Reliving the Past: Like a Slap to the Face

Disclaimer: this is going to be long.

Don't let the image of a Koala getting punched in the face fool you, this post is actually pretty serious and depressing. How splendid.

I've written posts in the past detailing how over the past couple of years I've gone through varying levels of personal growth - building new perspectives, changing some of my old ways, and with the help of some key individuals, becoming a better person - or so I've been told.

I've always been the type to take things one day at a time, even going to the lengths of detailing how I hate five year plans before, and going slightly off the rails by leaving an open letter with a few harsh words to certain malefactors.

Despite all of my (few) personal advancements there still lingers personal demons, past experiences, mistakes, failures, and history, that at given moments continue to either haunt, or gnaw away at me to this day. After all, the past has a way of catching up with everyone, one way or another - and more often than not it comes about like a sobering dose of reality, often catching you off-guard; like a slap to the face. Sometimes quite literally.

Over the course of November and early December, I spent a considerable amount of time thinking, recollecting and reliving some of the darker portions of my past, notably for a project I presented and handed in for a course at University.

It was the first time I spoke openly on the subject, and the first time I had even discussed it at all, with anyone, in the five years following it. Pardon my being cryptic on the subject, but it's not a subject I like to even broach, let alone air out to the entire series of tubes.

Following the airing of my grievances, I got commended by many for being brave, or courageous for even sharing the experience, and for once in a long while it felt like a great weight had been lifted, at least partially, off of my shoulders. I had opened up on a part of my history which has obviously had a great impact and effect on me, but more importantly, that I had kept locked away, as unhealthy as I know that can be.

It felt good to finally have some room to breathe, and to think back on things in a less negative light - something that a few people helped me do. Of course, as with most everything, there's always a but.

I'm a big proponent of the simple theory that shit happens, and that the world is not without a sense of irony, in the dramatic sense, where the spectators are aware of things that the main players are not. So it's hard for me to understand why exactly, or even how it came to be that this week, I would find myself thrown into the direction of that metaphorical, and literal slap to the face.

After five years of keeping something locked away, I had finally let it off my chest, opened the flood gates so to speak, and despite my own personal anger behind it, gained a better measure of acceptance of it. So it's no wonder how baffled I am at how only a month later I would happen to bump into someone greatly familiar to the situation, who would give me a stark reminder of all the reasons, mostly negative, as to why I had not spoken of it for so long.

You would think that after five years, some individuals dispositions would change. That after all, time heals all wounds. But when I literally got slapped in the face, and berated in public earlier this past week, it just went to prove otherwise; that some things, and some people just don't change. And in this case, it might have been better to let sleeping dogs lie.

Needless to say, getting slapped in the face and told to die - in more or less words - is something that gets you thinking. And usually not about sunshine, rainbows and lollipops. So I'm hoping for a bit of a windfall of change to sweep through the next few weeks, and to hopefully put me on the up. Even though I already know that there's going to be some down moments to come in those next few weeks.

Back in August I said something that I almost nearly forgot I had said, that being:

Change is what I want. Change is what I need. And the time for it might as well be now. But those are just words and talk is cheap, so we'll just have to wait and see. 

So far, for the most part, I'm still waiting. The disheartening part is how close I am to some truly big changes in my life, considering I'm on the fast track to graduating and moving forward with my life.

I've never really stressed much about school, I basically go with the flow, but I'm starting to feel the pressure to finish and to succeed from virtually everyone else. Pressure that's carrying over now not just in my academic life, but my potential future career, potential future everything.

Main problem is I don't see myself as being any further ahead as I was nearly six years ago when I graduated from high school. Who I want to be, where I want to go, what I want to become, are all questions I still don't have answers to, but it seems like everyone else is hinging on me figuring it all out as soon as possible - and that's undue stress that I really don't need right now.

Plus there's all the other little and big things that are constantly on my mind. Good times...

And that's all I have to say about that. - Forrest Gump

- J

Time: Accelerating to Ludicrous Speed

So it's officially been the new year for all of four days now and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it's actually fucking 2011 already.

I don't know about you, but time is a cruel mistress, the cruelest mistress. And I'm not sure why, but apparently mistresses are quite cruel. Jokes aside, the last year flew by at a pretty alarming rate, and much to my chagrin because I didn't get to enjoy most of it.

When you look at how we perceive time, as we get older it just tends to go by faster and faster, with no indication of coming to a plateau at any point.

It's in that sense that it's kind of a raw deal that the the slowest years of our lives are basically deadlocked, from when we're born to about the age of 18-21 years old. What I mean is that first stretch sees us locked away in school, learning life's first lessons and so forth; once we finally get passed all the frivolities of being dumb kids, time turns up the accelerator. That's when life is supposed to get good, and busy - but you're left with the feeling that you're missing out on the time to really enjoy all of it.

It's said that our perception of time between the ages of 21-22 years old and the age of 60 is about the equivalent of the first 18 years of our life. Pretty easy to do the math and see that those latter 40 years go by two times faster than the first leg of our lives.

2011 is supposed to be a milestone year for me, more or less. This Spring/Summer I'll finally have graduated from University, I should be starting my career full-time and who knows what the heck else. Whether all that actually happens remains to be seen, but I can tell you one thing: it's going to happen really fucking fast.

I have the feeling this this year will be the fastest, longest year of my life, and that kind of sucks. My winter semester last year went by blazingly quick and this fall went by equally so. Worse than those two was the fact that my summer months, spent working full-time during the week seemed to go by faster than both combined. So when I say 2010 went by quickly, I start to wonder how fast this year will actually go by.

I'm not really one for New Years Resolutions, I've had the same 'resolution' for the past 5 years: don't die. Pretty simple. But I suppose if there's anything I should resolve to do, it's to try and enjoy this year more, if at all possible.

Last year was a pretty solid year. I got a lot done, accomplished things and grew as an individual, more so than in recent memory. 2011 is definitely on an upward trend, something I'm not used to, so I'll be trying to keep that trend on the up-and-up, rather than letting life's insignificant bullshit drag me down.

Here's to a better year than last year. Same goes for the rest of you classy individuals.

- J

O Jay, Where Art Thou?

So I'm sitting here in one of my friends apartments, unable to sleep, sitting at a laptop that can't play movies and I notice there hasn't really been much going on in the life of Jay - at least according to my recent activity.

My posts have dried up in recent weeks. Fact is that right now it's crunch time in the semester, classes are coming to a close, projects are almost due and Finals will follow. I've also been sick as all hell this past week, so I'm getting my bearings straight.

November was a pretty craptacular month. Despite rocking the Mo for Movember and a trip down to Montreal for a killer show, Suckvember still managed to reign supreme.

December is off to a similar start. The standard school stuff isn't bothering me, I work well enough under pressure and can handle last minute things. But things have a tendency to accumulate. Sufficed to say I have been going through a rough patch, and trying to work on one of my assignments hasn't been helping very much.

Either way I've got about five days to figure things out, to do a lot of thinking and putting some pretty dark and uninspiring past memories into words for an oral presentation that I personally asked to do.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, slightly therapeutic, maybe. In hindsight, I'm starting to think that was a really dumb fucking idea...

When it comes down to it, it'll be less of a question of how I'll do it - but if I actually can. And I think that's the part that I'm dreading the most.

- J

Summer Insights: Crescent Moon, Shining Stars, Rising Sun

Labor Day weekend is usually the time when people take some of their final vacation time and say farewell to the Summer. The days start growing a bit shorter, the air gets a little crisper, the kids go back to school - the status quo resumes.

Sunday night was devoted to the end of summer party amongst our circle of friends. It was a time to kick back, relax, have some brew and say farewell to another short lived sunny season. A time to be among friends and to look forward to the months to come and shed the annoyances of the past - or at least bring them to light.

The night was fun, jokes were made, music was danced to (awkwardly) and people stepped in dog shit - all the makings of a swinging shindig.

There were however also some lower points. The kind involving shitty situations, a dash of self-loathing and a vehement need for venting. Luckily I was in a decent space for said venting, as friends have a tendency of being able to relate to your shenanigans and let you open your proverbial can of worms with some kind of fiery apocalypse breaking out.

At around 4:45AM I took a cab towards home, got out as a gas station, paid my fare and walked the remaining twenty minutes to my house. The street light outside my place was flickering on and off, and in the quasi-darkness the night sky was clear for the viewing. The stars were bright, the moon gleamed in the shape of a crescent and the sounds of Baroness' Blue Record resonated through my head.

There's something about sitting out on a cool night, looking up into the night sky, gazing up at the stars and listening to music that makes you feel, like nothing else really matters. Especially when you're doing so sitting up on the back of some random car that isn't yours - but that's beside the point.

I sat outside and stared up into space for over an hour, literally until the sun started to rise around 6:30AM, thinking about anything and everything under the sun (quite literally) - though mostly of the conversation points from earlier in the night.

Classes start back up in two days in what should be my last year as an undergrad and what will hopefully be a year that ushers in some much needed change in this life of mine - academically, socially and otherwise.

Change is what I want. Change is what I need. And the time for it might as well be now.

But those are just words and talk is cheap, so we'll just have to wait and see.