Around the sun

It's a cliche activity... the birthday self-evaluation. But in a way it's inevitable if you give yourself some time for self-reflection. Where to go... what to plan... what to change. Sometimes these activities accompany New Years celebrations, but I find myself looking in the mirror around my birthday.

Often, my mid-year reflections seem to be based in what I have in my life... what I've accomplished, what I hold dear, and who walks the road with me. The path's dustier than I've seen before, but one foot still follows in front of another. There are days which feel as though I've seen this part of the path before... like I've walked in circles for a few days or weeks or months in a row. I believe this is why I'm having a hard time holding on to all the scraps of what's left inside me that wishes for some positive intervention in my relationship. I've become tired... I ask, and am denied. I hope, and wait without seeing any return. And I keep moving because I don't know what else I can do.

Nights like tonight make me miss her so much... quiet nights when I'm walking the streets of this beautiful city alone. Nights that embrace music in the air and silent embraces in silhouette. Nights that say goodbye to the loved-ones we drop off at the airport after a weekend of story-telling and sunshine. And nights where I remain alone and have time to consider the sadness.

I know this blog has become an indulgence in my feelings of being broken-hearted, but I appreciate the few of you who still come by and support me through what I've been going through. "I get by with a little help from my friends"...

T

The only

The only things that follow me home

These days

Are shadows and fallen leaves

Blowing and tumbling down the sidewalk

As my feet stamp stamp the pavement

In the dark.

Some have found my clip-clop, right-left wanderings home

In the evening 

Strange

And slightly sad.

But I'm more morose when I find myself in cars

Rushing home after the music has stopped

And climbing into bed before the ringing 

Has subsided.

I walk to indulge in the tin-ny sounds 

Echoing in my ears after an all-night indulgence

Of symphonic beats and strums

Of stringed guitars

And music bars.

I walk to prolong what felt so, so right

Before it all went deeply wrong.

I guess this isn't about the music anymore.

I just know that I don't want to fall asleep quite yet

Unless I have someone breathing beside me

And I don't want to fall away quite yet

Until I know I'm not alone.

I haven't touched the lights switches in my new apartment tonight

Because if I did

I'd know that it's time for teeth to be brushed

And contacts to be taken out

And for socks to be strewn down the hall on my way to my bedroom

So that I can begin my every-eve routine of blankets and pillows

And tossing and turning and prayers for sleep to come

Alone.

No.

I want to keep my head swimming 

In the tick tick tick tick of the high hat

And the sometimes dissonant sounds coming from the stage

While the movement and hands and lights that threaten to pull me in.

Don't let sleep come quite yet... I'm just not ready.

Just a few more sounds and a few more whispers 

And a few more claps 

To break the silence as I tap tap tap

My way to dreamless sadness.

T

Running with the shadows

I've found a little piece of freedom.

I moved into a tiny one-bedroom apartment in my old building (from when I was living here a few years ago with K). When we moved out here together (my second year of living in another province), my aunt was able to find us a cute little neighbourhood to call home. We stayed in the building for the rest of our time in Victoria before heading back to the mainland. So, on a whim, I decided to give my old building manager a call to see if anything was coming up and, presto, I now have my own little piece of privacy. No random roommates. No strangers waltzing in. No odd noises coming from bedrooms which share a wall with me. Just me.

I've never lived by myself before. When I first moved out of my parents' place, I moved in with a very odd, pink-haired internet junkie who was anti-social in the extreme. I lasted 2 months before moving into a very slum-like basement suite with three other university guys for the rest of the school year. K moved out here with me during my second year and we've lived together ever since (obviously, since we were married almost exactly a year after moving in together). Now, after couch and apartment jumping for 8 months, I finally have my own space. Tiny though it may be, it's something of my own.

I haven't been writing as prolifically in the past few weeks. Part of this is due to my lack of internet access (the grim reality of paying for all the bills myself prevented me from acting quickly on this front), which is no longer a problem. And part of it is a sense of numbness that has crept into my personal life for the past couple of months. It's not even numbness, really... it's... well... a declining sense of will in my hopes for what is to come in my marriage.

I've been looking for signs that things will improve. I've made requests... I've asked questions... I've prayed... I've held on. And in all this time, I've tried to be as patient as possible in waiting for responses and action in any of these requests. But I think you can only go so long without getting anything in return. And I've felt this realization creep up into my consciousness over previous weeks. The main sense is my feeling of fatigue. I just feel defeated any time I think about my relationship. And so I have, to a certain extent, given up. I haven't gone out of my way to instigate conversation, so the conversations have died. I've waited patiently since March for a response to a series of life-defining questions I posed to K, and I've received nothing but casual small talk and a total disregard for my wishes. Every inch I beg for gets ignored or rejected. So, in my defeatist sense of fatigue, I've just hid from it all.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I did send a message to K about these feelings, but I have yet to hear from her. She did reassure me that she would respond, but she also said she'd respond to the questions posed to her in March (which I brought up in April, and received another assurance that she'd respond and still has not). I just wait, as per usual. I just don't think I can wait much more. It's been over a year of waiting for, well, whatever it is I'm waiting for, and I think I've just run out of steam. I need to start focussing my energy on my own pursuits and new goals, because I simply don't have the moxie to keep up the frustrated/patient waiting around.

Through all of this, I still find time to do the things I love... run, read, spend time with friends, enjoy the streets of this beautiful city, listen to music, and just sit. There are so many good things to focus my energy on, that it's coming to the time where I need to redirect my ambitions to something fruitful. I've mentioned this on a number of occasions... there's a silver lining in everything, and I seem to keep finding it. My surgery gave me time off to spend with my mom and the time to look for a new place to live. My move gave me more opportunities to see my friends, since it was no longer a long drive to get to where they lived. And there are more opportunities to experience the silent streets at night while the sleepy darkness encapsulates the rest of the living world. And so this is where I run.

T

Brief rhymes

It's another quiet night
Where the stars are bright
But I cannot tell
Why the moon ain't right
It's like an aeroplane
Or a flickrin' flame
And I'm starting to forget
How to whisper your name

And I find myself
Losing myself again
And I can't just mend
What you've never been
And your promises
Are just the moonlight mist
That your lips can't kiss
And my memories miss

It happens when
Your words are closing doors
And what I'm waiting for
Ain't worth fighting for
When you cannot show
What I need to grow
And have hope that you
Will find your way back home

'Cause you've long been gone
From what I'm fighting for
And when I'm wanting more
It's another empty shore
Where there ain't no tide
And you're not by my side
And it's all my strength
To find the strength inside

So I wander on
Toward the setting sun
Not knowing if you're there
Or if you're long since gone
But I struggle through
The storm you put me through
Because in the end
I'm trying to wait for you.

T

Keeping busy and returning to routines

I returned to work last week after a nearly-two week hiatus for surgery. My demon appendix was removed without any major issues, and after about 2.5 weeks, I'm pretty much back to normal. I went for my first post-surgery run today for about 40 minutes and feel like a million bucks. It was maybe a bit laborious than other runs, considering I haven't run since my 1/2 marathon, but it felt good nonetheless. And when it's nearly 20 degrees, who am I to complain?

Two weekends in a row I've had family visitors out. My mom came out to visit last weekend and we were able to spend a bunch of time together. I assumed that my aunt and my mom would want to hang out more, but since I was off work, the two of us roamed around and saw some of the sights in Victoria. We made a trip out to Buchart Gardens, had lunch and ice cream at the Red Barn Market, ate some Noodle Box, and had a delicious dinner at a local Carribean joint called The Reef. Sooo good. And I just realized that most of the "events" of our weekend were based around food... funny how that works :)

I got back to work last Tuesday and survived it without any real inklings of discomfort. And then I packed my weekend full of busy-ness. Friday I hung out with a good friend and her sister, drinking some homebrew and telling obnoxious stories. Saturday held a bit of a shock with a phone call from the pub saying I was supposed to be at work (they scheduled me for the Saturday rather than Sunday for some reason), so after hustling in and slinging beer for the day, I got off work, picked up my pirate friend from his boat, hit up the grocery store and went over to his girlfriends place for an epic meal of steak and freshly caught local dungeness crab with some delicious veggies and beer on the side. Then the pirate and I abandoned his first mate and met another friend of mine at a concert for the local alternative/hard rock band The Armchair Cynics. I've seen them before, but they put on a great show and are doing their best to make it big with their new album. The new song, "Ablaze" is really solid and they sound great in concert. My good friend KR is dating one of the band members, so she is keeping me up to date on upcoming shows.

Sunday brought more good weather and a wake-up call from the pirate. He had to move his boat from Oak Bay to Cadboro Bay, so I tagged along and did a bit of sailing with him. It was a gorgeous day full of sunshine, and we had a great (albeit brief) voyage from one marina to another. After picking up our vehicles, I went and met my uncle and his fiancee for some dinner downtown and hit up a brewpub for dessert. Uncle K and I had beer for dessert, while DD chose to actually go for some lava cake. The beer was sweet enough in my books.

So, it was a pretty busy and excitement filled weekend. Today, although I'm not working, is still going to be a busy one. Now that I'm back from my run, I have to shower, have some lunch and do some running around. One of my errands consists of filling out a rental agreement with my old landlord. It's true... I'm moving again, and a lot sooner than expected. While my mom was here, she wanted to help me look around for a solo place to live (the house with friends in James Bay fell through), so on a whim I called my old landlord from when K and I first moved in together, and he just happened to have a really nice (but small) place coming up for June 1. I hemmed and hawed quite a bit, but after being disappointed with the quality of affordable housing around town, and being totally uninterested in looking around at more places, I called him up last night and I'm taking the place! It'll be much more central and familiar than where I am now, and it'll be mine. So, other than the fact that I'm paying double-rent (here and at the soon-to-be-new bachelor pad), and the fact that I have barely any furniture (K hasn't parted ways with much other than the camping gear and a bunch of stuff I had before her and I moved in together), I'm pretty excited. It's clean and pretty much everything is new, and I'll have a big patio for morning coffee and hopefully some BBQ'ing. If anyone in Vic has some used furniture they want to abandon, let me know!

Alright, a guy's gotta eat.

T

What a week can bring

I often joke with friends and acquaintances that I lead a pretty boring adult life. I'm no longer a partier or much of a late-night boozer. I'm not one to set sights on a crazy trip to Vegas or a nutty road trip to the bush to get rowdy. I like to think my life is a good sort of calm. And although I've faced some hardships, I do my best to keep tabs on pessimism and find the light in the middle of the dark, cloudy days. You know... days with ravens and owls and black-caped men lingering in the fog.

This last week has been a different sort of ridiculous. And in so many ways, I've just had to laugh it off. There are powers out there that I'll never understand, and I can't help but wonder if there's a cosmic chalkboard tallying up, well, something to create some sort of balance. And I'm wondering exactly how that chalkboard is tallied. Because it's been a crazy few days.

Just over a week ago, I posted an entry where I was obviously jaded about the state of my relationship. Now, I can't say that I'm overly optimistic, but I still hold on to hope that things can find a way to mend. That's a long road that I'm walking, but it's one that I'm still willing to walk. Lately, this blog has been a release of all the anxious frustration and desperate longing I've felt for the woman who I gave my heart to (and still do so in a much more silent way). So I'm hanging in there. Last week was a bad encounter, and I was hurt by it. But as with everything, one must move on.

The day after the encounter, I ran my first half-marathon. It was a goal I'd had in mind for almost a year, and had been working toward for months. I trained and prepared completely on my own. I ran my miles solitary without anyone pushing me or giving me advice or helping me through the minutes where I just wanted to stop the pursuit all together. No one kicked me out of bed or reminded me of the importance of my long runs. I didn't grab on to anyone to hold me up when I had the urge to sit. And although I didn't train like a professional and I know that more work could've been done, I persevered and accomplished my goal on my own. And damn, it felt good. I spent the rest of my visit to the big city eating and catching up with friends and relishing in my feeling of self-satisfaction... this was something I did without a running clinic or a partner or a trainer... just me and the road. And I have to say I'm pretty proud of that. Funny how quickly the tables turn, from bitterness to triumph in two totally separate aspects of life.

The return back to the island was a smooth one, and I was quickly back at work. However, it seems like it couldn't last.

I ended up in the hospital last week and had surgery the same day. That was Thursday... I had just returned to the rock on Monday. Who would've guessed?

It turns out that when you feel like you have indigestion or food poisoning but you don't vomit or have diarrhea (and the pain stays localized to your right lower abdomen), you might have appendicitis. Which is what I had. I started feeling like rubbish on Wednesday night, and after trying to eat something, then trying some antacids at about 10:30pm, and then tossing and turning all night before going to the nearby Macs store for some pepto at 5:30 in the morning and STILL feeling like my gut wanted to kill me, I decided that I should probably go to the clinic. This turned out to be a bit fruitless, since the walk-in GP assumed food poisoning or possible appendicitis. His suggestion: sleep it off and it should get better, but if it gets worse, go to the ER. But after getting home and checking the expiration dates of the food in the fridge, and reassessing my pain and checking symptoms of food poisoning vs. appendicitis, I grabbed some books and my IPod and headed to the ER an hour after leaving the doc's office.

I got there about 11am, and at 11pm that same day, I was lying on a surgical table in the OR and was uncomfortably waiting to be knocked out. They removed the alien appendix that was causing all the muss and fuss, and here I am today, sitting on my backside, taking it easy. I actually went back to the ER for about 6 hours yesterday because of a new and brutal pain I had the previous night, but it turns out that my aversion to pain killers is what caused the extra pain... I weaned myself from my Every-4-hour-tylenol-ingestion within 2 days and was trying to go sans-drogues. That and my quick return to my regular food habits caused some irritation around the internal surgical site and I just needed to take some more tylenol. It's just that easy I guess!

So, 5 days post-surgery and I'm sitting on my ass, watching a whole craploap of TV (or, in reality, multiple TV series on DVD), and trying not to move around too much. I should be at work (although I'm not sad about being away from work, I hate just sitting around for any length of time), and I want to go for a run. But sit I will, because I'm willing to override my stubborness to get better in a more timely fashion.

Oh... and I was even able to do a bit of a good deed for a cousin of a brother-in-law that I'd never met, and was lucky enough to do so with the help of a fantastic friend.

So this is how my life goes. And there's still light. And laughter. I do just laugh at the comedy of errors that seems to present itself in this tale of tragedy and woe. It's not all clouds and darkness... sometimes it's triumphs in between the lows, and cookies and popsicles from friends, and relatives who take you in when you've got three holes in your guts, and well-wishes, and upcoming visits from parents, and the knowledge that I kicked just a little bit of ass in my first 1/2 marathon (the next one will be significantly faster). And words from the girl I still love, even if we're still a million miles apart.

T

Do I...

... run through hell and hope the devil doesn't catch me
Or do I simply let it wrap it's flaming hands around me
Can I keep up the running with fire upon my back
And can I keep on moving forward to avoid the eternal black

***

When I wrote those lines, I had a country song in my head. Yes, a country song. I don't have the slightest clue who sings it, even though it would only take a perusal of my ITunes or a google search to locate the tidbit, but since I'm mentally and emotionally exhausted, I can't be bothered. It sings, "If you're going through hell, keep on going. Don't slow down... you might get out before the devil even knows you're there." Or something near that. And today, I feel like I'm going through hell. It's really just been one of the most miserable days I've had to deal with in quite a long time. Even the good stuff had it's downside. I just need sleep.

To K...

Is it ever going to be even slightly easy again? I'm so tired of being kicked and trod upon that I just don't know what to do anymore. Or even if I should care. I'm just exhausted. And I keep looking for signs from you to show me that maybe I have this all wrong... but I never get that omen. Just ravens and owls and black-caped men lingering in the fog.

T