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.

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.

As the ceremonies occurred, protesters tried to push their way there, and the inevitable clash with authorities ensued. Two cops suffered minor injuries, but no protesters were harmed.

Here’s my thinking, okay?

Vancouver’s a leftist city. If you want to live here, you probably shouldn’t be a conservative-minded person. We don’t have a lot for you that way.

Greenpeace was born here. Charities and human rights organizations thrive here, volunteerism and activism are big. Lonely Planet claims our Commercial Drive is even Canada’s counterculture capital.

And I fucking love it.

I love living in a city that believes in a better world. I love living in a city that wants to be a part of the solution, that embraces the arts and humanities.

Maybe the city management needs to get on page with those qualities more, but I believe they have been gradually headed there — in the last decade anyhow, more so in the last year.

Mayor Larry Campbell began some good things in Vancouver. He quit, the post went to the next victor, Sam Sullivan, who I really hated in a lot of ways, but Sam continued Insite, the safe-injection heroin site responsible for the lot of positive developments on our Downtown East Side, the area notorious for heroin, AIDS, crime, and third-world poverty. Now we have “Mayor Gregor” Robertson, who’s already trying to make small but important changes on the East Side. More beds are available for homeless, a lofty environmental plan has been born, and the city’s on the verge of its most leftist, humane era ever. IMHO, anyhow.

People around the world NEED to realize that Vancouver’s Downtown East Side is a horrible place to have to live your life — in some ways — but it’s also a community with a strong and vibrant heart. A broken society doesn’t mean the broken people can’t offer an amazing contribution to society — and it’s breathtaking to see the positive steps the DES has taken in the seven years since the Games were won by Vancouver.

There have been a LOT of improvements. And there’s SO far to go yet.

So, I absolutely support ANYONE’s endeavour to improve the DES. I support a lot of issues the “protesters” are rallying against during these games.

I just don’t support their methods.

I can HATE the way their fight is being waged while supporting the causes at heart — not as rabidly as they do, but enough that I feel their voice is necessary.

So, sure, I support the arguments to an extent, but what don’t I support?

I don’t appreciate angry protesters who shout down opponents. I despise activists who have moral superiority because of the virtue of their political views. I deplore people who seek remedies to their causes while failing to respect the rights and allowances of others they deem as being “better off”.

I hate hypocrisy.

And that’s a lot of what I see in the “professional protester” class of agitator here in Vancouver.

It crushes me!

THESE ARE SERIOUS ISSUES. They need to be heard! They need to be shown! The world needs to see that we have a homeless problem, because it’s the rest of the country shipping their homeless here for our “mild” climate that has caused our problem. Our federal government NEEDS to be accountable to all its citizens, and BC can’t foot the bill for “transplanted problems” from other provinces.

Yesterday, the agitators decided they wanted to BLOCK the torch relay. So what’d they do? They made the torch relay have to divert from the worst area of the Downtown East Side.

For other Olympics, they try to avoid their shame. Here in Vancouver, we had a route planned that would run through the most impoverished areas of the city, including ALL our citizens, showing the world a city can be fractured and yet together.

Until, that is, protesters decided they knew what was right for the whole of the Downtown East Side, and they blocked the torch, prevented the route from going through, and instead of torch commentators around the world saying, “Hey, wow, Vancouver’s showing us their famed DES, the torch is running past homeless people, being carried BY a homeless man!”, we found ourselves just talking about these asshole protesters.

And that’s the problem. The protest isn’t even about the people anymore, it’s about hearing their own voices.

When you fight your fight with little or no regard to what’s important to other people that you’re NOT fighting for — instead of fighting FOR something, you start fighting against everything.

Please, if you see wrongs in the world, SAY SOMETHING about it.  I goddamned well do, and you know it.

But don’t disrespect others. Don’t hurt others. Don’t shout down people to their face. Don’t damage property. Don’t assume you have the moral high ground. Don’t mock others for disagreeing. Don’t think you’re always in the right.

Don’t be a fucking asshole.

I mean, dude, it’s a short list.

Fight from a place of respect. Fight from a place of righteousness, but not arrogance. Allow that society can be a place that accommodates many viewpoints.

And once you master how to fight properly, please, for the love of god, don’t go developing shortsighted vision.

Don’t only look at how far you have left to go for succeeding, but remember how much worse it was before you began.

I’ve lived here. I know the DES is a bad, bad place sometimes. But it’s a far better place than it was. There’s hope there now. There’s change happening. Yes, it’s slow, but any productive, longterm change does take a long time to implement if it’s going to be done well.

Life’s filled with enough assholes. I don’t care if you have great political causes — if you disrespect people to make your point, you’re an asshole.

Yesterday, I stopped to listen to protest speeches at the Art Gallery. I’m glad I did! I appreciate their viewpoint, I admired their passion!

But when I saw protesters crossing the Art Gallery lawn and yelling ragefully at pro-Games people, my appreciation stopped.

Then, my “Who the FUCK do YOU think YOU are?” mentality took over, and I stopped caring what they said. I stopped supporting it.

And these issues are far too important to be fought by people so intent on angering the other side.

It’s tragic.

That’s why I’m so pissed off. I want the fucking idiot agitators to shut the fuck up so the people who know how to passionately argue their point, who are intelligent and accessible, who know the issues and don’t use propaganda to spur their points — I want THEM to get screen-time on coverage. I want THEM to be heard by the world. I want THEM to offer opposing views that make people think worldwide.

When people HEAR these issues we have, they have empathy. This is not a hard-sell set of social problems! You tell someone “Hey, this guy can only afford a $200 room every month, it’s crawling with roaches, the water’s unsafe, people are shooting crack, heroin, and leaving needles everywhere” — it’s pretty hard for them to go, “Oh, whatever.” The reaction is the same, that we all deserve better.

The MESSAGE isn’t a hard sell.

So why are these assholes selling it so hard, assailing others, disrespecting anyone who isn’t with them? They’re the George Bush “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” types of the protesting world.

But agitators, they’re not going to get an audience. They’re not going to win this fight. I don’t know if they’re even gonna make any headway at all.

And that’d be a fucking tragic crime. The world’s here. Get your shit together, make your point constructively, and please, let’s gain something from all this and find a way to attain a new goal we need to work together toward as a city.

Spraying pepperspray at cops when there’s no fucking reason to… what’s that accomplish?

There’s protesting and there’s agitating. It’s time BC’s demonstrators figure that out and stop including the assholes who make them all look bad. ‘Cos we all know it’s a small percentage who are this brand of fuckwit, and it’s unthinkable that they’re preventing these protests from resonating.

Don’t like my viewpoint? Fine. Don’t tell me I’m against freedom of speech. I’m not. Have you seen the amount of balls-all-out postings I’ve written on politics and everything else? I value my freedoms.

I’m not against freedoms.

I’m against selfish assholes who think they’re morally superior to everyone that disagrees with them — whether they’re on the right OR the left.

That’s what I’m against.

[Photos are shot by me.]

But I guess it’s time for my annual rant against the Big Machine and the perpetuation of the belief that, hey, if it’s love, it’s worth going broke for.

I know men buy gifts because they feel obligated. I know women usually like receiving the gifts. I just wish both sides of this equation would get over the bullshit and just accept it’s not really doing a lot of good for either of them.

Relationships die because either people change or they just don’t want to work on the relationship anymore. Not because a diamond ring wasn’t forthcoming soon enough.

Having one big pompous night of obligatory romance isn’t going to save shit.

In reality, if you’re doing Valentine’s because the pressure is on, and you’re not really feeling it as a couple, going out and being around all the sickingly “happy” couples isn’t going to help you find your happy place, no matter how big your magnifying glass is.

If you want your relationship to work, it takes that effort week-in, week-out.

Here in Vancouver, it’s Olympics time.

The foolish people will still be trying to book romantic evenings out. Sure, great. Want to know how that’ll unfold? Rain’s forecasted. Parking’s virtually impossible as the Olympics OPEN this week with an expected daily influx of 4 Super Bowls worth of traffic. Oh, and it’s Chinese New Year Sunday, too, which, when you have the Asian population WE have, is a big thing as well.

In one of the most expensive cities going, prices everywhere are jacked for “special event pricing” for at least the next week.

Is it really worth it? Seriously?

It’s not too late to be non-traditional.

Order from indish.ca by tomorrow for a $92 gourmet meal for two with dessert’n'everything. You get it delivered, throw dinner together, throw your partner on the floor, shag like silly, and eat in between. Or maybe that’s my approach, but you can certainly wing something, I’m sure. I hear people like eating at tables, too, so you could always give THAT a try. Radical, I know, but…

Do an adventure day like ziplining. Be a tourist in your town. Try getting couples’ photography done by someone like Nordica here in Vancouver. By the end of it, you’ll have something that reflects an entire time in your life, or a great memory of a Different Day,  rather than a night that breaks your wallet and probably won’t be that original.

Or screw the calendar and commit to a date night a week for X amount of weeks instead — weekly connecting on a bigger level will pay off with bigger results. Communicate on purpose, plan ahead, make it fun stuff you’ve both been wanting to do, not your standard dinner-movie deal.

This year, maybe it’s time to have a real conversation about “Valentine’s” Day and see if it’s really something you need to bother with. Maybe you just need to re-commit to each other and make a decision to explore more fun sex on occasions, and discuss how you’d like to try that approach, or take the time to enjoy good homecooked-together meals, or just find a way to express each other’s value in words and actions, not just suffer maxed-out credit cards.

The Big Machine’s out there telling people like me we’re broken ‘cos we’re not scooped up by some fabulous lover already. It’s banging the message down our throat — a diamond is forever, you’re nobody till somebody loves you, yada-fuckin’-yada.

And every year people gripe and moan about it, saying, “Oh, it’s an unnecessary day! They’re just milking us!”

And, YET, like little lemmings and their sheepy friends, back out you go, buying the Valentine’s Day gift or sucking up the overpriced meal for a perceived “romantic” night spent in the company of complete strangers, being served by someone who’d rather be at home shagging their lover.

Yeah.

People fuckin’ baffle me. Don’t like the day? DON’T PARTICIPATE. Or else shut up about it. The hypocrisy is blinding me.

But, for the love of god, if you ARE in a relationship, know this: It deserves more, and better, than one stupid night of recognition.

If you have love in your life, cherish it. Show it the respect it deserves. Be the best partner you can be to your lover. And do NOT underestimate the importance of a GREAT sex life to keeping your relationship happy.

Anyone selling the “Oh, sexless relationships are good too” mantra needs a fucking reality check.

Sex matters. Communication matters.

Trinkets do not. Overpriced restaurants do not.

Be real with each other.

Maybe that starts with NOT doing Valentine’s like usual.

Maybe next year you can play with the big kids like me and realize it’s not a day you need in your life at all.

Especially if you know how to lock the doors, avoid the world, and spend a weekend wrapped up in each other with nothing but delivery food, fuzzy blankets, and DVDs you probably won’t actually see a lot of.

But, you know, you wanna fuck around with that four-star joint, parking when it’s nearly impossible, and stressing about making a reservation time instead of just enjoying each other? Okay. You do that.

When it comes to me sitting around wishing I had someone in my life, though, I won’t be wishing we could spend more time driving around parkades trying to find a spot or being proper with the fancy people as some annoying waiter tells me what the specials are.

When it comes around to me wishing what I had? It’d be lazy Sunday mornings burrowing into each other, or that night when cancelling all the plans in order to close all the curtains and lie around with each other just BEING there.

Well, I’ve always been a little odd. Maybe I’m the one who’s all messed up, ‘cos I still think simple things are the best things.

I’m so last century it hurts. But it’s an easier way to live.

Great thing is, you can choose to be that way too.

“The sound of a cougars claws slipping down the slope called age.”

That was the comment in its entirety, aside from quoting the entire paragraph under the blockquote-box’s question.

It pissed me off. Why?

I’m the anti-cougar. I wear Chuck’s All-Stars, not stilettos. I like concert t-shirts and trendy shirts with nice cuts, not revealing tight-skimpy things. I’ve never had a microskirt or a tube skirt. You know? I don’t flirt much, as I wrote about in this piece I called Flirting Fail.

I’m not saying I’m fail. I’m just not the stereotype, is what I’m saying. I like myself just fine, thanks. The world has plenty of busty chicks in tube tops.

But let’s leave that aside. You know what really pisses me off?

That it’s the mere fact I’m a woman over 30 who has more than a passing interest in sex that has left me judged a “cougar” by this stupid ass.

Every guy out there wants a woman who’s a feisty beast in the bedroom and Doris Day outside of it, if my 36 years of experience on this planet has any validity.

The trouble is, the moment a woman becomes overt in her sexuality at all, she’s judged as being a Different Kind Of Woman. She’s in some other class. She gets hurt less, is easier, can be acted around differently. The stereotypes are fucking ridiculous.

And the further trouble is, the women who ARE overtly sexual at a younger age, so many of them are using that sexuality to compensate for what they perceive to be shortcomings in other areas, because the REST of the younger girls are all freshly raised to believe that Women Who Like To Do It Are Whores.

This is changing a little, but not enough.

Women are still defined morally by what they like sexually. Men aren’t. Women are.

It’s a huge hurdle for women to get over. Every chick probably can tell you an experience when they felt absolutely disrespected or judged for some small little thing to do with sex or how they were dressed. And when that happens, it reaffirms all those moralistic preachings by our suburban parents about just what it is that Good Girls DON’T Do.

If men want more women to be comfortable with their sexuality, this hypocritical bullshit needs to stop.

They need to stop judging averagely sexual women, or sensual women, as if their morals are somehow different just because the enjoyment level for sex is more obvious than with others.

Authentic cougars — you know, women who are all about the sex or who value themselves only according to how well their sex life is going, like “Sam” in Sex In The City — are a stereotype and can be mocked a little. Anyone who allows themselves to fit squarely into a stereotype kind of deserves a bit of mockery, honestly, whether a horticulturalist or a hussy.

But making the mistake of thinking you know someone’s ethics or morality just based on their views on sex is about as fucking dumb as it gets.

Me, I have a sometimes-sex blog. Sure. I got skillz. You betcha. I’m able to write about sex in a way that has edumacated folks in the past.  (Like some of the oral sex how-to’s on this page.) But I barely date. I don’t sleep around. I like relationships. I’m never very public about my sexuality apart from things I talk or write about; I don’t flirt particularly well. I’m not a seductress. I’ve never cheated on a man. I bake muffins for boyfriends, giggle at their jokes, and get along with their mothers. I say please and thank you, I hold the door open for old ladies. I pay my taxes. I keep in touch with my dad, cared for my dying mother. Used to sing in the choir. Was a Girl Guide Leader and a Pathfinder Leader. I sing a wicked “Kumbaya.” I don’t have a criminal record, I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never tried a drug harsher than pot or drank gin.

But, yep, sex is a good thing. In many, many ways.

If you judge me on the fact that I’m a little dirty-minded versus EVERYTHING else I am, you’re a fucking moron. Flat-out. Hands down. And you’re missing out on probably one of the best friends you could have, the sort of person who’s a lock for a 3a.m. body-removal crew. Ethically, morally, I live to a higher standard than most people I know. I’m so old-fashioned it hurts. I demand better from people in my life, because I’ll deliver it, too.

Still, that sex thang, man. Always a good thing. And often.

Now, I haven’t been laid for at least one whole calendar, and it ain’t doing me no good at all, but that’s life and it hasn’t been something I’ve really tried to change because I was very disinterested for a long time. It sure as hell disqualifies me from “cougar” running, that’s one thing I know.

But go ahead. Call me a cougar.

Insult me for advocating that ALL women should be more in touch with their sexuality.

Deride me for asserting that no matter how “moral” we are, sexuality’s an awesome thing to enjoy in life and necessary for a full life.

Mock me for believing that society would be a greater and more productive place if everyone put as much focus on their sex life and communication as they did on making money.

You want to know why so many women keep their sexuality closeted, or why so many women won’t bring themselves to even masturbate, let alone get crazy with positions or initiating things? Because they still get shamed too much of the time. If women aren’t comfortable in their sexuality and don’t feel encouraged to grow sexually, they won’t masturbate. If they don’t masturbate, they’ll never learn what works for turning them on, or gain the physical comfort level needed for women to reach orgasm, and that’s why so many women never even orgasm until well after their 30s.

Because of the bullshit being spouted by hypocrites — whether it’s from asshole moralists in pulpits or men who don’t have the guts to own their own sexuality, THAT’S why.

Why women have SO MANY hang-ups is because of the mixed messages we’ve received for centuries. Bend over/BEHAVE. The church has done it, our parents have done it, our lovers have done it, and society as a whole still does it.

Let’s embrace real, healthy, vibrant sexuality. Let’s realize that’s a completely different thing from the bubblegum whorey girls who are using sex to get somewhere because they have nothing else to offer.

Sexuality comes in many different styles. If you’re gonna judge anyone for being that way, you might just be missing out on what could be a pretty wild journey of discovery. All of us, every one of us, unfolds differently when it comes to being physical. This ain’t no mass-produced experienced. It’s a unique thing with each person.

Don’t judge. Be open.

Life’s a hell of a lot more fun that way.

And I’m not a cougar, dummy.

This year, when adversities come your way — and they will — remember that quote.

That’s the one piece of knowledge that has gotten me through every experience in my life.

I’m not a self-help guru. I’m not one of these preachers of positivity and “yay, MANTRA!” people. They have their place, sure, but it’s just not my bag. I’ve been through too fucking much to just think you can smile every morning and it makes it better. There’s some degree of control you have over what you go through, absolutely, but there are times when just surviving that thing is more important than being all “I’m a Believer!” about it. Sometimes just surviving is the greatest thing you’ll accomplish.

Because, sooner or later, it stops being about survival, and then it becomes about journey and technique. How you do it, where you go. Then it’s a choice.

The only thing you can choose to do from the outset, though, is to remind yourself that 20, 30, 50, 70 years is a long damn time, and the experiences can be more than you’ll ever imagine in those times, and you can suffer your way through them or you can learn your way through them. THAT is a choice.

Let’s face it, every time I think, “No, that’s the worst thing I’ll ever experience” or “That’s the last time I ever make that mistake”, I’m wrong. I trump it. One, I’m human. Two, my capacity is infinite. So is yours. I know, now, too, that adversity’s capacity is infinite. Life is hard. It’s really hard.

I marvel over life’s ability to be so cruel yet beautiful to each of us. Endlessly so. It’s like that passage from the English Patient in which the Count says, “Every night I cut out my heart, but in the morning it was full again.”

Just when you think you have nothing, if you look closer, you probably have everything worth having. Then you can close your eyes and remember what people in Port-au-Prince have this week, and the daunting futures they have ahead of them, and their refusal to lie down and die — some hanging on for a week under rubble. Remember what true loss and overwhelming odds are as you go forth, hold that image somewhere, and remember it when you think YOU can’t go on. Because THEY could.

Adversity is how each of us learns. It’s how we’re given the tools to reach our best. It’s how we prove to ourselves which group we belong to when Darwin wrote of the “survival of the fittest”.

I know that more shit will rain down on me before my life ends, hell, probably even before my week ends. But so what? The more it does, the more I enjoy Little Moments of Good, and I realize how much I enjoy the simplicity of life — a surprise sunny afternoon, the right night with a bottle of wine, sleeping in with a clean house, dinner at a friend’s, a spontaneous encounter with someone that makes my day, literally stopping to smell a flower, a small stroke of good fortune, unexpected kindness, happening onto good music when out in the world, that point of the bike ride where I’m all loosened up and just flying over land, a scooter ride on a warm April day, shelter from a blustery winter storm, or even just two minutes standing in my slippers on my balcony as I watch a red sunrise spill over the land.

Life doesn’t need to be big and perfect to be great. It doesn’t need to be in a four-star hotel or Zagat-rated restaurant. It’s not about that shit. Life doesn’t even need to be easy, man. It doesn’t have to be problem-free to be great.

It just needs you to look past your bullshit long enough to remember that, no matter how tough or how endlessly frustrating life seems, in the middle of all that you can find 2, 5, 12 minutes to change the landscape of any given day. It’s your choice to find something worth admiring, experiencing, tasting, or remembering on any given day. You own that ability to give value to those things that you come across. If you choose to see life as a series of routines and obligations, well, it will be.

Eventually you learn that adversity and experience are actually the whole of life. They are what life is about. And EVERYONE has them. EVERYONE faces hardship. Some feel it more than others, some live deeper and more entrenched lives than others, and some take bigger risks and get hurt far more as a result than others. But, at some base level, most of us can identify with each others’ pains.

Our pains aren’t what make us unique.

Our capacity to enjoy life in the face of them is what does.*

*Me, I’m better than I used to be at it. And getting better still. It’s a life challenge, though, isn’t it? And it doesn’t need to be won in the first half.

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”.

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.

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.

1. I know Canada is small, with about 10% of the US population.
2. I doubt many people vote in the Canadian Blog Awards.
3. I’ve checked my in-box, and I’ve still not heard from the Pulitzer Committee.

And yet I’ll write this.

______________

The Canadian Blog Awards nomination for Best Personal Blog in Canada, let alone making it to round 2, has taken me a little by surprise. [Since I didn't nominate myself and found out about it via someone else quite after-the-fact.]

It’s not taking me by surprise because I don’t believe in my writing talent, though.

Why, then? Because I’m kind of apathetic about being read. NO, NO, COME BACK. I don’t mean by YOU.

I love to BE read. I love to know I’ve affected anyone. I like the kinda smirks the boys have when they say they’ve been exploring my archives. I’m proud of the work I do. I don’t phone it in. I worry about my quality. And I don’t for a moment take your interest for granted.

However.

I never, ever market this blog, not beyond the “hey, I have a new post” announcements on Twitter. I don’t read other peoples’ blogs, I don’t comment on theirs’ to drive traffic to mine. I don’t care about getting advertisers or scoring free loot to review. I don’t join blogging communities to get readership support of other writers. I don’t even have fucking “share” widgets on my posts (even though I plan to get drunk and play with those things over the holidays — might as well look the part of a finalist for Best Personal Blog in Canada, eh?).

I just don’t care about that part of it. I want you to find me, read me, and enjoy me, but I don’t want to whore myself to make that happen.

Because then it becomes about the whoring — the contacts, the business, the results, the site traffic — and not the writing.¹

I have the luxury of believing in my writing. I have the gift of having it be important to who I am. Finding your style, that’s… some writers search a lifetime for that. Most just mimic it; you know — find a style you love and run with it. To find your voice and hone it, it’s a writer’s dream. In small, real ways, I live that dream. That’s a great gift for someone as young as I am.

But I’m also old enough to know that we never stay where we are. Like the earth spins on its axis, like the wind never rests, so too is it with our selves and our lives. My writing style, I’ve found it. But delve into the 3,500 postings I’ve written over the last five years, and that style? It’s not just one thing. I’ve dabbled. I wear them all with ease now.

Like a painter has periods over his life — Picasso’s infamous “Blue” period as just one example — so too do writers. We never have to marry to a style or movement; growth is endemic to who we are as craftspeople — ever searching for truth, always looking for patterns.

I have some friends who, through their faith in me and my abilities, push me to chase the golden apple of writing. It makes me smile and I don’t sweat it. I know they think I’m stagnating or not chasing my dreams, but they don’t understand that in some ways I just live it. In others, though… writers age well, like wine and cheeses.

Know what the average age of the first-time novelist is? 34.

Know what any good writing teacher will tell you? “Write a book. Then throw it away. Then write another book. Sell that one.”

Why? Because we’re full of shit until 35. Self-involved, melodramatic. You don’t read writers who don’t understand the world and what makes us move through it. Most of us youthful types, we think we know so much about life.

Me, having been through one fuck of a ride from 25 to 35, I just laugh at the notion that I understood life at all before I hit 34. I really do. I tried, I thought I did, but as it turns out? I didn’t. I do now.

I’ve spent over 3,500 postings, probably a half-million words or more, and thousands of hours, figuring out who I am as a writer. It’s been the journey of a lifetime. Literally.

I understand life now, I don’t ask why I’m here. I just know. I’m here because I am. I live because I can. I do because I must. That’s life. Simple. The whys, the wherefores, they’re only what you make them. Life is truly open for interpretation, and your interpretation will be your epitaph. Make of it what you will.

The older we get, the more we realize how navigable adversity really is. The things that left us shattered at 18 require a few stiff drinks and an all-night chat at 35, followed by a greasy breakfast. That casual comfort with the calamitous happenings of a grown-up life, it tempers one’s urgency in writing too.

When those friends pressure me ever-so-lovingly about writing more or for a vaster audience, I smile inside a little now. This is a recent development.

In a way, I know what my style and my voice are. In that way, I’m ready for Le Big Audience. In another, though… I’m like an amnesiac rediscovering a life I walked away from years ago. Somewhere around age 20, I became a different version of me. This getting-thinner-gradually-over-two-years thing has peeled away as much dense padding from around my heart and soul as it has around my waistline. I know things about myself and my life and my dreams I’d thought were only some hazy vague memory from so long ago. But there’s also new things I’m learning, things about my strength, acceptance, and resilience I never tested before.

Has that changed my writing? I don’t know. I haven’t gone back far enough to study and compare my styles of then versus those of now.

It doesn’t matter to me that much, though. This moment, this is what matters. Where am I at, writing-wise? Where I want to be? Not really. I’m a fan of my work, but I know where I want it to be and this ain’t it. I don’t speak geographically, either.

I think about it sometimes — painter’s style periods — and I wonder what this period of my life will be. Is this when I truly defined the woman I was to become? Is this when I realized that I can believe the hype and take people at their word for how they feel about what I do? Is this when I really came to own the strong woman I knew lived inside, who’d take charge for the next four or so decades?

Boy, would I like to think so.

And that’s why, for me, it’s not about a writing audience today. It’s about the journey.

10 years and 6 months ago, I sat alone on a beach, on a rock, at Cape Foulweather in Oregon, staring at the churning waves crashing nearby, and I made a silent wish. I wished I could write again, I wished I could write something with any significance at all. I was trapped in this bland period where all writing skill escaped me, and unknown to me then, it would persist for another five years.

But I begged the waves to let me be a writer. I remember looking down at the sand between my feet and accepting that, for me, I’d be happy to just write for the rest of my life; that I’d be happy without the financial reward; for me then, writing was the most important thing in my life, something which escaped me.

For me now, writing is the most important thing in my life, something ever-present, that shapes me weekly.

Too bad I have so little time for it these days. Still, it’s there like an old friend — ready when I can cobble a few spare moments together, as comfortable today as it’s ever been — but it’s not my driving force.

I have more that is important to me now than I’ve ever had before — a fuller life, more to draw upon, and more to cherish.

Still, I must write.

With love, skill, and diligence, I believe the money coming is inevitable for anyone who does that which is true to who they are. The commercial success is not yet my concern, a “paid” writing life was never important. It would be nice, but it’s not important.

It’s like Richard Ford, the Pulitzer-prize winning novelist once wrote: “Writing for a living is a privilege, not a God-given right, as the opportunities are few though sought-after by many. There are years of rejection which serve as a crude winnowing process, after which those left standing are those who simply must write.”

After all these years, after all that grief, I still simply must write.

So it’s with great gratitude, then, that I should be nominated for Best Personal Blog, because I write this blog coming from a place of truth for no other reason than to write.

Personal? You bet it is.

Thank you.

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¹ Not that I judge anyone for monetizing their blogs! Go for it! But, me, I’m just living the writer’s life and trying to learn my craft. My world’s too demanding, I have a full-time job that pays my way in life, so throwing myself into marketing when I could be writing? Just priorities, man. But, heck, if you want to advertise here or send me gifts or donate, it’s all right there in the sidebar and on the About Me page. :)