So needy and lost, scared and shaken, hopeless and hurt?

Your science doesn’t mean fuck all to me. I know what I’ve overcome. There’s no reason aside from stupid hormone pills for birth control that I ever had to become that insanely depressed.

And yet I don’t doubt that it could, and might, happen to me again one day.

Still, I believe in medication.

I’m pretty sure it saved my life. So too with counselling on that fateful day.

In spite of all I am and what I bring to the world, I hate the stigma of admitting that I became that frayed and frazzled. But I think there’s nothing more important I can do tonight than announce it for you all to hear, if it means a discussion finally ensues.

No one should have to feel shame or alone because society doesn’t understand depression, they should never fail to seek help because they’re ashamed to do so.

If you’ve ever known a woman to go insane or horribly depressed from her period, then you know it’s possible that the body can become completely askew due to the simple problem of chemisty, and it doesn’t take either much or long for it to happen.

Read William Styron’s book. Listen to me — depression afflicts EVERYONE regardless of class, money, intelligence, or status.

The only way we’ll win the war against depression is by talking about the horrors it can weigh on us, because I KNOW I am NOT alone.

I am not my biochemistry. Neither are you.

So don’t be a victim.

Depression doesn’t end with the flick of a switch. Medication alone cannot, will not solve it. The successfully-fought battle involves diet, exercise, working on the self, dealing with emotions, setting goals, and valuing your desires, and not apologizing for feeling there’s urgency to improving your life.

Depression is easily the hardest war any person will ever have to wage, other than serious addictions — which one might argue also are commonly caused by depression — but at least addictions have a “real” cause. When it’s “all in your head,” there’s too little sympathy from others.

Here’s hoping we can make it so a few less parents have to find their suicided children’s bodies in parks.

We’re humans. Not machines. Let’s stop feeling like failures just because we feel.

RIP, Andrew Koenig, 2010.

_______________

My mind feels like an electrical storm.

So much is going on, I’ve so much power yet so little ability to focus it. Writing is a joke when the world is this insane around you for two-plus weeks. Some can do it, I’m sure. I’m just not one of them.

Working from home was my first mistake. My office job landing smack in my living room, that was a mistake. It’s just changed the vibe ever so slightly.

As a serious writer, the right “vibe” is everything. Mood is god, story is king. Chaos is the destructor.

Chaos? Good god. That’s all we have these days. On the “me” side of things, I want the Olympics to be over. I want my cycling paths back, my train back, and my time to write in the morning.

But, the other side? I know these Olympics are a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

Unfortunately, everyone I know is better able to handle it financially.

I have an entire wardrobe to replace, a scooter to repair, many other obligations, and not a lot of finances to do it with.

Me? $9 beers — EVERYWHERE in the Olympics –  and ridiculous meal prices CRIPPLE my lifestyle, and, for whatever fucking moronic reason, the Olympics are held all during ONE pay period.

So, needless to say, I’m quickly losing my ability to be a part of this experience at all. I spilled a $9 beer on Saturday night, the “extra” beer I shouldn’t have even ordered. Then, poof, it’s gone and I haven’t even had a sip. All of a sudden, I just didn’t even want to be with my friends anymore. Fucking 8pm and I couldn’t afford any more drinks? Yeah, good times.

It’s no fun going out when everything you do reminds you that you just can’t afford THAT.

I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world these days. Never has the division of classes been as real as it is now in Vancouver.

And, me, I’m playing in the wrong fucking sandbox.

The kids I play with can afford this shit.

They take vacations, have the lovely clothes, all that. As far as I can tell, they can’t even fathom the difference between our lifestyles.

I’m not asking for anyone to fix my world. I’m not even asking for anyone to buy me shit. Normally, I don’t care. I avoid the social situations that remind me quite loudly who’s the Have and who’s the Have-Not.

I’m QUITE fine with turning down invites to restaurants I can’t afford — I can COOK. I have a cool apartment! Awesome. I can replicate the experience my way.

The Olympics? I can’t replicate that. I can never even TRY having that again. It’s a ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME experience, living in a city with the Olympics. And I fucking know it.

My lack of funds has me realizing how much less of the Olympics I’ve gotten to experience versus most the people I know. The shit I hear people talking about on Twitter? Damn.

It breaks my heart a little.

I fucking love what’s happened to my city. I’ve ALREADY borrowed money from a friend just to enjoy it. That’s ALL that I can tap into. I’m done, I’m spent, and there’s SO little I’ve gotten to really see or enjoy.

I don’t WANT to go into these “Pavillions” where I see people dropping $15 an hour just to drink beers. Maybe THEY can afford it, but I’m reminded of all I DON’T have when I’m there.

In normal life, like I say, I can avoid these situations — and I’m HAPPY to do so. Why?

Because I know that, whatever it is I lack, the things I do have? I’m content with. Where I live? I’m content with. My goals? I know I’m going to kick ass.

I also don’t feel like I’ll be broke forever.I feel quite the opposite. I feel like I’m going to take the world by storm. But these things don’t happen overnight. There’s a reason there’s so much talk of “five-year plans”.

My finances HAVE changed. They’re better. But I live within my means now, I don’t go into the red.  Those means I’m almost certain will improve considerably in the next year, but I’m catching up from YEARS of being short-changed by injuries that have kept me working under 40 hour weeks just to make sure I’m able to ENJOY living rather than be hurt/fatigued all day, every day.

Most of you probably have no clue what it’s like to have six years of injuries piling on top of each other. I’ve been rehabbing for years. That costs money. I’ve worked less to deal with it, that costs money. Even losing weight has punished me financially.

That’s LIFE. I ACCEPT THAT. I’m not a victim, I’m a player in this game.

I could be better off financially, but I betcha I’d have every one of those 65 lost pounds back on my body. I bet I’d be toying with diabetes. I bet I’d be unhappy.

The choices I’ve made have brought incredible successes into my life. Unfortunately, they’re not successes society gives me money for achieving. So, instead, I’m left feeling broke.

I feel I’ve had to make those choices. Fuck, I’d make them AGAIN.

They do, however, keep me from being able to enjoy the life friends lead. I’ve long since made my peace with that — normally.

Never did I think I’d want to enjoy the Olympics this much, though.

Never did I think I’d see the drastic differences between what I want and what I can’t have as much as I’ve seen it this week.

So, yes. I’m ready for the Olympics to be over.

I’m taking a couple days off of the festivities, and I’ll try to enjoy more on my weekend, before it closes, because I have to. I got to do it.

I suspect the fallout after the Games disappear will leave a terrible emotional hangover on this whole city — I won’t be the only one.

We’ll be crushed it’s gone. We’ll be “broke” collectively. (I chuckle as I write that, because some people’s perception of “broke” slays me. Uh, yeah, I’ll have THAT broke, please. )

And like most relationships that end famously, there’ll be reminders everywhere we look of how glorious and great it was, if only for 16 days.

These games could’ve been worse — by far. I don’t want it to sound like I haven’t enjoyed them. I have! I’m thrilled they came!

I just didn’t expect the fiscal reality check to make it so hard for me to enjoy what I’d like to enjoy, or do what I’d like to do.

It’s not like I’ve just been hurting financially since Christmas. This has been my life since 2003, when I first nearly died in an accident. It’s been a long, long time that I’ve been living This Life of Mine.

It is what it is.

Most of the time I’m grateful. Most of the time I know from whence I’ve come and where I’m running.

But I’ve always loved the Winter Olympics, not the Summer Olympics, and somehow I thought it wouldn’t feel like so much was denied me when they were here.

I was wrong. I’ve never, ever felt the class divide like I have these last two weeks.

Sure, I’m not alone.

And now I’m not silent about it.

Oh, and to all you fucking “media” people in Vancouver who’ve not made it clear how much events/pavillions cost, for those of us who can’t afford to make the wrong choice of where to spend our money — FUCK. Do your job — INFORM us.

In fact, I’m not actually a person. I’m a giant ‘fraidy-cat. Yup. A pussy, wimp, gutless turd.

I do it well.

If there’s risk of, you know, embarrassment or shame or, well, death, I’ll probably find a way to get out of it, if I can. I’m just being honest.

I’ve been working on this, uh, “quality” of mine for the last year or so. Headway has been gained. Kind of at a glacial 1-inch-a-year kinda pace, though. It’s a recession, I’ll take what I can get, man.

Luckily for me, it’s easier to swallow fear of adventure lifestyle because of my litany of fucked-up injuries over the last 15 years. The cheat-sheet version? Thrown from horse, fell down flight of uncovered stairs, five car accidents (one major), thrown off scooter in shoulda-been-dead accident, three blown knees, blown back, four cases whiplash, and maybe a few other things in there.

I’m a human crash-test dummy, and I’m not even TRYING to be.

But if I’m not dead yet, I’m clearly immortal.

If I survive The Year 2010, I’m starting a cult on an island with volcanoes, palm trees, and a well-stocked bar, because I’ll TOTALLY be worthy of worship.

As much as I am completely paralyzed by fear and don’t even REMOTELY want to do some of the things on my Not-A-Bucket-List, well, in the next 18 months, there’s a crazy list of shit I want to accomplish, as if to say “I’m not what my baggage is, not anymore.”

I have nothing to prove to anyone. It’s not about you.

These activities, in some way, aren’t even about me. The things I want to do (and the list stays with me and a few friends) all in some way are directly opposite what the Steff Of Old would have done, versus what the Steff Of Legend was capable of in my grade-five-fantasy mind.

Friday is day one of the slow ascent to some completely unreal chick I don’t even know if I can be, but I’m going to try.

It’s zipline day.

And not one of those nice, cushy ziplines where you might fall in a marsh or at least have a thorny bush to break your fall before you careen into a tree, or when that paperclip-wire snaps and you go hurtling to your inevitable death below.

No, this one’s zipping over one of the busiest squares in the Olympics. And glass roofs! Concrete! Glass! Steel! Humans that can be crushed like bugs! Death! Dismemberment!

Perhaps you don’t realize what it’s like to live inside my head.

I’m pretty sure there’s maybe a handful of people who could relate to what Inside My Head is like.

I’m… “imaginative.”

I can’t just see the potential for horror in my grand attempt at a zipline, I can imagine the bloodiest of calamities ensuing. Graphically. In slow motion. I see it all. Arterial splatter. Limbs flying. Screams echoing.

No, not pretty. In fact, my vision involves a mass grave out UBC way.

And yet.

AND YET. [GULP]

Friday. Zipline. I’m doing it. I think. But that’s why I’m writing this posting, for peer pressure. Too many people in my life read this for them not to be able to mockingly lord it over me if I stay true to my marshmallow heart and want to run like the coward I am.

Fear’s fear. Sometimes it can’t be “gotten” over so easily. I’m going to try.

I am so fucking terrified of doing this, though. I don’t want to do the zipline. Nope.

But I want to BE THE GIRL who’d DO the zipline. So, to be that girl, it takes doing it, and it takes knowing on the flipside that I can do it and survive.

It’s not a big deal for other people, they’re just that kind of person. And that’s wicked. For them.

Me, I’m the girl who came close to 300 pounds, and who came through a lot of stuff I wasn’t sure I’d see the other side of. I’ve survived that. I’m pretty sure there aren’t many adversities or troubles in life that could beat me, not anymore.

I’m the girl who’s taken chances and has been horribly injured, in years of chronic pain, rehab for more than a year on four separate counts…

There is a LOT of argument for me to live my life in a bubble.

You have NO FUCKING IDEA how much validity the argument of living Bubble Life holds when you’re talking about the kind of stuff I’ve had to endure over the last 14 years, pain-wise and rehab-wise.

One injury after another, you’d think “Jesus, just stick to cycling and swimming,” too.

But if I got hurt that much, that often, that badly, from playing it safe, and had to suffer the consequences so long…

…Then why the fuck not try to at least HAVE the Big Bucket Experiences if I’m going to have that kind of fall-out anyhow?

Why not?

And why not be that chick that I have always considered hot? The chick who can do the things that the daring boys do? I’ve always wanted to be that girl, and always used my fat and my klutziness as reasons not to do it.

Well.

WELL, NOT ANYMORE. (I’m saying that like I mean it in case that somehow helps me believe it a little better. Just between us.)

YEAH, YOU HEARD ME. NOT ANYMORE.

[Cough]

Oh, god, help me. I’m scared. I want my mommy and she’s dead, so I guess that means I’ll either be wearing grown-up diapers or investing in alcohol for after.

It’s symbolic, this incredibly stupid Friday-morning plan I have. Very.

Ziplining is like how life should be, always.

Jump, know you’ve got safeties around you, so have faith, but move forward, get where you want to be, and appreciate that from which you’ve come.

Yeah. I’m terrified. I’ve got the zipline planned for this Friday, and I’m hoping this kink in my neck/shoulder isn’t going to interfere, but if it does, there’s another 9 days to get it done before this zipline’s dismantled after the Olympics. I think I’ll be fine, though.

Just scared. :)

My fear of heights is pretty intense, but my fear of falling is one of my major nightmares. I’ve faced a lot of things in life that terrified me and had me sure Thar Be Monsters, but they were unavoidable and I either faced them and succeeded, or they’d beat me.

Fight or flight, man, and I fight. Rawr.

But choosing to willy-nilly go into the fray? Fuck, man, the fray finds ME, why help it out, right?

And yet.

I guess, for once, I wanna be that movie hero who doesn’t sit in the apartment and wait for the baddies to come breaking down the door. I wanna suit up, pack my weapons, have that big-bad shot of whiskey, go out, and kick ass and take names. None of this waiting-for-the-fray thing.

This time, I want the element of surprise to be on my side.

Here’s where, in reality, I’m muttering “Better be careful what I wish for.”

Yeah, well, in about 51 hours, I’ll know where I stand. Hopefully it’ll be on the NORTH side of Robson Square.

Pray for me.

I’m moody and full of vitamin-Cunt tonight.

I couldn’t figure it out.

What’s eating me? Why am I spiralling into a darker and darker place? Why do I hate the idea of attending any of the 3 parties to which I was invited tonight? Why does the idea of just being civil to others fill me with a questionable revulsion I can’t fathom?

Why? Why? Why?

I couldn’t conjure happy-engaging Steff an hour or two ago, prompting a fella to comment that I didn’t sound very happy. Was my day just long? Where was I coming from emotionally?

BOOM. Then it hit me — snuck up and sucker-punched me, more like.

It’s the start of two weeks of Dead Mom anniversaries.

Next week, the 15th, is the day they found her cancer during a routine hysterectomy. “No, don’t worry about it! Only one in 10,000 fibroids is cancerous!” Like the grapefruit-sized one in you, you mean? The one that metastasized while the medical system was going through social-system strikes, you mean?

Yeah. Right.

And February 21st would have been my mother’s 68th. She died at 57.

As much as I want to pretend I’m past it all and healthy and good, even after 11 years, my heart fucking breaks sometimes at how much I KNOW I lost when she died.

She was my hero. She never realized that. I don’t have a lot of regrets with my mother, thank God, but I wish she knew more of how much I idolized her. She had no question I loved her, but her confidence problems might’ve prevented her from ever realizing the hero factor. That saddens me. She deserved to know.

But how many of us really believe the others in our lives when they tell us how much we impact them? Not many. So I take comfort in the fact that it’s more her humanity that prevented her from knowing that, than it was my failure to school her in it. Because I tried.

God, how flawed she was.

So many shortcomings and insecurities and places she never went in life. So many dreams she had that she never fulfilled. Flawed, flawed, flawed. Died broke, even.

And still she was my hero.

It’s who we are in the face of who we’re sometimes unable to be that really speaks volumes about our character. The things we stand for when just being on our feet is more than we could’ve asked for, that says infinite things about us.

And those deciding factors made my mother a giant amongst women.

She was the kind of person everyone respected and held in great esteem. She never had much money or “proper” social standing, but you couldn’t fault her on integrity. You couldn’t ignore her goodness and everywomanness. You’d be wowed by the vast array of people from varying walks of life she knew — even though she felt undereducated and too impoverished to mix with some of them.

There are a lot of ways in which I’m stronger, tougher, and more outspoken than my mother, but my core values — the goodness, the generosity, the truthfulness, my trustworthiness, my work ethic — these qualities were all, without a doubt, implanted by my parents. Whatever my parents weren’t, there was no doubt in their goodness.

Tonight I guess the loss has hit home for a rare night of sorrow. This doesn’t happen to me very often anymore. It’s 10 years gone now. For four or five years, I was just crushed.I was drunk more than sober, depressed 24/7, and not particularly motivated to change that.

But it’s not like I got a call from someone saying my mother was dying.

Unlike a lot of people my age who are motherless in the last decade, I was living with her and caring for her in the last months. I GUESSED she was dying before there was even a diagnosis. Three months before the “cancer” word even came up.

There is too much I saw that no child should see happen to a parent.

Like seeing things that can’t be unseen.

Nights like tonight are when those visuals flood back upon me, and what rises in me is an anger and a hatred that she ever needed to face those moments of humiliation and inhumanity.

A death like cancer isn’t fair to anyone. Least of all those doing the dying.

Especially when they lose their colon and have to shit into a plastic bag burrowed into their belly.

When they used to be a red-headed fashion model every guy crushed on.

Like Mom.

And that was only the beginning of the vanity-killers doled upon her. I don’t want to write the worst of what I saw. I don’t want it to be that real for me. Not now, not ever. I’d rather pretend, thank you.

My god, how well she dealt with the blows to her beauty. In a moment of weakness, she confessed to how ugly she felt.

And it broke my heart.

I was overweight, insecure, and the only thing I knew growing up was that my mom was GORGEOUS. Just GORGEOUS. I had HER genes. Wow! Lucky me. If I got my shit together, one day I could look like her.

To see her lose her self-esteem and feel so ugly and flawed before her death was such a sorrow. It crushed more than just my illusions.

I wonder now if my mood began this morning because my hair was falling a certain way and, when I looked in the mirror, I saw my mother’s features staring back at me. In my 30s now, after losing 65+ pounds, I’m finally starting to look a little like my mother’s daughter, the mother she was when I was a girl.

But, today, the first thing I saw was my mom looking back at me. Not me, but my mother’s features. And a pang hit me then.

I didn’t know it was growing, that pang of pain. But I guess it was.

I didn’t think I’d find myself in tears tonight when I chose to stay home from those parties. I didn’t know what was eating me. I don’t know how I realized it.

But now I know what’s eating me. The stream of tears down my face as I write this is pretty much all the evidence I need.

I know I’ll go to bed hurting and feeling alone tonight, angry at all the years and conversations and hugs and needs that have been robbed from me in those 10+ years I’ve been without my mother.

But I’ll wake up tomorrow and the sun’ll be shining and it’ll be a near-record-breaking warm February day and somehow, yeah, it’ll all be easier in the morning. It really will be.

Tonight, though, I’m a little lost in the things I’m remembering.

And that’s the least she deserves. Remembering.

Even if it hurts for a little while.

This past week, I’ve figured out a structure for my book, and the start of the order of content and how to make it marketably different from most of the non-fiction offerings out there.

I want my book to be profoundly literate. I want it to be the best thing I ever write. It has to reflect all I’ve accomplished so far, and all I’ll accomplish in the next two years, as I finish this life-change dream I cooked up in the fall of 2007.

Whoa! Holditaminutethere! What book?

Right. When I decided I wanted to change my life, I also promised myself that, if I got even halfway where I dreamed of getting, I’d write a book about my journey.

For the first year and a half, I didn’t bother thinking much about it, I was too busy working on changing myself. But, New Year’s Eve 2008, I was trapped at home thanks to my bad back and record snowfalls, and I wrote a promise to myself that I would now have to fulfill that goal of writing the book, so the time was coming up when I’d need to start figuring out HOW to do it.

Here it is, 13 months later, and I’ve figured it out. All in the span of about 8 days.

I’ve come up with a very sophisticated storytelling structure that is going to demand that my flow and transition be better than its ever been, and that my six-degrees-worldview be sharper than ever, too.

Truth be told, I think my flow and conversational ability to slip in and out of topics is one of my strengths, so I don’t think this challenging way of telling my story will hinder me, but rather bring me out at my best… if I commit to the time it’s going to require. Which I can, and will.

By coming up with the way of telling the story, it now makes all the goals I’ve set in my life for the next year absolutely pivotal to accomplish. Not only that, but the way I want to tell the story also helps me figure out the order in which I need to accomplish my life goals for the next 18 months as well. Also?

In the span of 8 days, I’ve gone from wondering daily “How the fuck do I tell this story?” to believing I can write a book worthy of sparking discussion and passion. I believe in the story now, and since the story is about me, I have to wonder if it’s going to change the passion and belief I have for myself, and for the better.

I will learn more about myself through this process than any other process I’ve ever endured. It’ll be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, because of the honesty I’ll be forced to put forth. The book’ll be the accomplishment I’ll smile about until the day I die, when I get it done like I think I can.

I’m not sure I’m ready to start the writing yet. I think I’m going to, though. I’ve spent some time this afternoon plotting things out in an old-school lined notebook (see inset) and I feel great about having a starting point at all.

I didn’t know where to begin. I’ve had a lot of people make their suggestions about it. “Start at the beginning,” meaning where I decided to change my life. Others suggested the point at which I almost died on my scooter. But none of those felt real to me. I’m not an unskilled enough writer that I have to do the beginning-middle-end approach to anything I write.

And my beginning? Was a VERY dark place. I don’t want to start from the darkness; I want to start from a point at which everything has changed and, for the first time ever, I come to really believe it in my heart, too. I know when that time will come, and I’m very, very close to it.

But I don’t want to start at the beginning. That sounded smart for a bit, until I realized it was a bleak and obvious place to begin from. “Bleak and obvious” is not how I ever want this book to read.

There are a lot of writers who’ve used brilliant structure in a few books I’ve been wowed by, and they are:

• Wallace Stegner in Crossing to Safety
• Pat Barker in The Regeneration Trilogy
• Martha Cooley in The Archivist
• Jim Crace in Being Dead
• Alex Garland in Coma
• Zadie Smith in White Teeth
  

That’s barely even scratching the surface. Sure, they’re all fiction, but so what? That’s good writin’ for ya. Yes, I prefer really contemporary writing, and I intend to write from more of a fiction feel.

To feel like I’ve finally come up with a structure that pays homage to all the sort of writing that’s blown my mind over the years, it makes me feel fucking fantastic. Finally. Few people can probably relate what it’s like to go over and over and over an idea or a challenge for more than a year, on a daily basis, and never make any headway, and then, suddenly, boom, in the span of a week or so you make more progress than you thought possible, when the idea of achieving that dream at all was beginning to die… which, for me, it was.

I feel like I could sleep for a year, I’m so at peace with myself in this perfect moment, here, now.

That’ll pass soon, I’m sure, but what a great headplace to hang out in, if even for just a night after so long of banging my head against my inner walls.

Fuckin’ A. Yeah. I’ll drink to that.

Seems to me too many people are all shame-filled about their ADHD. What the fuck is that about?

Here, take your stereotypes and shove it. Know what my ADHD doesn’t make me do? It doesn’t make me run around like I’ve had 42 coffees and have been mainlining coke and adrenaline, all right? It doesn’t mean I freak out on people. It doesn’t mean I can’t have a conversation with you. It doesn’t mean I can’t get to appointments punctually. It doesn’t mean I can’t be an awesome employee.

What it DOES mean is, I have organizational challenges that negatively impact my life and leave me predisposed to feeling overwhelmed and constantly daunted by the life in front of me. But that’s biochemical. It doesn’t mean I don’t BELIEVE I can do it all.

In fact, I’m getting really pissed off at the idea that I should somehow not admit I have ADHD, like I should hide the condition and pretend I’m “normal”.

Fact is? Without my ADHD, I wouldn’t be the writer I am. I wouldn’t have the wide range of artistic abilities with the keen scientific grasp of logic and philosophy that I have in spades, man.

The paradox of ADHD contributes greatly to the paradox of me — my odd mix of sensibilities, unpredictability, humour, quirky observation, talents, and wicked attention to detail.

Without my ADHD, I’d just be another person seeing the world through ordinary eyes. For whatever grief and challenge my ADHD put on me, its reward is the madcap swirl of perspective and hobbies that I live my life enjoying.

If you follow my crap on Twitter, you know I don’t shut up a lot.

I’m not on Twitter to be current on all the links or friendy-friendy with everyone. I’m there because it’s an extension of my writing. I record the minutae that I see around me, I comment on everything, I say things I probably damned well shouldn’t, and I probably blurt a lot of things most people barely have the guts to think and never say. Again, my Twitter stream is here.

Without my ADHD, you’d probably hear about me being in bank lines and eating Cheerios for breakfast, and not much more. The irrepressible impulses I get and the spontaneous outbursts I often have are just part of my “condition”.

In addition to that madcap swirl of thoughts? I’m also a fantastic cook, a wildly original home decorator, able to wield power tools, and garden, great at speaking, and more. I’m versatile and creative in pretty much every area of my life. I come up with original solutions to tricky problems at work and home. That’s part of ADHD, too — versatility, inventiveness, creativity, impulsiveness. It’s often all good if one can manage the other stuff.

Let’s face it, people. We’ve got to take the good with the bad with anything in life, but there is SO MUCH good that results out of the supposed “bad” of ADHD that I can’t tell you I wish I didn’t have this condition.

I LIKE the quirky, odd, strangely bright girl that my ADHD makes me. I like the fact that I surprise myself and make myself laugh with my observations of the world, but that other people seem to enjoy it too. I wouldn’t ask for anything else.

I may not be my ADHD, but my ADHD has helped to shape me into a more unique, more interesting person than I likely would have been otherwise.

Moral of the story? Don’t fight who you are. Make yourself the star of a play that suits your style in life.

It’s taken me a long, long time to realize that the things I used to hate about myself are the reason that all the things I love about myself are so strong. I’ve spent my life hating that I couldn’t get past my disorganization to get to a place of success. I’ve spent my life knowing that I’ve got a wicked sharp mind, an understanding of the public most people in some industries wish they had, and a way with words they can’t teach in school. And, yet, here I sit. All because I never knew how to control the one side of my life so I could maximize the other.

Learning that the two can, and do, play well together, but that I need to coach it out of myself, has been a fantastic lesson. I’m still learning and it’ll take a while before I successfully put it all together in a way that yields the results I want, but… it’s coming.Knowledge is power, and I’ve got the knowledge now.

Knowing my ADHD is such a gift helps me ignore the more “cursed” aspects of it. Understanding how much of “me” wouldn’t be a part of me without my ADHD? Helps me really decide that I need to learn to control it, because I fucking love the good it contributes to who I am.

Welcome to my journey.

But working from home? Like, omigod. Discipline will be tough, but a deadline is a deadline, and my work has tangible starts-middles-finishes, with daily deadlines, since I watch television and caption it for a living.

My biggest struggle I face right now is not my weight; my weight is partially a byproduct of my ADHD — because ADHD causes problems with maintaining a routine or even achieving one, but also makes me prone to becoming hyperfocused on whatever I’m doing at any time — like eating.

Because I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD for well under a year, it’s been a massive learning curve — the realization that I’m not some fuck-up that can’t manage time, but that I’m biochemically disposed to not be able to do so without extensive systems in place. I’m only now starting to try and put those systems into play, but because of the chaos of the last two months before Christmas (keep in mind, I’ve only been diagnosed since July…), that’s just happening now.

This temporary change at work is at an exciting time. The idea of being able to remove from the equation some 8+ hours of work commute a week, plus, the flexibility of working in shorter, more powerful bursts (I hope?), and the ready access of being at home so much more for accomplishing things like healthy cooking and keeping the home in a decent state, might just make all the difference in my being able to start to get a handle on things.

The next two weeks will be me trying to lay a groundwork in place that’ll let me be successful working from home.

I’m not sure I can even begin to explain how hard I find this working-with-ADHD thing these days. I think I was always pretty good at basic functioning under ADHD, but I never used to try to accomplish much. I was fat, depressed, and not very interested in pursuing much, for about a decade. That’s not a hard lifestyle to “stay on top” of.

Then I tried to accomplish things. Whew, that was tough. But I had a plan. Every weekend had a schedule, I stuck to my rough plan, and I accomplished a lot. I changed my diet, I got active, I lost weight. Turns out, exercise & diet are the best ways to manage ADHD. So, when I was doing between 6-10 hours of high-intensity exercise a week and eating well because I was cooking and planning my diet, I was more on top of task-accomplishing than I’ve ever been.

I spent the better part of a year living at THAT level, and while I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD at the time, I’ve never felt as crisp and clear as I did then — mentally speaking. My writing came back, my focus was strong, my goals were tangible. I was doing it, man!

But then I blew my back out. I went from sometimes doing an insane 10+ hours of hardcore cardio — like climbing up & down 30 flights of stairs or cycling 35km without resting — to doing FUCK ALL for the next 6 months. It was 2 months before I could do exercises of any worth, and about 4-5 months before I even began doing cardio.

For 2 months I couldn’t clean, I had a cockroach problem, and life was fucking hell. For 9 months, my schedule was loaded with 3-4 appointments with care professionals every week. I could barely cook or clean for myself in the early days, and, as a result, my life completely came apart on me.

I did not KNOW I had ADHD, remember? But all of a sudden I lost control over everything in my life. Nothing has ever left me feeling so impotent as just trying to tread existential water while living alone on a 4th floor walkup, without a car or the money to make life easier, with a back problem as bad as I had before Christmas of ‘08. Unbelievable.

Emotionally, I was getting more and more angry about everything being so out of my control. The overwhelmingness of my life was just suffocating me from sun-up to sun-down until about April, when I could finally ride my scooter again (mechanical problems & weather & heavy painkiller sedation kept me off if for most of the first 6 months) and making my life more efficient became possible — barely.

Then, boom. My friend hands me this book, says I should take this ADHD quiz. So, I do. I’ve always been a good student — aced that bitch. Shazam.

I was getting 90% of the questions, and I answered about 150 of ‘em, so that tells ya.

Bret Easton Ellis once opened a story with something like, “Richard didn’t use an alarm clock. He was comprehensively alarmed.” I’ve always identified with Richard.

Then July hit, right after the diagnosis, and I had a back injury relapse, and I just folded. DONE. Fuck “improving” myself — I just wanted to get out of the year alive. Overcome the back injury, find some semblance of normalcy, stop needing so much rehab from professionals I had to pay for and clutter my already-full schedule with.

I’m excited, you know? I have no illusions — this learning to control my ADHD demons and find a plan that really works for me, so that I finally have the organizational grasp for accomplishing my Big Dreams — this is gonna be some hard-ass work and it won’t come without some prices paid. I know.

But I have the currency now. I have the means to overcome these things. I know the working out is crucial, I know the diet is crucial. I’ve mastered those things before, I’m on my way to doing so again. I understand the systems I need to try to create, I have the desire to pursue it all.

It’s gonna be hard — but the first thing I’m doing is making the choices over what gives. This is why my social life has been such a fail in recent months… I’ve been so overwhelmed by all that’s on my plate that I just don’t have it in me to go to a party or event that’s just going to throw even more sensory overload on me. I really just don’t have that in me. And, frankly, you don’t want me there when I feel that way. Que sera, sera, if people don’t get over the ego-fail of me cancelling. It’s not you, it’s me. Really.

So, as of Tuesday, I’ve ditched the shrink I was seeing. He’s more a social worker I was seeing for free. Free? Great, I’ll try that! I went for 6-10 appointments before I realized: I am not my damage. I know my damage. Mommy attempted suicide, Daddy drank too much, yada yada yada, and all the million other horrible things that happen to us all. But I don’t hide from those things and I haven’t suppressed my pain. I’ll talk about it, share it, and don’t feel I have to apologize or feel shame for adversities that weren’t my making.

I’ve been exploring those places for years. I don’t need a trained professional to guide me out of my darkness; I’ve been clawing at the light for a damn long time.

But what I do need is a way to get control back over my life.

The month of February is about trying out a new routine to see what happens.

The simple fact is: I can speculate about outcomes all I want. You can, too. But until it’s given a shot and a serious effort is made, speculation’s fuckin’ moot.

This year is about me taking control of my life. It’s about me getting what I want — not because I want it, but because I’ll fuckin’ earn it and I plan to take it. This is THAT year. I’m not my ADHD. My ADHD is just another know-thyself hurdle I have jump. And jump it I will… in good time.

Women will relate — me finding out that I have ADHD and that it explains why so many things have been so insurmountable for me (like time management) when I am one goddamned smart and driven woman, THAT was kinda like when I’ve found myself being a complete cunt for no reason, feel like shit about it, then I get my period and I realize, “Oh, okay, yeah, THAT makes sense.” It’s the same realization that I’m not to blame, but I also don’t need to stay a victim to it — knowing it’s there is huge in dealing with it.

Truth be told, early 2009, with my back injury, was the struggle of my life. Through it, I rehabbed every other injury I never knew I had, strengthened all the areas that have always plagued me, learned how strong & resilient I am both emotionally & physically, and even learned new areas in my life that needed work. Had I not had that injury, maybe I never would have come apart so harshly and had to seek professional advice. I’m grateful for that now, however endlessly hard it seemed at the time. Knowing I have ADHD is a very empowering piece to my puzzle. I know the problem now, and science knows how to overcome it. I’m smart, I will too.

Here, now, I feel overwhelmed. My home is in chaos after “phoning in” my cleaning since before Christmas, thanks to my recent bronchitis. There’s filth and disorder everywhere.

This weekend I have zero plans: My home will be my bitch.

And that’s where it all starts this year. This is the first week I’ve begun to feel healthy in 5-6 weeks. I’m stoked. What a daunting year ahead, but, oh, the possibilities. Yeah, baby. :D

___________________________

HAITI: My god. How tragic. Please give to ESTABLISHED aid organizations as much as you can NOW, because dysentery & other mass-displacement situations will be occurring soon. Red Cross, etc, are on the ground NOW. They’re THERE, helping. Give! Do not donate “things” like clothing, etc, for another 2 weeks — charities cannot distribute them now, they’re not a priority now. It’s about water, sleeping spaces, securing dangerous debris, avoiding mass outbreaks, and just feeding children. It’s medical supplies, water desalination, and other urgent needs that require your CASH donation today. After two weeks, donate to Haitian local & national agencies that will be operating on the longterm recovery plan. For now, just save lives. Red Cross has already run out of supplies in Haiti once. Give! Give! Give! Thank you.

By the time I left my job, I was close to the highest I’ve ever weighed, at my most negative and always whining, feeling sorry for myself, and feeling pretty hopeless about everything, especially about writing, which I’d been sucking at for nearly a year at that point.

I quit that job, even though I was always taught leaving a job in less than a year was a crime I’d be judged heavily for. I realized  one day in August that, if I didn’t leave, it’d be the end of any Steff I ever knew; I was approaching the negativity point of no return.

My present employers were also my past employers. Much of my last decade has been spent with the company I now work for. I’ll never get rich there, and it’s about the loveliest dead-end job one could ever have — it’s taking me nowhere any time soon, if ever. But everyone at the party knows this, and that’s why it’s the most flexible, easy-going, comfortable place in the world to work. Everyone there is well-adjusted. As left-wing artist-types, we’re all moody sometimes, but if an occasionally-sullen office is the worst it gets? Hah, envy me.

The job from hell in 2007? Not so much.

It destroyed me. Working around someone who was so constantly negative, resentful about every little issue that came up, and who played the woe-is-me victim card often, was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me.

My outlook, even today, is a struggle — staying “up” and positive? I’ve always had an issue with maintaining a “bright side” perspective, because, as a writer, as a schooled journalist, I’m not given to sunny-side-upping my life. I look at everything for what it is — I see all the negatives and faults, but I try to see the beauty and humour, too. It’s a conscious choice, the perspective thing. I really do see the big picture, that’s what defines me as a writer — yet I try to see potential and lessons, good and great, from all these things that happen to us.

And when the person with the most control over your existence — your paycheque, your day, your free time, and whose wall-less office/desk is five feet from yours day-in and day-out — operates from a skeptical place of distrust and loathing, it’s a very hard perspective to balance.

I fell to the dark side.

After seven months, I made the choice that I could not live my life working for a cancerous soul like the woman I was working for. I gave notice.

Woe-is-me types piss me the fuck off now. You know what? I’ve had my problems. Life’s been hard. Know what I think about it? SHIT HAPPENS. Why’d it happen to me? Dumb luck, man. No one’s got it in for me. It’s a cosmic crap-shoot. Realistically, I can handle, and have handled, every goddamned thing I’ve had thrown my way so far, so that’s taught me a lot about who I am.

When the woe-is-me whiner is someone who had as much in her life as my ex-boss, it makes me wish I was a more violent person. Seriously — you’re choosing to suffer. You’re choosing to see these things happening to you as some assault. You’re choosing to feel like it’s all YOU having bad luck. You’re choosing to fail to realize that, in between all those struggles, you still have those sweet, good moments available to you that make life worth living. If you choose to have them, that is.

No matter how bad my life’s ever gotten, I’ve never stopped making jokes or finding a small, little thing to enjoy to take the pain of life away. I find my things in different ways, perhaps, than others, but find them I do.

These spiritual/emotional growth areas of mine, they’ve really exploded in the last five years.

It was five years ago, in 2005, that my job became shaky and lay-offs began happening. I’d be laid off that year, too. Hindsight’s 20/20 and I now realize my productivity shortcomings over 2004-2006 were because of a head injury I suffered and the healing fallout that comes with, but then none of us knew that it was related to my nearly dying on the scooter & the brain injury I suffered. If *I* didn’t realize it, how could they?

I was laid off for a short time and brought back to work, but by then I decided to act on the fatal flaw that would upturn my world for the next two years — I honestly believed my unhappiness was because of my job. I wasn’t able to prove myself, it was holding me back, it was a dead end, yada-yada-yada.

So, I let my bosses know I was “looking for something better”.

In the end, my next two years became a variation of something Ken Kesey once wrote, something along the lines of,  “If you can’t find God in your back yard in Kansas, you won’t find find him in Egypt, either.”

I went from shitty job to shitty job for two years, failing to connect to any, while doing part-time work at my old company and whatever else it took to make ends meet.

But, for me, it was about finding happiness. If I couldn’t find my happiness in myself, I wouldn’t find it in my job. It’d take me two years to realize this was true, and another two years to make it start to play out.

Ironically, after I left Job from Hell, I returned to the job I’d left because it was “holding me back”.

I realized in those two years, I’m not about my job. I’m not about the work I do to get by in life — that’s a paycheque. It’s what I do so I can do what I love, which is write. Somewhere over the last four years, I lost the writer inside of me, and much of my struggles and work have been to reconnect with her. Writing’s about truth, and if you’re not honest with yourself, you can’t be honest in your work, and without that honesty, nothing you write will ever resonate.

And that’s why I returned to the place I’m at now. I realized, if I’m not about my job, then working in a place with well-adjusted good people, with flexibility, and a lowkey job that allows my mind to wander onto things like writing, working in a place like THAT would let me find the writer within.

And find my happiness, too.

Since fall, 2007, I have worked on every single area of my life. I’ve changed greatly. I still have moments of Old Steff, and even of Toxic Employee Steff, but changing so many years of Fail into Fantastic doesn’t happen overnight. This was a five-year plan of mine, but two years in, I’m kicking ass. I’m ahead of schedule.

It’s with great irony that I left a job because I thought it was the source of my unhappiness in order to take a job that then BECAME the source of my unhappiness, only to return to a job that will never make me happy but is a huge factor in how I’m becoming happy. Yeah, I know. Weird.

I’ve learned, then, that the trick is in knowing what’s making you unhappy and knowing exactly how your employment may or may not contribute to having that happen. Because, realistically, it’s likely not your work that’s the problem — unless you’re working for cancermongers who like ruling by fear and shame, like I was for that short time.

These days, when I’m unhappy, it’s good to know it’s not about my job. My job’s just “there”. I’m blessed that it’s the most flexible, trusting job I’ve ever had. I’m surprised I didn’t appreciate that when I was younger. Still, honestly, I hope it’s the last job I ever have. I’d like to be living the paid-writer life within the next five years, and suspect I will be. I haven’t had the desire to make that step yet. Soon, I will, and I believe in my ability.

If I play my cards right, I can stay happily employed in a dead-end job with awesome people that allows me to pursue every little dream I have until I make those dreams reality.

Sometimes, that’s better than any lofty paycheque you can land. You can’t put a price on an untroubled soul, my friends.

Some shivers, some cold toes, but it was worth heading out to stand on my balcony and marvel over nature, if even too briefly.

I’m reaching my winter tether’s end. My sanity is tattered, my resolve weakening.

I want Spring.

Living here, north of the 49th, winter days become as short as 8am to 4pm. When it is daylight, though, it’s often oblitered by grey and dreariness. When the sun does emerge in Vancouver between December and February, the first day is always an optically painful experience. The light! The light! Is blinding, boss! BLINDING.

But I’m bracing myself. Winter ain’t over yet, not by a long shot. It’s not even that the weather’s been that cold or that bad this year. It’s just that there’s a big difference between the light-from-4am-to-10pm days we get in June and July, with 18 hours of daylight, versus the miserly 8 -and-a-bit-hours we have now.

I am, indeed, seasonally affected.

And it affects me to my core. Existentially these days, I feel like I’m a giant, walking, talking Wistful Sigh.

With the new life that comes with spring’s arrival, so too do I come alive. I explode in giddy happiness. Cotton-candy streets of cherry blossoms and sweet aroma-filled warm spring nights complete me.

I love summer, but I prefer spring and fall. I’m not one for extremes. I like the middling seasons, when clothes are required, but not too many clothes.

Still I sit here with cold toes, flannel jammies, and a bittersweet longing for something, anything, springing to life.

I blame my stroll through the park courtyard yesterday, where I saw blossoming pussy willow trees. GASP! Evidence of spring!

It’s almost painful to have such powers of observation before the onslaught of new seasons, to see such evidence in its early stages.

Honestly, I find the tease almost insufferable. You show me this now, but I have two months to wait? Oh, cruel, cruel nature, you tease like no one else.

Kill me it does, and yet I wait. Toes tapping, nervously humming, but I’ll wait.

I’ll wait for bike rides careening through new-growth tree-canopied streets. I’ll wait for a sun that sets after dinner, warm enough to sit on a log for an hour or more, lost in a friendly conversation as fire falls into the ocean. I’ll wait for warm nights spent sleeping with nothing but a sheet, the smell of salt, herbs, and flowers on the breeze. I’ll wait for spring nights on the balcony with the barbecue blazing and a drink in hand, standing over fresh-planted aromatic herbs in flowerpots.

I’ll wait.

But today I’ll pull on my thick, warm boots, my down coat, and a scarf. I’ll bring my eye drops for tired eyes, take my vitamin D to fake my body out, and plan my breaks from work for when the skies part ever so slightly and a beam of sun breaks through.

Because I know, after nightfall, a week of rain is blowing in off the Pacific, and the dreariness that’s only alluded to in the light greyness that is my present morning will soon explode upon us, and with that will arrive dark tumultuous clouds and winds that cut through lesser-than outerwear, and Vancouver’s therapists, travel agents, and tanning beds will have a boon of a week as those more well-moneyed than I will plan their means to momentarily escape the endless bleakness that tends to be a Vancouver winter.

Even though I saw pussy willows yesterday.

But I’ll wait.

I’d given myself a good excuse not to write this morning: “I don’t feel like it”; but now I feel like I need to put some stuff down. Not for you, not because I said I’d try to write 10 pieces on Getting Shit Done in 2010, but because I just need to say a few things to myself, for myself. You’re just the fly on the wall.

I’m genuinely daunted by all I know stands before me this year. I’m scared as fuck about what it is I hope I will have accomplished when I’m standing on this date come next year.

Fact is, the first day back to work after Christmas is usually one of the most depressing days of the year for me. Mostly because the weather’s invariably shit, the workload is usually intimidating, and have the knowledge that I’m Canadian and yet somehow the fucking CHUMPS running this country think it makes sense that the next statutory holiday is in APRIL. (What part of big-cold-country-where-it’s-dark-a-lot-from-October-to-April says  “Go three months without a holiday”? Fuck!)

So, knowing that today presents pretty much the most intimidating longterm view of the year, well, I’m about to make a little extra coffee and enjoy the moody mindfuck that comes with the mix of GET’EM Optimism™ and We’re All Fucked Now® moodiness.

But I can be a fatalist. This I know. I’m used to it. I write amazing death scenes. Death by anchor? Wrote it. Death by bookshelf? Wrote that. Death by time management? Lived THAT.

There I was, being all fatalist but trying anyway to be “up” this morning. I started fucking around with my iPhone. No, I don’t have a lot to do in the next, oh, year of my life, so why not choose this morning to start deleting photos off it?

And then I hit some shots I took along Vancouver’s bike routes.

And then I remembered: Two years ago, I started cycling to work by February 10th. I lost 50 pounds that year. I changed everything about myself — or at least started the ball rolling. Sure, I blew out my back and had one of the toughest years ever from October on, but I lost 50 pounds!

And then I realized: Everything I did wrong two years ago, I won’t do now. I take my vitamins now. I know more about eating for athleticism. I’ve learned how to stretch properly. I own better furniture. I have more exercise options open to me. I’m less scared to ask for help. I’m more willing to try new things than ever.

It’s a completely different year.

Of course, it’d be easier to be stoked this morning if I wasn’t still sick. But I am. That, too, is a good thing. I was sick right before my year of crazy advances began in 2008, too. Just added fuel to my fire.

Having been there before, knowing what it took to have the success I had — and knowing what caused the injury I suffered — makes something about the daunting view a little more… accessible. I know I can do this. I know I can.

But it’s not just that I KNOW I can do it.

It’s that I realize today I have another chance to prove not only to myself that I can lose 50 pounds in a year, but that I can do it without driving myself into the ground with injuries and not-good-enough nutrition.

I like proving things.

It’s fun.

But this is gonna be real damn hard, too.

And then I see the iPhone photos again and I realize, it ain’t all hard.

A lot of it is rewarding. All of it is empowering. And, often, it’s fun, too.

Mostly, though, it’s just gold when you get to the other side and you did exactly what you hoped you could do. And, me, I’ve done some shit most people don’t think they could ever do — like lost 70 pounds.

Once, I didn’t think I could do it, either. I think that was somewhere around January 4th, 2008.

Well, then. It’s time to take a deep breath and realize it might be a whole new year but I got the same big damn heart.

Let’s do this.