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.

Yesterday, I stood at the top of an 8-story-tall tower, strapped into a harness, hooked onto a steel cable, and ziplined 550 feet across Vancouver’s Robson Square.

Holy shit.

I’ve had to get the news my mother was going to die, I’ve had to amass the guts to get back on a scooter after I nearly died when I flew head-first off of one — after which long-time riding friends claimed they’d never seen a casual rider as hurt as I’d been get back on a bike — and I have NEVER been as scared as I was when I stepped off that platform.

My friends with me didn’t see it, but I was crying when I took that step.

What they did see, though, were my knees shaking violently, my face suddenly 15 years older looking as all the blood drained from it and my jaw dropped in terror.

I almost vomited, I never even breathed as I zipped at 50k an hour and crossed the square, but about 2/3s of the way in, I finally snapped and realized, “I’ve done it!”

Unfortunately, part of my fear was about getting back onto the other platform, even thought I knew how it was done. Part of that has to do with my weight issues. I’m heavier than I look, by far, and I know it. Sometimes defeating a fear means defeating ALL of it from start to finish, and it’s not until after that you realize It’s Over, I Did It.

You can’t just ignore those hang-ups, you kinda have to face ‘em down and beat the shit out of them.

I got back on that scooter years ago because I knew I’d never respect myself again if I didn’t. The scooter didn’t almost kill me. My driver error did. I simply had to be better, be more in the moment.

This zipline thing, though, was purely symbolic and something I really didn’t have to do, I had no control over where it went, how I did, my success, survival or my experience. I had to just have faith.

Why bother, though? I didn’t have to do the zipline at all.

Except that I did. I did have to do it. I did it. I did.

My form? Complete shit. I was not graceful, not cool. I held on for dear life. I was CLEARLY the person doing it to tackle fear. I was fully conscious of everyone staring up and empathizing as they snapped photos, probably a thousand onlookers on the streets below.

I was totally freaked out until I reached close to the end. I was in terror again as I was being hauled to the platform, wishing I had longer legs.

But I fucking did it.

Also: I brought along spare panties, in case the obvious happened. Never needed them. Fantastic.

Whew. I still find it hard to fathom that I did that. I don’t even like climbing on the fourth rung of a ladder, man, let alone an 8-storey-high tower I’m about to strap onto with a harness and a kinda dubious looking carabiner in order to hurtle myself at high speeds through open air over concrete, steel, and glass.

For others, it’s no big deal. For me, I was close to having a complete breakdown up there.

Right before me, though? A nine-year-old girl, seen in the photo I took before my horrifying descent. All I kept thinking was, “A nine-year-old just did this. Everyone has lived so far. I’ll never respect myself again if a nine-year-old made me look like a pussy.”

I still can’t really process the quantity of fear I felt.

When they say fear is “paralyzing,” well, I guess now I really get what they mean by that.

But it’s like I wrote on Twitter last night:

Tomorrow I get to wake up knowing I’m the kinda chick who rides a zipline. That’s better than waking up the kinda girl who’s scared of ‘em.

Now I’ve asked my best friend if we can change our plans for celebrating my birthday at a swank restaurant — which was last September; he loves me but has time commitment challenges — and instead go ziplining on a mountain.

The mountain zipline terrifies me too. It’s really high. And it’s not a 60-second experience that takes 5 hours of build-up. No, it’s an eco tour that takes two hours to complete.

Yikes.

But I meant it when I promised myself that 2010 would be about facing fears and winning.

Yesterday was just the first really scary, profound, and transformative step in Steff’s Fear-Facing Throwdown of 2010.

One by one, I’ll tear down all the insecurities that have ever made me think I was This Girl and not That Girl.

Because I was clearly way fucking wrong on that count.

I didn’t get it done pretty yesterday, but I got it done. I did it for no one but myself, and my self knows what I’ve accomplished. It’s a small yet monumental change in who I am.

Sometimes, we don’t know the impact of the changes we make until time starts to pass. It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet and the emotions that bubble beneath my surface are murky yet. I’m unclear where this leads.

But like I say:

Today, I awoke a different kind of girl than the one I woke up as yesterday.

My decades of trying to play it safe so I don’t get hurt, they’re suddenly coming to an end.

Perhaps the most valuable lesson in my life can be found somewhere in all of this… that playing it safe doesn’t mean you don’t get hurt; it just means you get hurt without payoff or getting a great story out of it.

“Hurt” is inevitable for us all. Sometimes playing it safe maybe hurts more than having risk go sideways ever could, because playing it safe always, always comes with that feeling of emptiness you get from knowing you’re selling yourself short. I have two decades that tells me this is true.

Knowing my potential for true awesomeness, that particular brand of selling myself short has become the bitterest pill I’ve had to swallow. Oh, how unlike myself I’ve felt for so long. I’m better than the body that imprisoned me for so many years.

With a bunch of tough choices, fears faced, pride swallowed, and risks calculated, I may never have to swallow that bitterly disappointing pill again.

2010. Vancouver. Citius, altius, fortius. Faster, higher, stronger. For all the Steffs, too.

I win.

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.

Oh. And this may contain swearwords. Be careful of your fragile little vocabulary thresholds now.

Trendy these days is the acronym “FML”, short for “Fuck My Life.”

No, fuck your attitude if you’re saying that crap.

Forgetting your lunch is not “FML.” Having to deal with a friend you find annoying because you’re too pussy to deal with it, that’s not “FML”.

That’s “fuck, I’m dumb” or “fuck, I’m a pussy.” You’re to blame either way. That ain’t “FML”.

I’ve been pissed off about seeing “FML” all the time for quite a while now. I see it from spoiled rich kids who have a bad day, or people with ordinary lives who have victim complexes about every little thing that happens. I see it from people with more good luck in a week than I’ve seen in a year sometimes, too. I see it from people who blurt it without really thinking about what it means a lot. People are whining on Twitter about forgetting their lunch and tagging the comment with FML. Seriously?

And this week, THIS WEEK, I’m done.

Shut the fuck up.

People in Haiti? No food, no water, 10% of the country homeless, and the rest, their life just went from bad to shit in an instant. Now, no roadways, dysentery and other diseases soon arriving, live people still buried after 6 days, tropical summer heat and no shelter or shade in the most populated regions, relief having trouble making it in?

THEY can say “FML” this week. They’re allowed.

95% of the people who use it, though, can just shut the fuck up, grow some balls, and face life like the grown-up they ought to damned well be by now.

They’re like the existentialist whiners I hated in college. “Why me? Why me?”

Why YOU? Because it’s your turn. There’s no big mystery here, pal. Sometimes you’re the pigeon, sometimes you’re the statue. Life’s tough, get a helmet. Time to break out the shiny clichés, ‘cos anything’s better than “FML.” Fuck, man.

Fuck your life? Bend over.

When I went through seven years of endless shit, I never whined about “why me” or thought along the lines of “fuck my life.” Maybe I thought “my fucking life”… but never FML. I knew I was getting dealt shit, but I took it for the dumb sequence of bad luck it probably was, and deep down inside I believe it makes the odds that much better that I’ll enjoy the opposite one day — year after year of confusingly good fortune.

But, at this point, I just know what 7 years of mostly shit feels like. And that’s okay. I’m not the only person I know who’s had year after year of tough stuff chucked her way in a row. It happens. It happens a lot more commonly than I wish it did. And I’m not the only person who’s had a pretty resilient attitude through it, either.

Now, though, I feel all John Wayne-y and shit. It makes me feel like a fucking survivor of The Great Depression compared to the weak-ass sissy bitches I see cluttering up the works on the internetz. It just kills me when I see people justify being whiny just because “everyone’s doing it.”

It’s not okay. Words matter. Attitude is everything. You’re fucking with the VIBE, yo!

FML is whining. It’s pathetic. It’s INSULTING to people who really are facing terrible adversities. Those people don’t have the LUXURY of thinking “fuck my life.” They have to get up thinking, “There has to be a way that I can survive my day. There has to be a way I can pay my rent. There has to be a way I can beat this disease. I have to make it through today. Today will be okay.”

Seriously. I could go on and on about this, but let me set an example for you and just shut the fuck up. YOU: Find a better way to complain that doesn’t insult people who really know what a “fucked” life is. Get over yourself.

Life’s gonna stay tough. Get that helmet. And shut the fuck up about “FML”.

Me, I was both ignorant of just how bad my diet was, and dishonest about to what extent I was misbehaving. That was then. Now I’m only ever guilty of the  lack of accounting. Ignorance isn’t such a problem anymore.

But that’s the thing with weightloss. Everyone talks like it’s only about the diet or the exercise, but, for me, the head game’s been at least 50%, maybe more, of my success.

I doubt I’m alone on that.

Once one wraps their head around the head game — whether that means learning the true calorie count behind food, really owning up to how many calories enter in a day, or just learning what the right amount of food one should eat* — the rest of it falls into place, because it’s not about willpower, it’s about simply making the correct, healthy choice. Once you know the true damage behind that apple fritter, believe me, that choice isn’t hard to make.

There’s a world of difference, though, between merely receiving a reality cheque and having the balls to cash it.

Fact is, sustained weightloss can often be managed with small changes. It need not be some radical 180-reversal overnight, and probably shouldn’t be.

All my changes over the last couple years have been small, but the compounded effect? Monster. Gradually, I made litle changes — brown rice, not white; whole wheat pasta; more beans, a veg with every meal — and now, two years later, I couldn’t stomach the food I used to eat en masse even if I tried. It’s foreign, and offensive, to me now. Although I go for phases still where I do eat badly, I almost never eat anything near as badly as I once did. It’s just that I know how bad not-good-but-not-horrible can be, when added meal upon meal upon meal.

The opposite effect, though? Little changes compounded atop little changes, over a long term, amount to massive changes overall. Believe me.

You will WOW yourself if you slowly, consistently, make little additions of good behaviour to your routine. It’s not about becoming perfect at weightloss this week — it’s about setting a positive framework to which you can continue to add and improve over the next years of your life. It’s like all true change — implemented practically and realistically, the results can be staggering. Too-much-too-soon often is done at an unrealistic pace and doesn’t often sustain. “Slow and steady” is ideal for weightloss. It’s why I can have the hard year I had and still be down 20 pounds total this year, because I didn’t set unrealistic expectations for myself — I simply changed my lifestyle and my lifestyle changed me.

I may have gained 8 of my 70 pounds lost back this winter, but that’s actually typical for me over Christmas, so I don’t even give a shit about it. That’s just my holiday thang. It’s my stuffing, I know it’s my stuffing, but that’s a price I’ll pay, ‘cos, like, it’s turkey stuffing, man. Balance, grasshopper! Choose your failings. I choose Christmas.

STILL, I know I can, and will, bring it. I know how to be successful at weightloss. I’ve proven it. I’ve sustained it through the physically hardest year of my life, a fact that still astounds me, since I was on THIS side of that.

Losing weight ain’t some fucking holy grail. The food industry wants everyone ignorant, and that’s how it’s played out, and look how fat we all got.

What is weightloss? Simply put, it’s…

• eating slightly less than what your recommended caloric intake is (too little will fuck you up and you WILL gain weight — your body’s a machine & needs food; specific kinds at specific quantities — science).
• exercising as often as you can (it’s actually considered more effective for weightloss if you do cardio in separate 20+ -minute chunks because it activates metabolism each time, ergo burns fat).
• being active in little ways as often as possible (take stairs, not elevator, park further, etc) because every physical effort counts against every calorie you eat.
• being accountable and realizing EVERY SINGLE CALORIE counts and you can’t fake your body out, this shit’s science, so if it goes in your mouth, it goes on your ass.

Most of all, though, you gotta tackle this from a place of love. You’re not losing weight because you’re a loser and no one loves you, you’re not being active because you’re a fat-ass and have no self-esteem — you’re eating well and being active because you VALUE yourself NOW. You NEED to believe that. You ARE worth the effort. You’re not a failure for doughing up — you’re a success that got interrupted. Period. Now matters, not then, not tomorrow — now.

You’re taking control. You can do it, you will do it, and you’re worth the effort and time and passion that it takes to live a healthy, managed life.

And it’s not about the number on the scale. It’s about the feeling inside. If you feel good, if you have more energy, if your mindset’s more balanced, if your stress level’s mitigated — then isn’t THAT what you want? Don’t kill yourself to be some size the magazines tell you to be. It AIN’T about that, and the struggle to be that can be more harmful to you than just living a good, balanced life.

Perfection? The “ideal” weight? For what, so you can be “wanted” and envied? Why you wanna perfect yourself for anyone who’ll only want you when you’re perfect? Who cares if they envy you, if it leaves you envying someone else for living a simpler life than you? Perfection’s an awful tough life to set oneself up for. Instead, strive for contentment, feeling good, and having energy, then focus on living life, not seeking perfection.

Me, I have my size / weight goal because I know I haven’t killed myself to lose weight yet, and I know it’s been coming off properly as I apply myself. If I’m living healthy and not losing anymore weight, then so be it. I’ll live with that, but I don’t think that’s the case. When I start behaving, my metabolism goes through the roof, so that’s an indicator to me that I’ve got the room to improve. The goals I’ve set for ME seem reasonable, weighed against the experience I’ve had so far, but I’m open to re-evaluating, and even scaling down my goals because I’ve not been under 200 pounds since I was 18 — what the hell do I know about who all this will make me? I’m winging it, but so far, where I want to go, is about 40 pounds from here.

But that’s not the standard YOU have to live by. “Healthy” means different things for us all.

Just make sure you’re being honest with yourself when deciding what “healthy” means for you. Don’t take the easy road out because you don’t think you can handle it.

If a person who was as fucked up and depressed as I was when I started my path to wellness could manage to take 70 pounds off over 2 years, even with a year of that spent rehabbing a blown back, and still find it in me to enjoy wine, cheese, and red meats… well, you probably can too. Losing weight isn’t a death sentence to deny yourself — it’s a life-sentence of balance and awareness, and that means enjoying the things you love, too. Maybe just a little less of it, is all.

Again: Here’s to us all kicking ass in 2010.

Citius, altius, fortius, baby.

*Because a lot of overweight people try to lose weight but eat too little, which triggers the opposite effect and they gain weight — education is CRUCIAL to weightloss, and to assume you know ANYTHING is arrogant; go in open-minded and learn everything you can. Science is always bringing new information to light.

Heart attack, in case you didn’t know, is one of the most common demises after long battles with eating disorders. Why?

“When anorexia has become this severe, the heart is often damaged. Not only is there not enough body fat to keep internal organs like the heart protected, but anemia, which weakens the blood, and the poor circulation which results in a lower body temperature means that the heart is unable to pump and circulate blood as effectively as it might otherwise. The loss of muscle mass can also apply to the heart, meaning that the muscles of the heart can physically weaken, and an overall drop in blood pressure and pulse can contribute to slower breathing rates. Unfortunately, if not remedied, these risks can lead to death.”

- Excerpt found here.

In this more recent photo, it’s obvious she’s too thin. Her head is bigger than her waist. That’s beauty? Really?

My eating problems have been, and will continue to be, the struggle of my life. I can’t imagine the emotional and spiritual pressurecooker a life in Hollywood would have been for someone as fucked up as I once was. I can’t imagine how emotionally fragile teens and young adults navigate the psychic timebomb that working in the film & beauty-focused industries must be.

Every time another death like this happens, it takes weeks to find the cause. By then, the emotional impact of that celebrity’s loss has evaporated, and the angst over the stupidity of how they died and how needless it was, that just evaporates too.

There is no reason for anyone to die like this, assuming she’s dead of anorexia, but I daresay I’m not reckless to jump to that conclusion.

There is no reason an industry should sanction the kind of pressure many starlets feel to do this to themselves.

There is no reason you as an audience can’t stop supporting this endless vacuum life of never-good-enough by continuing to purchase magazines that perpetuate too-thin-is-beautiful aesthetics.

It’s time that we jump to conclusions. It’s time we get angry that somehow we’ve institutionalized Wasting Away as some kind of beautiful virtue that all women should aspire for, or that we seem somehow justifying the ever-fattening of our society by pleading for “fat acceptance” and talking about “weight discrimination,” instead of tackling both these problems in the education system.

Eating disorders, whether eating ourselves to morbidly obese deaths or wasting away via starvation, kill the soul long before they kill the self.

Kate Moss is famous for having said that nothing tastes as good as being thin feels. Really? She hasn’t had my chicken pot pie, man.

Life is meant to be lived — food savoured, bodies worshipped, comfort enjoyed.

Despite my strong beliefs on these issues, I will lose 30 pounds by next August. But I’ll do it still having beers and burgers, cheese and wine, because those are parts of life I should value too, and without guilt. The thing is? Food isn’t just about eating, it’s about who you’re eating with.

Food is community. Via community, food becomes communication. It’s about soul and companionship, slowing down and focusing on one thing in a moment in a big world. Food has always been the cornerstone to our societies — any society — and their social structure.

Because food and the celebration of it is so integral to our world — look at the dread of Christmas weight, because we all associate the treats with the warmth & glory of the season — people with these afflictions are robbed of much of life’s joy.

When someone suffers an eating disorder, it becomes toxic to every level of their life. They have to lie to loved ones, live duplicitously.  It kills the soul, then the self.

The tragedy here isn’t just that Brittany Murphy is dead.

The tragedy is, we all helped.

If you support the magazines and the industries pushing these unrealistic and perverted ideals of what “beauty” consists of, you’re helping to perpetuate this endless cycle of thin-is-not-thin-enough.

I haven’t bought a single beauty magazine in 10 years, and I’ve never seen obvious hot-chick-vehicle movies, so I know I’m not a part of this endless cycle of stupid. Are you?

Who else do I blame?

Men.

The guys I talk to claim they like “real” women. Oh? Well, Hollywood’s marketing this to you. Where’s your outcry? Where’s your steadfast roar about how great cushion-for-the-pushin’ is? Where’s your willingness to say outloud that a little extra somethin’-somethin’ works for you? Where’s your insistence that a size 10 is a perfect 10?

Because I’m not hearing it.

Instead of all this bullshit “Aww, Brittany, we hardly knew ye” in-mourning-platitudes crap we’ll be hearing for the next week, let’s get real, all right?

Yeah, Brittany, we knew you had an eating disorder. We tried to shame and mock you for it, instead of help you. We didn’t point fingers at the industry that helped make you fitted for a size extra-thin coffin in your 32nd year. We didn’t say to ourselves “Well, she’s not alone, maybe there’s something needing fixing here.”

Because though we’ve said all that shit before it’s obvious we never meant it, because the magazines keep selling, we keep buying, and thin girls keep dying.

Wake the fuck up, world.

It was badly executed from the get-go.* I was medicated out of my mind for my back injury at the time, I didn’t talk enough with my brilliant friends, I didn’t have a good enough plan, and I didn’t even feel entitled to borrow money from an institution — as if them giving me money was some humanitarian act instead of their BUSINESS.

I’ve been literally paying for my mistakes every day since, and instead of resigning myself to the hell of trying to dig out from under an avalanche of STUPID, I’m finally trying to right those wrongs in a here-and-now way that lets me finally move past the hardest period of my life.

Tomorrow, I find out.

In the meantime, I get the smug knowledge of knowing I’ve massively improved my credit score in three years, DESPITE incredible difficulties since — with 5% improvement in less than a year. Methinks it looks good — I’ll have some kind of resolution, it’s just a matter of degrees as to how many of my current stresses the treatment can absorb

I have hope this morning. Hope is good. I haven’t had a lot of it, not on the financial side of things, for a really long time. The credit score thing? You don’t understand how huge that is for me. Even the bad guys say I’ve been kicking ass. Cool.

The whole hope thing? Began Friday night, before the bank. And it’s kind of funny and sad and woeful and exuberant all at the same time, because, really, it’s such a stupid little thing: me buying a nice warm down-filled coat and a pair of fur-lined winter boots.

A huge, huge weight lifted off my shoulders with just that one, small, under-$100 purchase — a warm coat and a pair of boots.

You see, last winter I blew my back out in October. I had money for a short period, until Christmas, but I was in agony — I couldn’t even buy groceries comfortably, let alone try on boots. Then, money evaporated, times got hard again, and I had to get through what was the worst Vancouver winter in anyone’s memories without proper winter gear while being in considerable chronic pain until about March.

I was cold, I was always tired, always in pain, always scared I’d get caught in the wrong storm at the wrong time. Scared I’d get sick and wouldn’t be able to afford to take the time off, because I’d had to use so much time with my back. Scared I’d have to get through Hard Shit mostly alone again.

I doubt there are a lot of people who really know what it’s like to live in fear of the elements for an entire winter, but those of us who understand that fear… man. You don’t get what buying that warm jacket the next winter means. How it feels.

I’m safe now.

I was never really “unsafe”. I had my home. But if you don’t even have the means or ability to clothe yourself, well, you’re left feeling pretty fucking vulnerable all the same.

Today, though, I’ll put on my swelteringly warm coat and feel gratitude as the wind’s whipping me all to bits and the rain’s slamming down, breaking November rainfall records here on the Wet Coast. It’s ironic, a windstorm raging ahead of finding out if I finally get some winds of positive change blowing through for me.

It feels good. I’m close. I’m getting there.

Money’s the thing I still need to overcome in life. I was raised always scared we’d be broke soon. I’ve always been Just On The Other Side of Black. It’s not like I’m some wild shopper racking up bills for boots I don’t fucking need or splurging on restaurants or anything. My overspending might be $6 on lunch today, but it still hurts me. I’m THAT close. I’m that spread thin on a month-in, month-out basis. Have been, for years.

Why? Because I’ve been under-employed & over-expended for years — not at my employers’ fault, either. Just dumb luck. In five years, I’ve blown my knee out three times, nearly died once with STYLE, could’ve been killed one other time, blew my back out, badly strained my right rotator cuff, had bronchitis about six times, and, oh, right, had a massive head injury that erased 6 months of my life. I haven’t really been healthy or fit or strong for more than a couple months at a time since about 1998.

Yeah, I’ve worked a little less than I maybe could have. I’d hate to see what working more than I have would have done for me.

Despite it all, I’ve improved my credit rating, I’ve overcome EVERY injury, I’ve gotten my brain back, I’ve lost 70 pounds, I’ve not only kept but improved my home, and I’ve done a few other things besides.

But on paper?

I have no collateral, I’m not impressive. I’m just some chick getting by. Some chick who nearly cried as she enjoyed a nice warm jacket on Friday night.

You want gratitude? Fucking appreciate what you have.

I appreciate everything I have. Every goddamned thing. I’m grateful I’m alive, I’m hopeful I’m on the verge of finally getting past everything that’s held me down for 10 years. I know what it’s like to almost lose my home. I know what that FEAR feels like.

Tomorrow’s a big day. Today’s a big muddle of waiting. If it goes through tomorrow, I won’t have any extra money to spend on myself, less credit under my belt, no cash to get the camera I’m dying to buy, but you know what?

Awesome. Fuckin’ A. Bring it. I’ll take Zero Changing But What’s On Paper. I’m still grateful for what I have and the chance that’s on my doorstep.

Today I spend in existential limbo nonetheless — whipped by winds and rains, left thinking about my own winds of change. And Tuesday. Tomorrow, you really are only a day away.

I’ve been so wrapped up in being so tightly confined by my money woes for so long that I can’t even write these days. I just need a change of scene, less worry, less stress, less being stretched from payday to payday like some feeble financial Gumby who’s just there for bankers’ amusement  — “Just how far can she stretch THESE pennies this week, campers?”

But most of all, what getting this debt consolidated will mean is, a little more self-respect.

It’s hard, you know? I’ve achieved SO FUCKING MUCH compared to those folks who’ve had everything handed to them or at least just found doors sitting wide open for ‘em, breezed through school, got a good job, lost no one, had good health, never had to really overcome Big Things… and, yet, because they’re situated nicely, or never had the injury troubles and shit to prevent them from earning the bucks, they’re considered more real “successes” than I am, ‘cos I’m filing in the lower-middle-class tax bracket. I’d like to say fuck that shit, but it’s the way our world works and I’m stuck in the rotation, like it or no.

Frank Sinatra sang that you’re nobody until somebody loves you.

Nah. Wake up, Skippy. You’re nobody until the bank loves you.

Even when you kick as much ass as I do.

*This loan experience is with the same bank — and a 180-degree difference.

I’m having a dislike-myself day. Or is it discontent with myself? ‘Cos I like myself way much and feel it’s worth taking action to end some of the feelings I’ve got today.

The content of my internal dialogue today is staying internal, I’m afraid. No nitty-gritty deets for you people.

But this sort of happens every time I approach a new era of change in my life. When I start it, it’s shaky and it’s more failure than it is success. I fall down. A lot. I fuck up. Constantly. And every time I fuck it up, I follow that up with beating myself up.

I’m gentle in the beating. I get moody and angry, though. Mostly because I know I’m better than this. I’m no stranger to accomplishing what I want. I’m also no stranger to not wanting things bad enough and walking away in frustration.

I know where my shortcomings lie, and it’s times like these that they mushroom.

The reason the loathing becomes so great, too, is that I know just how much restraint and dedication I’ve shown to things in the past, so I’m frustrated by HOW HARD it is to get back into a routine where I have more success on a weekly basis than I do failure. I miss that.

The reality is, I’m not even failing. I’m just sucking a bit.

There’s a big difference between sucking and failing, you know. One passes you on a “D” and the other keeps you in the grade again with a big, fat fuckin’ “F”. Also related: The likelihood of Moms and Pops kicking your ass. Justifiably.

So, I’m just sucking. I’m probably getting about a “C” right now, if I had to grade myself. And, you know, grading yourself? Awesome. Next time you feel like the world’s biggest asshole because something isn’t going your way, be objective and think “What if I were a teacher and this was someone else’s attempt I had to grade? What then?”

Because a little levity and objectivity goes a long ways. Me, I get WAY too tough on myself, but sooner or later I try to adopt an outsider’s point-of-view, take a breath, and try again.

All of my struggles right now happen to be with wanting to cut back on blowing money on things like wine and eating out — both of which I’ve failed at during my birthday week… in a BIG way — and I want to get my exercising, housecleaning, and writing onto a schedule.

Oh, no, I don’t ask too much at all, right? Holy shit. I know. It’s like:

Steff’s To-Do List: Become perfect. THIS WEEK. Do it, fucker.

So, yes, every now and then I have to give myself a headshake and remember these things don’t happen overnight.

The other day, a friend was telling me about this teakettle she bought, and how it’s been two weeks and she still keeps forgetting to flip the safety switch that prevents it from just turning on all willy-nilly. I say to her, “Two things, one, welcome to almost-30, and, two, it takes 21 days to form a new habit.”

I’m objective giving HER advice, right? But when it comes to me, it’s all “BE PERFECT. NOW.” Sieg heil. I’m only trying to change EVERYTHING.

I take comfort in that I’m probably not the only person out there who goes all “Jawohl, Mein Kommandant!” on themselves. There’s a reason the self-help section outsells sex at the bookstore by 3:1.

So, tonight I’m trying again to tackle a gameplan that will allow me to have health, money, and time ALL in check for the whole week, if I just get it right — I’m spending tonight and tomorrow cooking a bunch of stuff (my brother’s coming to help tomorrow) that will be a healthy, cheap menu plan for a whole week of lunches and dinners. Then I can work, work out, and write every day without having to worry about the food/spending thing getting out of whack.

It’s funny how some life changes come with a lynchpin, if you look hard enough for the commonalities in what you’re trying to accomplish.

And that’s why the self-loathing I was beginning to feel (but now that I realize I’m getting a solid “C” and the folks won’t kick my ass, just frown a little, I’m feeling MUCH better) always comes up — because I know exactly what I need to do to be more successful, and I know I have it in me to be it.

But instead of sitting around and feeling like an asshat, I’m opting instead to get this shit done. Get a plan, make it happen, right? Simple. And if you fuck it up, regroup and do it again, but better. Suck a little less, and it means you’ve made progress. That’s the part to focus on. The p-r-o-g-r-e-s-s, not how much of the mountain’s left to climb; that’s your reality, live it, don’t dwell on it, you know?

And I’ve been making progress. But then I had a birthday and went a little wild. The last time I went this far off-track leading up to my birthday, it was 2007 and it set the pace for losing 50 pounds in a year, starting the week before Thanskgiving — which is next Monday, here in Canuckistan.

So my outlook could be worse. ;)

Jawohl, mein Kommandant, I know; there’s work to be done. I’m on it.

I hadn’t given the idea that much thought until the recent days.

See, the thing about legacies is, they don’t just happen. They take years — often, decades — to carve out. Who we are, who we were, isn’t just some momentary snapshot — it’s a grainy 8mm movie that never stops playing.

Every day we have opportunity to contribute more to  our lives. Every day is another stroke on the canvas of our legacy, another swath of colour or texture that contributes to the work of art that is our life.

These days, I’m caught in a nasty swirlie of knowing the choices I need to make in order to realize the legacy I want to leave behind. Books don’t write themselves, words don’t land on your screen like fruitflies in your wineglass. Isolation is needed. Sometimes that isolation turns into hours spent writing, sometimes it’s a wasted opportunity. Much like life.

And I don’t like that I need to make those choices. I don’t like that I somehow lost my whole social summer because I couldn’t balance what I had going on and incorporate socializing into it as well. It pisses me off that I can’t manage to be more social yet accomplish everything I want to accomplish. I’m angry that I have to be torn between these things.

Yes, I like my alone times. But I also enjoy having my cake and eating it too. I’m a greedy sensualist; not only do I want it all, but I can taste it all in anticipation.

But I can’t do it all. Not anymore. Choices have to be made, or I’m spread far too thin. Girl can’t be everything to all people, and often barely can be enough for herself. Shouldn’t I have more energy than I do? But I guess my days and weeks are as heady and hard as they sometimes feel. Life feels like an unending obligation, sometimes.

It just can’t remain this way, not indefinitely. I need to find it in me to do the work that needs doing. Most of that means just finding time.

I’ll be undertaking a drastic schedule change this week, as I start early-morning shifts that will leave me free after 3pm a few times a week. It’s all in the guise of attempting to manage my time better.

“Time management.” It’s the laughable modern Holy Grail. A myth. Everything is geared toward it now. “30-minute meals”, smart phones, fast food, TiVo — everything is supposed to help contribute to “convenience” in our lives. Instead, we all get busier, busier, and busier, and life slips away ever faster. None of us gets done in a day what needs to be done. Why? Because a world of distraction was built around us, obligations layered upon obligations.

Last year I read a fantastic novella by the much under-appreciated British writer Jim Crace, A Gift of Stones, about life at the end of the Stone Age. What did people do then? They caught and raised their food, prepared it, they practiced their livelihood, and they talked to people around them. That was the human condition, that’s all there was. They all had the same obligations every day: Sustain thyselves, sustain thy livelihood, know thy fellow man.

A part of me longs for that. An old rickety home in the country filled with lush comfortable belongings, where I spend my nights writing, listening to the wind playing tricks with trees and dogs yapping in the distance. A place where life can stand still and one day bleeds into the next, where lazy mornings aren’t filled with a feeling of torn lack and longing, where the urban world doesn’t speed at me day in and day out.

I like my sheltered life sometimes, but because of my ADD tendencies and my proximity to Just About Everything In The City, I’m constantly left feeling torn, like so much is happening that I’m missing out on — movies and concerts and coffeeshops. “What am I missing tonight?” is something I’ll often find myself wondering on writing nights.

Yet I’ll have these phases where I experience so much, am out so often, that I get burnt out and long for the quietude of my little home again.

Then along comes some conversation where I’m enlightened about the Buddhist eulogy-of-a-life-lived exercise, the questions rear up and I find myself wondering how unsatisfied I’ll be with myself and the life lived if this — quiet mornings, wind whipping through my apartment, typing in my bare feet, as the last days of summer slip away — represents the status quo for too much of that life.

Balance is always the conundrum. How does one find it? Does one ever? For me, I probably never will. I’ll always feel torn by the duality of who I am — good with people but ultimately comfortable being left in solitary thought, too.

I suppose it’s ultimately like chocolate and a diet. Cutting back is essential to your success, but enjoying it is essential to your soul. Never exclude anything entirely, and never overdose on it, either. Too much all the time means you never appreciate it when you have it; you take it for granted. But occasionally enjoying it, when it’s quality over quantity, fills the soul a little and makes the lonely hours in wait that much more worthwhile.

How much will others contribute to the life I will have lived? How much will I let them in, over the years to come? How much will I give to them, be with them, and appreciate them? And vice versa?

I turn 36 this week. If statistics are to believed, my life isn’t even half-over. Yet I’m in that week-before-my-birthday midlife crisis that always come my way. So few of us lead the lives we’ve imagined for ourselves, but is it a life we’re happy to be living?

My complaints are small, typical, and nothing worth breaking a dream over. I used to say I had no regrets, but the older I get, the more the small and infrequent regrets seem to snowball and crash into the reality of my life. Sure, I have regrets. I have a lot of the regrets had by many people who get stuck on the financial tightrope of lower-middleclass life. I wish I could travel more. I wish I could dine out more. I wish I could know what a real spending spree felt like. Most of my regrets have dollar-signs attached, which is to say, they’re regrets that won’t break my heart anytime soon.

I commented to a friend once that I’d love to have the trappings of success, but could never live in the trap of success.

The truth is, when I do look back at the choices I’ve made — the ones that have left me happier in my off-hours and more broke because I’ve chosen a low-paying low-stress low-demand job, so I can enjoy my day-to-day, despite the ways it causes me to cut back and miss out on the perceived things we’re supposed to live for, well… I’m pretty comfortable living with those regrets.

We all pay prices for the choices we make. At least I know, and can live with, the prices I’ve paid.

Because, if nothing else, at this point in my unorthodox life, I really have managed to do it my way. Broke, not far from home, but my way. And if I can pull a Sinatra and make that claim when I’m in my 80s and gumming my food, then all the regrets in the world won’t mean fuck all against the quiet satisfaction I’ll feel if I go to my grave singing Frank’s brassy classic under my last raspy breaths.

And I must. I must drink the Kool-aid.

The simple reality of my life right now is, I can’t afford to have one. I’m sick of constantly living in the red. Black, baby. Black is the new black.

I also have a book to write.

Both of these require staying home. A lot. A real, real lot. It requires less alcohol, eating more simply, managing my time better, and being organized from top to bottom.

I’m making more progress on all of the above, but there’s something missing, and I know this. Couldn’t figure it out.

Just now, it hit me — I stay home, and I secretly wish I hadn’t. I’m not productive enough about it. Or, I haven’t been. I don’t do it with vigour — I don’t plan for the act of staying home and make it rewarding in a way that feels like it’s a choice.

For instance, I took a moment just now to scan for movies with TiVo. Now I’ve got a couple quirky movies to watch tonight, one that I’m just beaming about because I never even knew it existed. My mother would be in the glory if she could hang with me and check it out — Murder by Death, from 1976, starring Peter Falk, Truman Capote, etc. A noire comedy about a writer who stages a murder for fun one weekend. Or something. Ooh! Fun.

But I also need to schedule more time to write. We full-time employees-in-fields-other-than-writing need to do such silly things. Nonetheless, writing is clearly returning to me. It’s teasing me a little more often and prodding me into action. It has been a long, long while since the art of wordsmithing has held much appeal. And to actually be able to say what jumbly thoughts are swirling in this big brain of mine, well, that’s extremely satisfying. It’s also very rare, so one must use it or lose it.

Inspiration? Fickle bitch.

You don’t fuck with inspiration. When she’s coming to you, you take her in and do what she wants you to do. You don’t argue, you go there, you find the time for her, and you milk her for every moment for all she’s worth, because you just never know when next she’ll be that good for that long again. Or if.

And I feel I’m getting onto my game. This is gold time, it’s time to work.

Another week of Indian Summer, and they say the fall will then roll in. And I’ll be ready. After all, I’m single, I have no kids, my job is flexible — there’s never been a better time for me to be full-on writer-girl.

You can’t just make choices to act in life — you have to believe in what you’re doing. I’ve been torn for a really long time. I like being more social, I like cutting myself some slack for a change and working less.  I’ve really enjoyed my mental break from things, I think it’s started to fire some new writing wants. I’m enjoying the outlet of words again, and it’s been a long time since I’ve enjoyed writing for this blog as much as I’m beginning to now. But that’s the life of a blogger. Cyclical.

Tonight I’ll find some steak, have a salad and some wine. Enjoy some of my movie, and spend some time working on my outline. I obviously have a great body of work to mine and sort through on this blog. I need to find the time… and the wherewithal… to spend a whole night or two reading over the last four years of writing on here. There’s four MEGS of compressed postings on here, more than about 1,500 posts, averaging 800 words per. Um, yeah. Then there’s the other blog of mine, another 1,600 or so posts over five years.

That’s a lot of yourself and your life to relive, you know. Some crazy waters under that bridge.

See, when I reread my work, it’s different than your experience of it. This is probably true of every writer. But because I write some pretty personally revealing work that shares a lot yet only barely skims the surface, when I reread my work, the reality surrounding that post at that time in my life, that floods back over me. I remember it on many more layers, and I don’t need to read between the lines — I built the fucking lines.

But to go there, I need to own that I’m finally on this mission of doing this book I’ve been working toward. (I have not been able to start it before now, even if I’d wished to; you’ll know why later, one day.)

I need to become solitary writer ninja girl. For realz. I need to read through all my work with the realization that none of that shit can ever hurt me again. It’s in my past, it’s there, and being scared to go there? Pfft, what good’s that doing me? I should be proud to go there. I lived through that shit. I did that. When I remember where I was five years ago this month, I’ve accomplished BEYOND a lot.

Oh, right, by the way, it’s been the five-year anniversary of my almost-death and head injury from when I flew off my scooter and landed on my head in an intersection. (That tale has been posted below this posting.) I’ve been thinking a lot about the life I’ve lived in five years, and I’m only now appreciating the magnitude of it all. Five years of that, man. Five non-stop years. Wild.

But times are good. And choices have been made. Changes have happened. Momentum has come. And there’s Kool-aid for drinking.

Bottoms up.