“Well I Wish I Had Some Money, and I Wish I had Some Love…But Keeping My Own Sanity’s Gonna Be More Than Enough.” – Lindi Ortega

Well it certainly has been a long time since I wrote anything.  And a lot has happened since I last wrote in November….I really don’t even know where to start.  So I’ll just start.

I published my last post on November 5.  On November 7, I lost my job.  My position was eliminated, which in theory was not a huge surprise to me, but in reality it came out of nowhere.  Because of my separation agreement with Pictometry, I really can’t discuss the details but I will say my position was collateral damage of budgetary changes.  It was not a result of my performance.

That did not stop me from falling down the rabbit hole.  All the careful habits I spent the year building basically disappeared in a day.  Which looking back now, surprises me because honestly, I can’t say I was happy in my job.  I wasn’t even that upset on the day it happened.  But the next day, I woke up and went to the gym just like any other Saturday and then had no idea what to do with myself.  So I sat down to eat breakfast like I always do on Saturday mornings and started watching Sons of Anarchy for the first time from the beginning.  

I didn’t stop watching it until I was completely caught up to the current season.  (Full disclosure - I took a two week break when (SPOILER ALERT) Opie died because I was so devastated I wasn’t even sure I wanted to watch anymore.  In those two weeks, I started watching all over again from the beginning, so it wasn’t really a break.  It was just a break in continuity.)  That’s what my life became after I lost my job.  On the couch, watching TV, avoiding anything and everything other than SoA.

Except for love, of course…there always time and energy for love.  I started seeing someone around this time.  (I use the term “seeing” very loosely.  Why is everyone so damn afraid?)  He is a very private person and I want to respect his wishes so I’m not going to talk about him online.  But I will say I am very, very into him and I can see the potential for something much greater with him. Whether or not that potential is reached will be another story for perhaps another time.

I published my last post on November 5 and that night I went to check out a Felix lead.  I had put up a bunch of posters around my gym and a girl who lived down the street from my gym called me and said she was positive she had my cat.  I was excited but I had heard that a million times so I wasn’t surprised when it wasn’t Felix.  But it was an adorable older kitten, probably very close to a year old, with a moustache who seemed like he couldn’t wait to cuddle with me.  While he purred and rubbed against my legs and stood up on his hind legs begging me for attention, the girl gave me a sad story about how her landlord won’t let her keep the cat and how she doesn’t have a car so she can’t take him to a shelter, so even though he’s not my cat, will I please take him anyway.  She obviously had no clue how to look after a cat…he had no litter box and she had been feeding him nothing but table scraps for two weeks since she let him inside her house.  

I told her I would go to the gym and think about taking him.  I had brought with me a can of cat food and I gave it to him and he devoured it like he was starving.  I’m a sucker.  I knew I wanted to take the cat, but obviously I had to check with Sam first.  It’s his house, he wasn’t thrilled about having cats in the first place and now that we were separated, it wasn’t really my call.  I asked him before I went into the gym and he said he was actually fine with the new cat, so he brought a cat carrier over to me when I was finished at the gym and the two of us picked up the cat and took him home.

(It is these kinds of things that make me realize Sam really did love me and care about me, I just couldn’t see it while I was so busy hating myself.  He knew losing Felix completely devastated me and that nothing he could do could fill the Felix sized hole in my heart.  So he let me have the cat hoping it would bring me some peace and comfort.)

It was not a smooth transition.  This cat came into the house and hissed and growled at everything, and I mean EVERYTHING…….the dog, the other cats, the people, the furniture, the air…he just did not seem happy.  So we put him in his own very small room for several days until he was ok.  He was completely fine if I went into the room and interacted with him.  But anything else turned him into a terror.  After a few days he was still not ok being around the other cats so Sam suggested moving him to another room where the other two cats hung out pretty often, so their scents would be in there.  Maybe the new cat would get used to their smells.  We moved him into that room and it was again with the hissing and growling, only 10 times worse than it was before.  Sam and I were at a complete loss.  We both have a lot of experience with animals and are not afraid of anything generally, but the two of us took one look at this cat and kind of slowly backed out of the room and shut the door.  

That night I checked on him and he was like a different cat.  So loving and cuddly and happy.  He stayed in that room day and night for over a week until finally he started wanting to come out.  He was kind of aggressive in his play towards the other cats which they of course did not appreciate but he was not neutered and I thought, hoped, that would fix that problem.  Whiskey, who was best buddies with Felix, had absolutely no interest in the new kid and seemed extremely annoyed by his antics.  Sugar, who up until this point really disliked all cats including Felix, seemed infatuated with the new kid.  She followed him around and admired his antics like she was smitten.  I called the new cat Atticus.  I don’t know why, other than the name just seemed to suit him.

 

Atticus has turned out to be the most affectionate cat I have ever seen in my life.  He wants constant cuddles.  When I come home, he runs up to me and stands up on his hind legs and reaches up his paws like a baby asking to be picked up.  Even Sam became very attached to him.  He really has filled that Felix sized hole in my heart and sometimes I feel very guilty for it.  I also have called Atticus Felix more than once…they are very similar in so many ways.

While all this was happening, my grandfather, who you may recall I wrote about at some length last Summer, became ill and just never quite recovered.  It got to a point where he could no longer take care of himself or live alone.  He was in the hospital for several months until last month when a place opened for him at a long term care facility.  I may write more about this in the future, or I may not….I dunno.  It’s difficult for me to talk about.

I still had not heard anything from USCIS and Sam and I were both feeling very anxious to change our living situation.  So I began looking for a new place to live.  I had some savings in Canada that I decided to cash out and use to set myself up in a new apartment.  It’s kind of a big gamble because if the US government decides I can’t stay, then I’ll need to come up with some more money to help me move to Toronto and set myself up there.  I do feel I’ll be able to stay in the US.  Sam wrote a very supportive affidavit and although we don’t have all the evidence the government is looking for to prove a real marriage (things like kids, wills, joint bank accounts and joint mortgage), we do have all kinds of other evidence.  So I think I’ll be fine, but still, I can’t feel 100% sure about that until I have my 10 year Green Card in my hands.

Still, I decided that for both mine and Sam’s sanity, I needed to take that risk.  The first apartment I looked at in person was in Penfield and I really liked it right away.  I visited the property at all hours of the night to see what it would be like and I felt very comfortable there.  The space was huge and there was a pool on the property.  I wanted to take it, but I was still on unemployment insurance.  I didn’t feel I should sign a lease until I had a job.  Then a job offer in East Rochester came along a week or so later.  The job and my apartment are maybe 5 minutes away from each other.  So I accepted the job and signed the lease and started planning my move which would happen on March 7.  Suddenly everything was starting to turn around.

In January I took a trip to Canada to get my hair done and buy a few new clothes.  I had not bought any new clothes since losing 140 pounds…I was still wearing what I had in my closet and it had gotten to the point where everything was just way too big.  I started my weight loss journey wearing size 5x and 6x.  Pretty much the biggest size I could ever find is what I wore.  Nothing in Lane Bryant or Addition-Elle or Torrid fit me.  Nothing.  I could only shop at Pennington’s or online and hope that what I ordered fit me, which it usually didn’t.  I wore a size 48 D bra.  And my bras were now hanging off me.  

I decided to try Addition-Elle since it has been years and years since I could shop there.  I walked around the store picking up things I wanted to try and I chose size 22 (4X) everything, not really believing these pieces would fit me.  I grabbed a few size 44D bras and headed for the change room.  The sales person kept insisting the things I was picking out were going to be way too big for me.   I thought she was just flattering me and was really kind of full of it.  But she was right.  I tried on piece after piece and each one was too big.  I could not believe it.  The sales girl took all the pieces back out to the store and brought me size 20 (2x)  in everything and some 40D bras while I sat there in the change room in my underwear and bawled my eyes out.  I really don’t know why that affected me the way it did, but I felt overwhelmed….. with happiness, sadness…everything all the same time.   I was now wearing the same sizes I wore in university.   It has been my goal this whole time to re-claim the life I had, should have had before I allowed being raped to destroy my life.  I wanted to get back on track to where I lost my way 20 years ago and I felt like I was coming full circle.  I was starting to feel healed.

On the way home from Canada, I had a very scary accident and thought I was going to die.  There was an ice storm and the entire QEW was an ice rink.  They were closing down the road and I was behind an emergency vehicle that was veering people off the road.  As I tried to switch lanes, my car spun out three times and slid into the guardrail on the other side of the highway.   Miraculously, I didn’t hit anyone and no one hit me.  There were already several cars off the road in the ditch and police and emergency vehicles were tending to them.  Someone drove by me and gave me thumbs up as if to ask if I was ok.  I was, so I just simply got off the highway and onto the Niagara Parkway.  I pulled into a park area to check out my damage and fell getting out of my car…the ground was a complete sheet of ice.  There were other people in the area and we all discussed our options.  It didn’t seem very safe to be driving.  I contemplated whether I should really try and head home to Rochester or if I should go to my parents’ place about a half hour away.  

There was an older couple heading to Buffalo who didn't know how to get there, if not on the QEW, from where we were so I decided to go back to Rochester so that I could show them the way.  We had to drive along the Niagara Parkway, which is right beside the Niagara River, to get to the Peace Bridge.  There's no guardrail.  You are RIGHT beside the Niagara River.  It is a beautiful drive in the Summer but under these conditions, very scary and very treacherous.    We finally got to the Peace Bridge and I went through the Nexus lane so I parted ways with the couple.  The customs guard was extremely concerned and said the roads were awful.  He was right.  It took me 5 hours to get home whereas it usually takes less than 2….the roads were no better on the American side than it on the Canadian side.  I-90 was almost like a scene out of Walking Dead.  Traffic crawled along and there were cars overturned and in ditches everywhere, sirens and flashing lights and people out of their cars walking on the side of the highway.

As I drove home, Sam called me and told me there was a letter from USCIS and wanted to know if he should open it.  I told him yes and he read it to me.  They wanted more evidence.  I hadn’t submitted enough in my application in July.  The drive home was long and so very tiring and I was completely emotionally drained by the day, between the clothes, the accident, the drive and now this.  

Switching gears, as I was getting ready to move, I started to become very concerned about Whiskey.  Sam had been telling me for months that he was too skinny and I just didn’t want to see or hear it.  It finally got to a point where he wouldn’t eat.  I couldn’t entice him with his favorites and he wouldn’t eat even if I tried to force feed him.  I brought him to the vet several times to try and save his life.  We did blood tests and gave him fluids intravenously, but nothing seemed to help.  He got weaker and just wanted solitude all the time.  The last few nights he was with us, he was shut by himself in the same room Atticus had been in, with a space heater and blankets and he seemed content.  But he couldn’t move without help.  The vet told me on each occasion she felt he could not be saved, that he was in kidney failure.  So on Valentine’s day, I made the very difficult decision to let him go.

A weird kind of NSV happened after that.  Sam came with me for Whiskey’s final appointment and on the way home, we went to Savoia, an amazing Italian bakery.  Remember, I had abandoned all my new habits by then and I intended to eat away my pain over losing Whiskey.  I bought a bunch of cannoli and some other good stuff…..but it just sat there on the counter for a week until I threw it out.  And that isn’t even something I had to force myself to do.  It seems sorrow now has a different effect on my body than it did before my surgery.  Now when I’m sad, my head still tells my body I want to eat and soothe my pain but my body doesn’t respond.  It’s a weird feeling.  I have never experienced a loss of real desire to eat before.

So….that’s where I am now. I’m settled in my own apartment, waiting for USCIS to make a decision on the newly submitted evidence, still "seeing" the same person since November, working at my new job and loving the life I have.  I still have my gym membership and my focus for the next few weeks will be to re-commit to the gym and building my fitness.  I have somehow managed to continue to lose weight and my body continues to shift and shrink.  I’m happy and looking forward to my current challenges being resolved.  I’m excited for my present and my future and I’m accepting of my past.

·         Return of “Random Things” next time.

"Nothing's as obvious as what is lost; Nothing's as painful as the cost." - Blue Rodeo

Well, I suppose I have been quiet long enough.  It’s time for another blog post.

I’m hesitant to write anything because I really hate being misunderstood.  Being misunderstood is one of my greatest frustrations in life.  And I know this post is going to sound somewhat depressing and self-pitying.   Look, in many ways, I am extraordinarily happy with myself.  I’m thriving - physically and emotionally.  This is the healthiest I have been in my entire adult life…and I mean that in the truest sense of the word “healthy”…..and I know I’m just going to keep getting healthier.  Every day I greet the world with nothing but confidence and joy and I know I have absolutely no good reason or right to feel sorry for myself.

But the truth is I’m suffering a bit of an identity crisis.   So, I suppose I AM feeling a bit sorry for myself, even though I have no right or reason.  There are a lot of really, really great things happening and I'm celebrating those things...while I feel sorry for myself.  I pretty much find myself thinking “woohoo!” and “this sucks!” all the time.....sometimes in the same moment.    Apparently I can't just allow myself be happy.  That would be too easy.  I’m working on that….but I’m not there yet.

I’ll start with some great stuff.  Yesterday, I wore heels to work….a hot, Italian pair of four inch heels – office appropriate, with amazing stitching, stylish details and gorgeous distressed leather.  My feet were KILLING me, and I didn't care.  I strutted around the office like I owned the place.  You see, it’s the first time I have worn heels for an entire day in years and years and years….possibly EVER!  Do you understand??  Let me spell it out for you.  Because of my weight, there are a great many simple little things that I have never been able to do before.  One of those things is wear heels.  Could not before .....and now I can.

That, my friends, is a mofo NSV!

It would not have even occurred to me to attempt such a thing if this other little thing hadn’t happened last weekend:  I was parked behind Sam in the driveway.  He wanted to leave so I needed to move my car.  All my shoes/boots that I normally wear were upstairs so I threw on a pair of sandals that I had not worn since last Summer.  They’re Birkenstock type sandals with adjustable straps across the foot.  I just threw them on and started walking, and, I could not believe it………they slipped off my feet as I started walking!  I literally tripped over them.  My freaking shoes were so big I could no longer wear them!

Things like this happen ALL the time now and when they do, they catch me off guard EVERY single time.  I know I should not be surprised.  I’m losing weight….a lot of weight.  Things ARE going to change!  Lots and lots of things will change.  But I swear...I see myself naked and I don't really think I look all that different (except my neck and shoulders). So I forget that I have lost weight all the time……and then when something happens that reminds me, THEN I notice something’s different, and I’m like, "Hey…..You!  Check out this thing that changed!”.    I just HAVE to tell someone.  I want to share my joy…I want them to start screaming and jumping up and down just like I want to do.  But usually I just get a blank stare or a half smile in return.  I get it….unless you’ve had the experience of being trapped in a cage, how could you possibly understand what it feels like to be free?

But this shoe thing is especially exciting for me.  It’s exciting because I have a collection of shoes…. Heels, actually.  Sexy, pointy, strappy, gorgeous, amazing heels that I bought over the years even though I couldn’t stand up in them, or even put them on my feet.  I bought them because I loved them and wanted them.  I bought them because I could completely see the real me in my head and the real me is the kind of woman who sometimes wears heels.  I like heels.  They make me taller.  They’re beautiful.  They’re stylish.  They’re sexy.  They make legs and asses look amazing.  I kept buying more and more heels and I’d keep them shined up and sitting on a shelf like art while I yearned to be able to wear them.  I never gave up on the idea that the day would come when I could actually wear heels.  That day, it seems, is upon me.  Or at least…..I can see the sun rising on that day. 

Another great thing happening for me - Writing.  I am getting paid to write.  I still have my full time job at Pictometry but in addition to that, two agencies now hire me freelance to write for them….it’s called ”content marketing”, but it’s writing.  I am super stoked about getting paid to write, being published (even if it's ghost writing and I don't get credit for it), and the fact that it’s a side job where I have a great deal of control.  I say when, I say where, and how often.  I finish an assignment; I say I want another one…..so they give me another one.  No matter where I go, I can keep doing it.  It’s awesome that I don’t need to sell my soul to make some extra money and I get to do something I feel happy and confident about doing.  I’m still pretty slow and very new to the whole industry so it’s not like I’ve had a lot of assignments or am getting paid a huge amount of money per assignment.  But I’m working on building my skill, speed and experience and then it will become a bit more profitable.

I also have a work trip to Florida coming up in February for the next National Sales Meeting…Amelia Island.  I’m very excited about that.  I have always really enjoyed the road trips down to Florida to visit Sam’s parents, so I’m going to use a week of vacation time and split it up before and after the NSM so I can drive and make a couple stops along the way.  I really loved Charleston, SC but only saw a bit of it once so I may stop there for a night.  Also, there’s a really interesting large retail space called Tamarack in Beckley, West Virginia where all different kinds of artisans sell their creations.  It's an amazing place.  I have picked up several gorgeous pieces there over the years so I’ll definitely have to stop there on the way….for me, no road trip to Florida would be the same without stopping there. (There’s also something pretty magical about the West Virginia mountains, especially when the sun is rising…the mist is intense. Always cool to stop there overnight and experience the WV sunrise.)  Then there’s Nashville, TN which has been calling me for years…..I really want to go there.  It’s more out of the way so that may not happen, but I’m excited to think about the possibilities and make some travel plans.

And….Felix action!  Suddenly I’m getting calls about Felix again.  Tonight I’m checking out two leads after work. 

Ok, so now onto the identity crisis I’m having.  I’m not even sure I can really articulate it, but I’ll try. 

To start with, too many things are uncertain in my life right now and it’s making me crazy.   The number one most annoyingly uncertain thing is my Green Card.  What happens with my Green Card has repercussions in other areas as well so not knowing what’s going on means I can't plan, which screws up my life as well as Sam's and leaves us both in limbo.

You may recall I needed to apply for a 10 year card back in July.  I did so, I got a year extension on my GC and had my biometrics appointment in August.  I haven’t heard a thing since then, which is, sadly, normal for USCIS.  You don’t hear anything until you do.  The timeline for these types of applications is supposed to be 6 months, so - in theory - by January, it should all be decided.  However, Sam and I have used VisaJourney, an online community dedicated to helping people navigate the immigration process, from the beginning……and there are people on that forum who applied over a year ago for their 10 year card and are still waiting.  Their extension letter has expired.  Maybe that won’t happen to me.  But what if it does?

In the meantime, what will USCIS decide to do with me?  Will they ask for more information?  Will they make us do an interview?  Will they deport me?  I  know, I know…just wait and see.  I’m getting ahead of myself.  Except, not really.

Sam and I are at the point of our relationship where we are both ready to move on.  We both NEED to be able to move on.  I need to move out.   We need to get divorced.  I am tired of my ambiguous marital status.  Sam wants to just move on.  But we can’t do a damn thing until the GC issue is settled.  If we divorce in the middle of the process, I need to reapply for my 10 year card and start all over again, pay another fee, as a divorced person.  I’m not completely sure I can move without screwing up my application, but let’s say I could…. I don’t want to move into my own place and then have USCIS come back and say, no you can’t stay in this country.  Then I’ll have to move again. 

Thinking about what happens if USCIS does tell me I need to leave......I mean, it’s not so bad…I’d go back to Canada.  So I find myself kind of “planning” a life in Canada – because there’s nothing left of my old life, I’d be starting all over again there - while also simultaneously figuring out what to do next here in the US.  I have no idea which life I’m going to end up with.   In my weakest moments, I question where it is I even belong.  It’s municipal election time in Canada and I am no longer eligible to vote there.  But I can’t vote here in the US either.  I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.

As I think about the possibility of returning to Canada, I am heartbroken over Felix.  I think, as long as I stay in Rochester, there’s always a possibility I could someday get him back.  It’s possible.  Or maybe staying close to the last place he was seen just makes me feel less guilty for allowing my absolute worst fear about moving to the States – something happening to one of my cats – to come true.   In any case, "feels" about Felix have flared up big time lately.

My road to fitness is going really, really well.  I am constantly amazed at the things my trainer asks me to do and even more amazed when I can do them.  And…the last time I went to the gym, I walked 3 miles for a warm up.  3 miles!  And I wasn’t even hot or tired or sweating for the first mile.  Remember in May when I walked my first 5K and I barely finished it?  I was the very last person to cross the finish line and I was so proud?  Um yeah….now my goal is to be able to walk 5K five days a week….every time I go to the gym just for a warm up…and that goal is within reach.  My trainer wants me to enter a beginner Kettlebell competition in December!  Say, what??   I thought she was talking to someone else when she said this.  I was busy trying to lift a 35 pound steel ball above my head so I wasn’t really paying attention to her, and when I realized she meant me, I started laughing.  So surreal.  Is this my life?  It’s amazing but so weird.  I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone all the time.

Another thing is I’m lonely.  I am truly, heartbreakingly lonely.  There are a lot of different things contributing to this.  I miss my family.  I miss having a partner.  I don’t feel like my friends can really understand what I’m experiencing in my weight loss journey.  And….I do have a lot of friends, but I’m kind of a loner.  I tell myself I want to be alone…I like it, then I feel lonely.  I never used to be like this when I was younger….I was always the social planner.  I brought groups of people together to go out.  I made sure everyone was included.  I was a social butterfly.  When did that change?  You guessed it…after I was raped in my 20’s.  I feel like I need to embrace my need for people instead of just secluding myself all the time.  And this is messing with my sense of self.

Not to mention the fact that most of the people I know in Rochester were Sam’s friends before they were mine and although they have also become mine, I don’t want to put them in the uncomfortable position of “choosing” Sam or me.  I feel obligated to back away and let him have his space with our friends…because if the situation were reversed, that’s what I would want.  Right or wrong, that’s what I would want.

The idea that I will be divorced is another big hurdle for me.  I just feel like such a disappointment and failure.  I feel an overwhelming sense of loss associated with the entire thing, not just for the relationship itself but for the loss of Sam’s family in my life, the knowledge that when I move out, our dog Ladybug stays with Sam, the loss of “home”…these are my people and this is where I belong.   I have no one to take care of…except myself, how dull.  With Halloween approaching, this feeling has been amplified.  Sam and I had two weddings, both on Halloween.  We both love Halloween.  We always decorated the house and it has always been our tradition to watch scary movies and eat candy together on Halloween.  So I’m feeling kind of sad over the loss of that tradition.  And in spite of everything I said above about the GC issue, we have set a move out date for me of April 1.

I have not weighed what I weigh now in at least 15 years.  I haven’t been this “physically fit” (and I put that in brackets because “fit” is relative to my experience) since I was in my early 20’s.  Yet, my body still reflects the damage done by obesity....stretch marks, extra skin, really flabby arms, thighs and belly.  This is all uncharted territory for me.  I don’t know how to act, how to live, how to be and I'm trying to not freak out every second of every day.  I'm trying to handle it with grace and dignity.  I’m stumbling my way through, trying to make good, healthy decisions for myself.  But this is a mindfuck in the first degree.  I know other people who have been morbidly obese for their entire adult life will understand the struggle here and that mostly everyone else will not.  Which just makes it all the more a mindfuck.  I constantly feel like the only one who has smoked weed at a party…and I’m going around to everyone else going, “can you believe that just happened?”  No one else sees what I see.  I just look crazy.  And maybe I am.  I certainly feel crazy sometimes.

I find myself constantly plagued by self-doubt.  I doubt that I’m really losing weight.  I doubt that it’s really happening for me.  I doubt that I will ever be able to do everything on my “list” that I want to do.  I see myself naked and honestly, I don’t see the difference in my body, I really don’t.  I only notice the difference when I put clothes on or I step on the scale or try to do something new.

In addition to that, I have also been having my first physical problems since my surgery.  I’ve been REALLY sick a couple of times in the last few weeks.  (As I write this, I have realized these problems may well be stress induced.)  

The physical changes I am experiencing as a result of my surgery….the loss of the weight, the loss of the comfortable miserable identity I hung onto for so long.   As I lose more and more weight, everything becomes more and more possible and there’s nothing I don’t want to do, nothing I don’t want to be.  It’s all very overwhelming.

Which leads me to my dating life.  Dating should be the easiest, light hearted thing happening in my life right now.  It’s supposed to be fun.  I know this.  But it’s not.  It’s stressful.  I don’t want it to be stressful…it just is.  There are just so many weirdos out there.  So many people with questionable motives.  So many reasons to distrust someone.

And it’s difficult for me to “be myself” while I’m suffering an identity crisis and don’t know how to “be myself”, because I don’t know who “myself” is right now.  I had my first experience with a man telling me if I lost too much weight he would not be attracted to me.  I had to ask him to repeat himself – twice.  I just could not believe what I was hearing.   OK I get it….not everyone appeals to everyone else.  Some men are only attracted to large women, some men are only attracted to thin women.  I get it….but who exactly will be attracted to me right now…the guy who likes larger women or the guy into fitness?  ‘Cos I’m both, and don’t really fit neatly into a physical category.  Just like my hair color, my body is going to change.  So if you're into fat redheads, and you think I'm it, I've got bad news for you buddy.  I need someone with more...... flexible tastes, and that is just not easy to find. 

But seriously, if you are a man who is only attracted to large women and you know a woman has had weight loss surgery, why would you even ask her out?  Why would you waste any time at all trying to get to know her?  Why would you spend the entire first date spewing your hatred for weight loss surgery and trying to feed that woman cheesecake all night after she’s told you how meaningful having this surgery has been to her and telling you how sick she’ll be if she eats it? 

Sometimes it feels like people don’t date to get to know other people.  They date to impose their views on you, their life on you.  They know they want a partner and they don’t care who that partner is…they can envision the life they want and they want to just slot someone they are physically attracted to into that life to complete the picture.  They don’t care who you are, they only care who they can make you be.  You’ve got the look, now they want a puppet who they can tell how to think, how to act, what to say so they get their perfect little life.  If there’s one thing I know I’m not, it’s a puppet.  If there's one  thing I know I do NOT want, it's a puppet master.  If there’s one thing I know I am, it’s a romantic, and the romantic in me doesn’t go for crap like this. Dating is really hard on a romantic.  Dating is a very cold business.  It’s use or be used. 

But the larger issue with dating for me is much more embarrassing.  Truth is, it almost feels like I’m on a quest.  It’s hard to enjoy anyone when you want everyone to be the same person.  There’s a scene in the movie “Love Actually” where a kid confesses to his father that he’s in love and proclaims that there’s nothing “worse than the total agony of being in love.”  Ah yes, unrequited love.  This is the problem I’m facing. 

I mentioned many posts ago that I met a guy - months and months ago - I called him my “ideal man”.  That was a superficial, shallow way to explain how I felt about this person.  Truth is, this is the closest I have ever felt to “love at first sight”.  When I met him, he started talking, and really didn’t stop.  I barely got a word in, he talked so much.  He didn’t just go on and on about himself…he was interesting and did ask me questions and answered my questions when I was able to ask…..and everything he said just made me want to know him more.  But the fact that he talked so much gave me a lot of time to observe him and I have never felt so drawn to a man before, so instantly fascinated, so powerfully attracted, so pushed to challenge myself and be better so I could deserve him.

It’s not just that he is physically beautiful, although in my eyes, he is.  More importantly than that, I could see all the men in my family in him….my dad, my brother, my grandfather, my uncles….all their gifts, all their skills and talents, all their flaws…plus his own unique characteristics, and because of that I instantly trusted him, liked him and wanted to be near him.  I didn’t want to leave.  I didn’t know him very well, I had no idea if we were compatible or not but I knew I wanted to find out.

Unfortunately for me, none of those feelings were mutual.  I don’t give up easily and I definitely believe in the whole “if you really want something, you fight for it until you die”/ Say Anything School of Romantic Thought, but after someone tells you several times they are not interested in you, you risk becoming a stalker if you continue to pursue.  You don’t look like a passionate person fighting for what they want, you look crazy.  So I was forced to accept I had reached that threshold. 

Since that time, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this guy.  Yes, I know, it's been months.  I have been known to carry a torch for a decade.  I don't get over people easily.  I want to know him.  I want to date him.  But since he won’t date me, I try to move on.  I don’t expect every other guy to be like him.  I know he’s not perfect and he's not "ideal".  But he did show me the feelings I want to feel for my partner and he showed me I am actually capable of having those feelings.   I’m not interested in dating someone I only kinda like and letting that grow into a stable relationship based on friendship.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it's not what I'm looking for.  I want to feel that spark, those fireworks, that gut-wrenching drive to discover every single thing there is to discover about the person I'm dating.

Oh man, I know how I sound right now.  It’s cute coming from a 10 year old kid with an English accent in a ridiculously mushy, romantic, feel-good movie.  Coming from a 45 year old woman going through a divorce - not so cute….desperate.  Yes, I’m desperate.  I’m desperate to get him out of my head, to feel what I feel for someone else who will return the feelings, and desperate to have a dating life without him sitting on my back the whole time.  I am desperate to not let how I feel about him destroy any more potential relationships.  This is ridiculous, but I have actually thought, hell, if I’m going to move, why not REALLY move and get away from him and his town…..’cos yeah, after 7 years of being with Sam and visiting Rochester, this is that guy’s town.  Everywhere I go, I wonder if he’ll be there.   Maybe a fresh start would help.  Pick a place I’ve never even been to…..I dunno, Austin, Texas, for example, and just GO THERE.  

It’s a nice fantasy to run away like that.  If only it were that easy.  It would serve me no purpose to just run like that.  I do have some stability in my life right now.  Work.  My trainer.  The gym.  These are the things that keep me sane.  When I have no idea what I’m doing or why, I know I have these things.  Love feels essential to me because I’m a dreamy, starry-eyed, impractical, freak and I’ll probably never outgrow that but truth is, love is not essential…not right now.  I still have a lot of hard work to do.

There are only a few things I REALLY want in life.

·         Get Felix back

·         Reach my fitness/weight loss/lifestyle goals

·         Be crazy passionately madly in love

I only have control over one of these things so I’m all in with it.  Everything I’ve got goes towards reaching my fitness/weight loss/lifestyle goals. 

The Return of Random Stuff:

·         I am obsessed with white kitchens.  And bathrooms.  In fact, I love white walls and furniture too.
·         There is no design style better than art deco.  I’m a fan.
·         I always think of myself as a coffee person as opposed to a tea person, but I love, love LOVE me some Chai, Earl Grey, Apricot Spiced and Red Zinger tea.
·         I'm neither a cat or a dog person…I am both.  I want ALL the critters all the time.  I can’t go to a pet store or animal shelter without wanting to take home every animal in the place.
·         I was deeply disappointed by the finale of True Blood.  In fact, the last three seasons were so bad, I have no idea why I kept watching.  I’m only now able to talk about it.
·         I’ve recently discovered a genre of music I can only just barely tolerate:  death metal
·         I can barely eat an entire banana.  Seriously, I’m completely stuffed after eating a banana.
·         I can’t stand tuna or salmon.  I hate the smell.  I hate the sight.  I hate the taste.  If you invite me over to dinner, you better not make me a tuna casserole or salmon on a cedar plank.  If you do, and I say I like it, I’m totally lying.
·         I could eat scallops, lobster and blue crab all day long.
·        The meme I added to this post?  Yeah that’s me.  White girl in yoga pants who loves Fall and is obsessed with pumpkin everything.  Totally.  Me. 

 

 

“They Say it's Your Birthday....It's My Birthday Too, Yeah.” – The Beatles

Both of my grandfathers were in World War 2. 

My mom’s father was in the Air Force and their family moved around all across Canada every couple of years the whole time my mom was growing up.  Her father was a medic in the war.......my grandfather who died when I was five, so I never got to talk to him about his experiences overseas.  By all accounts, my grandfather was a  fun loving guy – a lover, not a fighter - and he did not want to talk about the war at all when he got back.  I really don’t know a lot about where he was stationed....I suppose I could find out.  I don't know how he survived the war, how it changed him, how it defined him.  After he returned home from the war, he left the Air Force and went to work as an accountant in a hospital.  He had a heart condition, he drank a lot, was the life of the party, he loved his family and died at 48.  Maybe that early death was a reflection of what the war did to him, but that's just speculation.

My father’s father enlisted in the 48th Highlanders, which is an Infantry reserve.  He was married with a young daughter when he went to England but his experiences in the war were the defining moments of his life.  He is a small but tough Ukrainian guy who breaks your hand when he shakes it, washes dishes with boiling hot water and pulls shrapnel out of his own leg in his garage….he’s THAT guy.  Chuck Norris’ brother from another mother.  He does not show vulnerability or make small talk….but after 94 years alive on this earth, he has got some fantastic stories to tell and most of them revolve around the war.

He has always talked about the war with a lot of pride which caused a lot of tension between him and my grandmother.  He spent a significant amount of time in England, France and Holland and had a serious girlfriend in Holland….she might even have had his kid after the war ended but he did his duty and returned home to his wife and daughter.  This was no secret in my family.  My grandmother had her picture and showed it to me once when I was a teenager.  I think she thought he was living it up overseas...having the time of his life.  And she resented him for it, unfortunately.

 My grandfather spent a year and a half in England training with the British Army before he went to France and then Holland, where he stayed until the war ended.  He was a sniper.  He likes to tell stories about the famous people who came to entertain the troops and the boots he stole from  German soldiers (he presumably killed) and the time he got to dance with Princess Elizabeth and the Nazi bank he and his fellow officers broke into.  He gave his share of whatever they found there to his girlfriend in Holland when he went back to Canada.

I have to admit, I love hearing his war stories.  He’s 94 years old and has a mind like a steel trap…he remembers everything and he’s a great storyteller.  I didn’t always love his stories – especially while my grandmother was alive since it made her so upset when he started talking about it - but in the last 7 or so years, and especially after I moved to the States, hearing his stories helps me feel connected to Canada, and to him, in a way that they didn’t before. 

I never heard him get emotional telling a story until a few years ago when after a bottle of wine I asked him if he had ever seen any of the concentration camps.  Then he told me for the first time how he and his regiment liberated one of the camps but he didn’t know which one, only that it was in Holland.  I looked it up online…..I’m pretty sure it must have been Vught.  He said he still sees the faces with blank eyes and sunken cheeks staring out from behind the fences, the boney hands grabbing at the soldiers' coats as they broke those fences down, the way they all just stood there after the fence was down....they didn't know where to go or what to do, what his regiment did to the German officers they found there. 

When I was younger, I didn't understand how he could be so proud, so boastful when he told these stories.  Some of these experiences were so awful, you'd think he would be humbled by them...grateful to be alive.  It occurred to me as I got older that he wasn't really capable of showing humility and gratitude 'cos that makes you vulnerable and that was just not something he could ever show, especially when he was a younger man.  It was up to me to accept him, love him, understand him anyway.  But more importantly, he was telling me these stories so that I would feel humbled and grateful.  Who was I to judge how boastful and proud he was when he was the one who willingly gave up his youth, allowed his entire life, individuality and spirit to be shaped by the horrors he witnessed? 

The only question my grandfather has ever refused to answer is “have you ever killed anyone?”.  It’s a question I asked 20 years ago before I knew he was a sniper.  He just looked at me with his clear blue eyes like I was a fucking moron.  After I found out he was a sniper, I didn’t need to ask.  After he told me that I saw “Enemy at the Gates” and it became one of my favourite war movies ever ‘cos it told me something about my grandfather’s life even though it’s not a Canadian story. 

I'm willing to bet that someone reading this has had similar experiences with their American or British loved one as I do with my Canadian grandfather.  These experiences don't stop at the border.  And in fact, as my grandfather told me many times, "I didn't need a passport to go to war....they just loaded us up on a cargo plane and we went to England."  To him, a border between countries is meaningless. 

Ever since I moved to the States, the first week of July is always a really weird week.  I’m a Canadian Citizen living in the United States.   July 1 is Canada Day…..a huge holiday where everyone in Canada goes, “Hey let’s have a barbecue and get drunk to celebrate being a part of the British Empire!”.   Then July 4, Independence Day, rolls around and everyone in the US goes, “Hey let’s have a barbecue and get drunk to celebrate being rid of those damned Brits!”.

Yup, weird.  Kind of like the kid stuck in the middle of two fighting parents.  Who am I loyal to?  Canada is my birth home…I’ll always be Canadian, not a thing can change that.  But the US has embraced me and I have embraced it, warts and all.  And Britain is my spiritual and cultural home…I love it there, so there’s that.

Given the WW2 history between Canada, the US and Britain, it has always seemed inappropriate to me to be at opposite ends of the spectrum with our July celebrations.  I dunno, it just seems strange to me. 

 

So I don’t really acknowledge either holiday.  It’s great to have a day off work…..but it’s just another day off work.  Two years ago, my passport was expiring around this time and I needed it to get back into the country if I left the US since my VISA was in it and I hadn’t gotten my Green Card in the mail yet.  So I went to Canada on July 4 so I could get a super expensive same day passport.  I don’t even remember what I did last year.  This year I'll go watch the fireworks with a friend because he really wants to.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to become a US Citizen.  I mean, I’ve given it some thought but there are serious responsibilities to becoming a dual Citizen.  For one thing, the US doesn’t even recognize dual citizenship.  When you take your oath, you “declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.” 

That’s pretty clear.  But I don’t want to give up my Canadian Citizenship….ever.  Conveniently, Canada doesn’t recognize you saying the words of that oath as you giving up your Citizenship.    If I want to give up my Canadian Citizenship, I have to sign a form and pay a fee to the Canadian government.  So I could declare the oath with the US, and far as they’re concerned, I’m theirs…but by not telling the Canadian government in an official capacity, they still think I’m theirs.  And that’s how you become a dual Citizen of the US.  By lying, essentially.

If I were a dual citizen, I could not enjoy the privileges of both citizenships when travelling.  Whatever passport I use to enter a country, that country recognizes me as that citizen.  So for example, if I went to Italy and used my US passport, if I got into trouble in that country, I could only call the US Embassy…I could not rely on Canada’s help since I did not use my Canadian passport to enter that country. 

If I became a US Citizen and then moved to another country, I would need to file a US tax return every year for the rest of my life, no matter if I ever live in the US again or not.  And of course I’d have to file in whatever country I live in as well.  Two tax returns?  I dunno.

The alternative is remaining a Permanent Resident, which means I can never ever vote in the US.  And if I’m going to live here, that seems unacceptable to me.  Not to mention that Canada only allows expats to vote in Canada for up to 5 years after leaving the country so in a couple years if I still live in the US and am still a Permanent Resident, I can’t vote anywhere.  I have no voting rights at all in any country.  Plus it means I am never done with USCIS.  I’ll have to renew my Green Card again in 10 years.....another $600 fee, another interview, more biometrics, more affidavits.

Definitely something to think about.  If Sam and I do not get divorced before next July, then I can apply for Citizenship next July.  If we do get divorced before next July, then I will need to wait until July 2017 to apply for Citizenship.  Either way, I have time to think about it.  That’s assuming USCIS doesn’t throw me out of the country before all that happens anyway.  The bust up of my marriage has left me feeling very vulnerable about the whole thing.

In any case, both Canada and the US are incredibly special to me.  I grew up in Southern Ontario very close to the US border.  Just like any other border kid, crossing the border was no big deal for me.  I always had American relatives in Attica (the town, not the prison), New Jersey and New York City and we’d visit them often.  My grandparents went to Florida for half the year and we’d go visit them.  We’d cross the border to get gas and groceries in Buffalo.  After I got my driver’s license, my friends and I would go clubbing in the States.  Many times I also crossed the border just to go the movies or out for dinner…it was just as close as going anywhere in Canada.  I know that seems crazy to people who don't live close to a border but for those of who do, it's no big deal.

So, honestly, I did not expect there to be a big difference when I moved to the US.  The landscape looks the same, the people look the same and speak the same language (other than that ridiculous Rochester accent), all the same shows are on TV in both countries (except the Food Network), all the same stores and brands.  Superficially, there are not a lot of differences.

But as they say, the difference is in the details.  Once you get past the surface of “everything is the same” and look a little deeper, you realize it really isn’t the same in many important ways.  The US spends most of their money on their military which doesn’t leave a lot for anything else.  It’s easy for Canada to criticize that and talk up its subsidized post-secondary education system, health care system and social programs, but if there was a serious war, Canada would need the help of the US military.  One country isn’t better than the other…they both have flaws, they both do great things, they’re both “real” countries but they have very different philosophies on the role government should play in the lives of its citizens. 

I’d love to go on a cross country trip across the US......get an RV and travel from town to town, state to state, stopping for anything interesting on the way, work in exchange for food and gas.  I was in Kansas once when I was a kid, but I don’t remember it.  I’ve been to Vegas twice but stayed pretty much on the strip.  Other than that, I’ve driven to Florida and back a number of times, have been all along the East Coast (which I love) and have been to Michigan.  There’s a lot more out there to see and I want to see it.

I’ve seen some of Canada but, again, not enough.  When I was 14, my mom, my brother and I took a bus across Canada to go visit my aunt, her husband and baby in Stewart, BC….a tiny town which borders Hyder, Alaska, another tiny town.   Greyhound had a special…go anywhere in Canada for $100….or something like that.  So, the three of us got on the bus for the five day trip across the country. 

The trip to my aunt’s place was filled with adventure.  Since there were three of us, someone always had to sit next to a stranger and since I am older than my brother, that someone was me.  So I sat next to a lot of characters and listened to a lot of questionable stories on the total 10 days we spent on the bus.  We stopped in some interesting places that I had no idea existed, the first of which was Wawa, ON.    Wawa’s claim to fame is its 30 foot statue of a Canadian goose.  

When I was younger, I got car sick pretty often.  I had to take Gravol (I don’t know what the US equivalent to that is…I just know I can’t find it in the US) while travelling.  Much to my mom’s horror, I must have not taken Gravol or ran out or something but at one point I got sick all over the stranger sitting next to me.  Literally threw up all over him.  The bus had to make an unplanned stop so this poor schmuck could clean up.

We stopped in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan  for my uncle’s wedding.  My uncle is a huge music fan and while I was at his place, I raided his album collection and recorded as many albums as I could on cassettes to listen to in my Walkman.  I still had a huge box of cassettes when I moved to the States….just got rid of them last year.  My favorite was the one I made at my uncle’s place….one side was Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the other was Roxy Music’s Flesh + Blood.  That cassette provided the soundtrack to the rest of the trip.

That trip was a life changing experience for me in many ways.  The way my aunt and her husband lived was very different than the way my parents lived.  My aunt and her husband lived in a teepee in the middle of a forest outside of Stewart.  The bus simply stopped on Highway 37 in the middle of nowhere to let us off – I have no idea how the driver even knew where to stop…it’s not like there were any buildings, any landmarks - and my aunt’s husband emerged from the forest to come and guide us back to the teepee.  On the trek through the woods, he pointed out the glacier stream they use for drinking water and refrigeration.  We stopped for a drink and the water in that stream was the coldest, purest, clearest water I had ever seen.  I could barely drink it ‘cos it was so cold.

The teepee was a one room structure, so they had set up a tent outside for the three of us to sleep in.  He showed us where the outhouse and the outdoor shower were.  There was no running water and no electricity.  The first night was kind of scary.  The trees were taller than any I had ever seen before – you could not see the sky - and the night was completely black.  There were animal sounds all around us everywhere…it really was a completely different experience for us and my mom did not like it at all.   In the middle of the night, after she had tried to go find the outhouse in the dark, she took us inside the teepee and my aunt’s husband went out to sleep in the tent by himself.
 

They hunted for moose to eat and for the fur and raised their own chickens for meat and eggs, so we ate moose and eggs while we were there.  I balked at eating moose so my aunt said she would make chicken and she went out to her yard, grabbed a chicken, killed it and cooked it….no big deal.  I was mortified.  Such a spoiled little princess.  One night as a treat for dinner we got a couple of King crabs…live King crabs.  Those suckers are HUGE.  In retrospect, this seems kind of cruel but we sat around the deck of the teepee and watched the crabs race around before we roasted them on an open fire and ate them. 

My aunt took us to Bear Glacier and told us how to react when we saw certain kinds of bears, which we did…lots of them.  We parked in Stewart and walked across the US border to Hyder, Alaska.  There was a tiny little shed in the parking lot which was the Customs office.  There was a sign on the door asking you to fill in a declaration form and drop it in the box…there was no one there manning the shed.  My brother and I thought this was hilarious since we were so used to the Peace Bridge.   We could not believe someone could just walk into another country and no one would even notice.  My aunt told us that Hyder is so tiny they don’t even have their own school, police or hospital.  US residents who live in Hyder go to Stewart, BC.  for school, police and medical care.

We watched the salmon run while Grizzly bears waded through the water and devoured salmon.  They could not have cared less we were there, as long as we didn’t get too close.  We spent a few hours wandering around looking at glaciers, which is a completely awesome and overwhelmingly beautiful experience.

I’m sure it was on that trip that I learned to love remote, unpopulated, wild spaces.  It also showed me that the border really is meaningless when it comes to how people live.  We had more in common with my cousins in Attica, NY than we did with my aunt and her family in Stewart, BC.  It’s been too long since I took a life changing trip like that and I’m hungry for another.  Canada or the US…doesn’t matter.  Either will do.   Both countries feed my soul and I could not imagine living on a different continent.  People joke about Canada becoming a State but honestly for me, that border is invisible.  I respect the differences of these two great countries and don't think either one of them should change who they fundamentally are.

So Happy Birthday Canada!  Happy Birthday America!  Celebrate!  You are both everything to me and I wouldn’t be who I am today without you.