The Only Sure Things #FTSF #AtoZChallenge

“grief is the price you pay for love you see.”
—Miss Josephine Barry, “Anne The Series”

Truer words have never been spoken.

The A to Z Challenge – T is for Taxes

How we pay for everything else.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes and nothing free either.

After love, all we are left with is grief, but that love is always there.

Then there are those dreaded taxes. I consider myself lucky that my sister works at a tax office. She is learning the ropes. It’s nice to have that in the family because I am absolute rubbish with numbers.

So this time is a tense one, for many people and reasons, full of stress. April is tax time and time for bloggers to decide on whether or not to tackle doing the dreaded A to Z thing. It’s a lot of work and I haven’t even arrived at the hardest letters of the alphabet yet. Oh boy.

I’m tempted to keep this post light, but talk of grief is on my mind, as it is impossible to escape forever. Love and loss are wrapped up in one another. It’s inevitable. I may keep my distance, afraid of loss and getting hurt, but love is still the best thing I know. I can’t close myself off from it, simply because one day it will end in heartbreak.

I’m facing down thoughts of death all the while, I’m leaving the tax part in my sister’s more capable hands.

***This is my late contribution to
Finish the Sentence Friday
(three days late) because the prompts just happened to fit.

Finding Ninee’s perspective is an interesting one: nothing to lose and everything to lose, all at the same time. Check it out.

***This is my first year of joining the A to Z Challenge and so I’ve decided to post randomly, as a way for new visitors to my blog to get to know me a little better. I look forward to discovering some interesting new blogs too.

And That’s All, #SongLyricSunday

Your love is the very air that I breathe.

Ugh! So dramatic!

Okay, so that sort of thing may have worked, sounded good, for poetry or song lyrics of some kind. As a writer, I get that. I am just capping off
this month dedicated to all things related to love and relationships
with a way out of the heartbreak that can sometimes result when something comes to an end, as these things seem to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6igcfvq2BQ

It is not me, Tina Turner, or Bryan Adams minimizing what love is, what it means, or how it feels when it is gone. It’s just an offering of hope, at least that’s how I see it.

***

When the feeling is ended
There ain’t no use pretending
Don’t you worry, it’s only love

When your world has been shattered
Ain’t nothing else matters
It ain’t over, it’s only love And that’s all

When your heart has been broken
Hard words have been spoken
It ain’t easy, but it’s only love
And if your life ain’t worth living
And you’re ready to give in
Just remember that it’s only love Yeah, that’s all

You can live without the aggravation
You gotta want to win, you gotta want to win
You keep looking back in desperation
Over and over and over again

SONGWRITERS JAMES, MARK/TYRELL, STEVE

It’s Only Love – Tina Turner and Bryan Adams – Lyrics

***

I love the force of this song, the impact it has on me when I hear it, no matter how many times that might be.

I feel better after listening. It gives me that little extra bit of a push to focus and look ahead, not behind me.

Somebody I Once Knew: Playlist For a Broken Heart on the Mend, #SongLyricSunday #LoIsInDaBl

I am writing about song lyrics, again today, although I wrote part One last week on Monday:

I’VE GOT A FEELING (IT’S COMPLICATED)

Here is my final Sunday contribution to

LOVE IS IN DA BLOG 2016,

although hopefully not my last

SONG LYRIC SUNDAY.

It’s that list of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally, acceptance.

The 5 Stages of Loss and Grief

Of course, with love and heartbreak, the stages can become entwined and out of order. They can overlap, from one to the next and back again. This list of emotions is usually known as the stages of losing a loved one, to death, but losing “love”, in any other way, this is a loss too. Although the other person isn’t gone completely, it still feels like it, a huge shock to the system, in so many ways.

And now I present to you…GOODBYE SONGS…a “somewhat” lengthy playlist of some of the song lyrics that got me through, are still getting me through. Perhaps they may be of some comfort to someone else.

Battlefield – Jordin Sparks

When I was younger I first heard this song and thought it was overdramatic and a bunch of silliness. Of course, the imagery is vivid and I don’t believe in war, I know love can feel rough, which makes it hard to handle. I don’t tend to yell or fight when I am in a relationship. My coping mechanism is to go quiet and hold back. I don’t know if there is a need for shouting in a relationship, but healthy conflict resolution must be possible.

Hurts To Be In Love – Gino Vannelli

When is the pain too great? When is it over, time to let go? I asked, last week, how you really know when you are falling in love. Now I ask…how do you know when you aren’t in love anymore? Does love end, change, disappear into thin air, never to be seen, felt, heard from again?

DENIAL

Between The Raindrops – Lifehouse Feat. Natasha Bedingfield

It can go on for a while, trouble, cracks forming in a relationship. Who knows when it really began. Who can say.

Just Give Me A Reason – Pink Feat. Nate Ruess

The denial that there’s anything underlying, underlining a growing rift. Often I feel like I can’t trust my instincts, or am afraid to, by me saying something I am going to make my worst fears come true. You cling to hope, as long as possible, until something makes things quite clear. By then it is too late, an eventuality that was always going to be the case.

Ghost Town – Madonna

“Maybe it was all too much, too much for a man to take. Everything’s bound to break. Sooner or later. sooner or later.”

–Madonna

Why are singers and artists obsessed with end-of-the-world, final days of humanity scenarios?

The whole “two of us against the world” thing is great and all, but I always feared it would never last, that I couldn’t ever truly count on that.

Hold On – Colbie Caillat

“We’re losing light, losing light. Yeah we’re fading fast. We had a fire, need a spark, or we’ll never last. Just look at me, look at me. I’ve been burning for you so long. So long. I should walk away.”

It’s the hardest thing to let go.

“I’m losing love, losing you, losing everything. Losing faith in the world where I wanna be. So I don’t care if the one thing that is killing me is so wrong, so wrong. I should walk away.”

–Colbie Caillat

Set Fire To The Rain – Adele

You close your eyes to the sights playing out right in front of you. So far, rain mentioned twice, as a metaphor for the cooling off of a relationship, but fire and rain make quite the combo.

Stay – Rihanna Feat. Mikky Ekko

“Ooh, the reason I hold on…ooh, cause I need this hole gone.”

–Rihanna

Payphone – Maroon 5 Feat. Wiz Khalifa

“I know it’s hard to remember, the people we used to be. It’s even harder to picture, that you’re not here next to me. You say it’s too late to make it, but is it too late to try? And all that time that you wasted all of my bridges burned down. I’ve wasted my nights, you turned out the lights. Now I’m paralyzed. Still stuck in that time when we called it love but even the sun sets in paradise.”

–Maroon 5

Pompeii – Bastille

ANGER

Hot & Cold – Katy Perry

“You’re hot then you’re cold. You’re yes then you’re no. You’re in then you’re out. You’re up then you’re down. You’re wrong then it’s right. It’s black then it’s white. We fight we break up. We kiss we make up. You don’t really wanna stay, no. But you don’t really wanna go, oh.”

–Katy Perry

Goodbye – Glenn Morrison Feat. Islove

“Now I…I wanna know what it took to leave me?”

–Glenn Morrison

Giant In My Heart – Kiesca

I could be angry at him…or at myself, for getting stuck, somewhere along the way.

What am I supposed to do?

Anger is a stage you hope you do not get stuck in for very long, but feeling the feelings has to be better than burying them deep down.

What Kind of Man – Florence + the Machine

So you think that people who suffer together would be more connected than people who were content?” she asks.

Does drama need to be a requirement for most people? In the end, can’t we do without?

The video of Florence in the car with the guy is chilling, tension thick, and then the crash!

“What kind of man loves like this?”

–Florence + the Machine

voices as powerful as Florence and Adele can bring forward emotions in me, ones I only choose to cover up the rest of the time.

Rolling in the Deep – Adele

“The scars of your love remind me of us. They keep me thinking that we almost had it all. The scars of your love, they leave me breathless. I can’t help thinking…we could have had it all.”

–Adele

Let Her Go – Passenger

“You only need the light when its burning low. Only miss the sun when it starts to snow. Only know you’ve been high when you’re feeling low. Only hate the road when you’re missing home.”

–Passenger

It’s the whole “not knowing what you have until you no longer have it thing.

BARGAINING

Cups (Pitch Perfect) When I’m Gone – Anna Kendrick

“When I’m gone. When I’m gone. You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone. You’re gonna miss me by my walk. You’re gonna miss me by my talk. Oh, you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone. You’re gonna miss me by my hair. You’re gonna miss me everywhere. Oh, you’re sure gonna miss me when I’m gone.”

–Anna Kendrick

Like repeating those words, over and over, like that will make it hurt less.

The lyrics that surround both sides, from anger to bargaining, cover the feelings of saving face.

It helps to assuage the strength of the anger to tell yourself they are missing out, their loss, because you are just that great.

One Last Time – Ariana Grande

Another catastrophic scene as the backdrop of a song about love. Hmmm.

If there is someone else, better suited for them, don’t you want that for someone you want only the best for, even if that does not include you anymore?

Break Your Plans – The Fray

Maybe. Maybe not.

The Great Escape – Patrick Watson

“Gets in his car and drives away…far from the things that we are.”

–Patrick Watson

Nothing worse than when the person you thought was always going to be in your life instead gets in their car and drives away, desperate to escape what you think is you.

Born To Die – Lana Del Rey

“Lost but now I am found. I could see but once I was blind. I was so confused as a little child. Tried to take what I could get…scared that I couldn’t find…all the answers honey.”

–Lana Del Ray

DEPRESSION

Don’t Turn Around – Ace of Base

“I will survive without you.”

–Ace of Base

It’s true, of course, but the depression can take hold and make it seem unlikely that it will ever feel better.

Where Did We Go Wrong – Toni Braxton & Babyface

And then the blame takes control, but only at myself.

Say Something – A Great Big World Feat. Christina Aguilera

“And I…am feeling so small. It was over my head. I know nothing at all. And I…will stumble and fall. I’m still learning to love, just starting to crawl. And I…will swallow my pride. You’re the one that I love, and I’m saying goodbye.”

–A Great Big World Feat. Christina Aguilera

This Summer’s Gonna Hurt Like A Motherf****r – Maroon 5

Seasons go by. It’s hard to sort out what it meant to be in love, as life goes on, the feelings of anger, mostly covering up those of painful regret.

Used To Love You – Gwen Stefani

“I don’t know why I cry, but I think it’s cause I remember for the first time, since I hated you, that I used to love you.”

–Gwen Stefani

“How” – Regina Spektor

“How can I ever know…why some stay others go?”

–Regina Spektor

At times it felt like people just kept on leaving. I thought it was something about me that kept on making them go, even when I knew with very little doubt that couldn’t be the reason, and after a while I started feeling sure they all would, in time.

It’s that thing about how one moment someone is a stranger to you, unknown and somewhere living their life, and suddenly they are a part of your life and an important part at that, and then, again and before you know what hit you, they are gone and no where to be found once more.

Somebody That I Used To Know – Gotye (feat. Kimbra)

Where did they go and how does the heart, the system adapt?

Perfect – One Direction

I understand feeling lonely, but I couldn’t see how so many people move on to someone new so quickly. I couldn’t, wouldn’t even dream of it, until I had to try.

Stay The Night – Zedd Feat. Hayley Williams

Even if it’s just to get past the mountainous wall of memories of another person, with the simple holding of a new hand, first time kissing someone other than the one before. At a certain point, once that transition is made, the world does not end and new experiences can be hat, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t an utterly strange feeling.

Say It Right – Nelly Furtado

But is it all in a vane attempt to disguise the still lingering feelings? Is it healthy? Is it the right way? Is there even one of those to take at all?

Hide Away – Kiesca

Is it all just a part of feeling that depression, by distraction, forcing forward motion, even if its motives aren’t quite so clear or pure?

Better In Time – Leona Lewis

“It’s been the longest winter without you. I didn’t know where to turn to. See, somehow I can’t forget you, after all that we’ve been through. How could I turn on the TV, without something that’d remind me? Was it all that easy, to just put aside your feelings?”

–Leona Lewis

The title of this song really says it all. It will get better in time. The thought of that feels daunting at first, I know, but I believe in just walking the road. That’s what I keep doing. I had to just keep the faith that I would come out stronger on the other end, but the journey continues.

ACCEPTANCE

Finally, right? Well, it has gotten easier, for sure. The rest of the songs I’ve included here are all upbeat, with yet still a sprinkling of sad throughout, but overall optimistic and full of truth.

Single Girls (Live) – Laura Jansen

I first discovered this song several years ago, as I was dealing with a wrong decision and a hard choice. Society overwhelmingly gives out the message that being single is something to pity or change, as soon as possible. I like the picture Laura paints, about what being alone again, after a relationship, what it’s really like.

“And I keep trying, I keep trying, to make my way back to the life where I belong. But God keeps lying, God keeps lying, saying this is for the best and nothing here is wrong. But I’m still thinking about, I’m still thinking about you. Still think about you.”

–Laura Jansen

It’s not begging to get another person back, like so many love songs. It’s just what life’s really like. It just is.

How Did We Get From Saying I Love You – Great Big Sea

I love the question this band asks in their song, all while singing with their signature brand of positivity, which feels like it’s imbedded in the very core of their musical sound.

“How did we get from saying “I love you” to “I’ll see you around someday”?

Good question GBS. Good question. Ah, the mysteries of life.

🙂

It’s that thought of accidentally running into the person who was once such a big part of your life, in the street one time, with a few polite words and a friendly greeting. After love, that just seems too odd to be reality, but that’s how it often goes.

‘Prayer for the Dying’ – Seal

I’m crossing that bridge…with lessons I’ve learned. Playing with fire and not getting burned. I may not know what you’re going through, but time is the space between me and you. Life carries on. It goes on.”

–Seal

Of course, you play with fire, you’ll likely get burnt. Doesn’t mean you should stop lighting candles on a birthday cake for example. Love and relationships come with risk, which can leave a burn, a mark. It’s true that we can never be exactly certain what another person might be going through. I try to always remember that part of the equation.

Odds Are – Barenaked Ladies

“The odds are that we…will probably be all right. Odds are we’re gonna be alright. Odds are we’re gonna be alright for another night.”

I don’t always do that well with odds, but in this song, when he says it I believe it.

“But somewhere in the world someone’s gonna fall in love by the end of this song.”

–Barenaked Ladies

And so the trick soon becomes to not completely close off to the possibility of love. It’s tempting to shy away, fearing another eventual burn, but there is always hope.

Begin Again – Taylor Swift

“I’ve been spending the last eight months…thinking all love ever does is break…and burn…and end. But on a Wednesday, in a cafe, I watched it begin again.”

–Taylor Swift

Moving on is acceptance and acceptance is moving on.

Not A Bad Thing – Justin Timberlake

“I know, people make promises…all the time…then they turn right around and break them.”

–Justin Timberlake

Don’t punish yourself and someone else for the past. Don’t be afraid to love.

Love Someone – Jason Mraz

I hope I end this story on an uplifting note. I’ll give Ed the last word.

“Loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes, but it’s the only thing that I know.
When it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes, it is the only thing makes us feel alive.”

–Ed Sheeran, Photograph

Steps and Strides, #SingleStrides #LoIsInDaBl

In honour of Valentine’s Day being only two days from now, a very special edition of

BLOG LOVE,

with a writer, adventurerer, and blogger I’ve interviewed here once before.

I just thought there is no better place than today’s

#FridayBlogLove

to re-introduce:

SINGLE STRIDES

If you are looking for travel, she’s got it. If you’re looking for reflections on love, heartbreak, and starting over again – it’s all there, in one place.

WHY THE BEST THING YOU CAN BE IN LIFE IS DREADFULLY AFRAID

Sonya writes things that reach the heart of the matter. Her words often touch a nerve in me that makes me sit up and take notice of the world around me, of my own self, to become more aware of my surroundings.

She helped me through a hard time. I found her blog at the exact right moment. She writes about how to learn to love yourself, as well as be prepared when other kinds of love come along, and on this Valentine’s Day weekend I wanted to showcase the kind of love of oneself this fabulous writer is advocating.

Also, you can check out my earlier interview with her from last year:

SPOTLIGHT SUNDAY: SINGLE STRIDES

One Step at a Time – Jordin Sparks

Love Is In Da Blog: Intro to Mindful Monday, #LoIsInDaBl

It’s February and, as they say, “love is in the air”. Or, as some say instead, “Love Is In Da Blog”.

🙂

Sliding straight from one month-long blogging project to the next with

“Love Is In Da Blog” 2016.

My first idea was to write about love and heartbreak. I’d only planned on a post or two on the subject, using music and song lyrics to help illustrate my thoughts, but recently I made the decision to devote the entire month of February to the topic. After all, I have enough wonderful music to make my feelings known, but then I found out about another of these blogging things, after participating all January in one to kick of 2016 with a little bit of a direction, as directionless as I was feeling.

I like these. They are not nearly as huge as some month-long challenges, which makes them a lot easier to manage and I like the nice size community of bloggers. It’s big but not overwhelming.

I usually have Memoir Monday on my blog, but for this month I will follow with

Mindful Monday,

as I focus on the subject of learning to love oneself as a big part of February’s proceedings.

I will be returning with Memoir Mondays, starting in March, as I begin to write more about what was going on in my life, twenty years ago.

“It’s better to feel pain, than nothing at all. The opposite of love’s indifference.”

–The Lumineers

The month of February isn’t just about romantic love with Valentine’s Day in the middle. There’s also my birthday before and Family Day after. These two days are necessary reminders that there’s all sorts of love: love for myself and for my family.

I will try to make loving myself a priority, even with all the talk of prayer, validation, or meditation. I write. I write and I think I am mindful, but I can’t really say.

I discovered this Lumineers song recently, with the spectacular violin solo at the beginning, as one of the things I intend to do to celebrate my birthday next week is to learn a new skill, one I’ve been wanting to tackle for a while. I’m going to rent a violin and start taking lessons. Perhaps one day I can play along with the solo in this song.

Stubborn Love

That’s one part of paying attention and loving oneself that I do believe strongly in. I never want to stop learning, discovering, and finding new interests. I want to do this, for me. I want to always stubbornly follow my heart and listen to what its telling me, to do the things that will make me happy, when and wherever possible.

The Dark Tower, #SoCS

The tower in, what is known as the City of Light, was said to have gone dark.

The City of Love, known for romance was plunged into darkness.

I have not been to Paris, to France, but I’ve wanted to go, for a long time. There’s so much I want to see there.

I do not speak French, but I listened to the recorded sound of the gun shots and the bomb blasts, on the news. I wondered how I was going to describe it later. I’m still not sure things like this can be described, in words, but words are all I’ve got to work with.

All the talk of blood and bodies and I know what “indescribable” truly means. These horrors are in a different city, a new country, on any given nightly news broadcast. I don’t want to be afraid, to wonder how I’m going to describe my fears to others.

I can’t see the images on television, but I hear the distinctive whine of European emergency vehicles, the sound that I woke to, to hear out my window, the first night I spent in Dublin, Ireland. I hear that sound again, but I know why I hear it, what it’s duty is to those in crisis now.

When we say something is indescribable…well, I know it can be described, but I don’t know. Not really. I grasp at the words I love, to make the indescribable describable, but my brain hurts inside my skull.

How does someone, my brother, how does he describe the world to my niece?

She is young still and can be somewhat sheltered from the realities of the world, but for how long?

What would I say? How would I make something so indescribable become clear, when it isn’t even clear to me?

Not just the facts and the details of a senseless night in Paris, but of the state of things. It’s simply indescribable to me, that a human being, as I am a human being, would do harm to another. I don’t know why and I don’t know, even what the issue really is. Religion, one’s beliefs, and the lengths people go to for all these are indescribable.

It’s an indescribable feeling to hear my niece or my nephew’s voices say my name, my siblings/their parent’s names.

It’s indescribable what I smell in the air, on the perfect fall day or in the middle of a still winter night.

It’s indescribable what love really feels like. What heartbreak does to the human soul. What death and the loss of a loved one damages deep down.

I describe a lot of things, but my fading, remaining sight makes it harder and harder, nearly impossible, an indescribable, retreating skill lost, to describe what I once saw so well.

I want light and dark. Love and loss. These are realities. The stuff that really does matter is the stuff that’s always going to be indescribable, but I need to try anyways.

SoCS

Stream of Consciousness Saturday:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/11/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-1415/

Granted, not the best Friday the 13th on record.

Superstition, to me, is indescribable. It makes people think strange things, but, oh, how I long for the usual in Friday the 13th superstitious beliefs now.

TToT: Words Glorious Words – Reed Running Amuck in the Reeds, #10Thankful

“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”

–L.M. Montgomery

Damn, do I love this Montgomery quote.

TEN THINGS OF THANKFUL

Not sure, but I believe this past week, here, felt more like summer than fall, but I heard few complaints.

Summer Breeze

This week has been all about nature, music, and words, the third allowing me to express my love for the first two.

Ten Things of Thankful:

For creatinine at 70 and my father to ask if it is possible for this level in the blood to be too low.

Another six month checkup behind me and my creatinine is lower than it has been in a few years.

Every time I go in to get my kidney function checked, I wonder: is this going to be the day everything falls apart?

It’s been eighteen years since I received a kidney from my father. Most days, I tell myself I can break records and I think about the huge party I’m planning to throw when I reach the twenty-year mark.

(You are all invited by the way.)

🙂

Other times, the reality hits me that, though the nurses keep reminding me nothing would happen that fast, I know I may have to go back on dialysis again, at any time, and nobody can say when and nobody can stop it.

Until that day, I keep on praying for advancements in medical science and for each six months I’m given, dialysis free.

For the reminder of the beauty of nature all around me, to remember to stop and take it in once and a while.

My mother reminded me of this, my nephew reminded me of this, and our warmer-than-usual first-week-of-November weather reminded me of this too.

For the sound of rippling, not quite waves.

We spent an afternoon along the shore of the small lake in my town. With just the noise of a gentle ripple I let the warm breeze rustle my hair and looked out over the water.

It’s more of a subtle sound and it fit the slight breeze and the warmth of the day, a small break in the cooler fall temperatures.

For the discovery of some truly wonderful music I did not know existed.

Florence + The Machine – Where Are You Now?

For artists trying new things, doing things their own way, and making kick ass music.

For those who know you, parts of you, and what you like, even if you never would have liked something before they came along. Even as time marches onward, certain people know best the parts of you that nobody else might have been witness to.

For do-overs and the ability to still smile and find good memories, even after rough times. And for time, the best way to deal with heartbreak.

It’s not always easy, does not become so in any real linear way, but I know of no better option.

For my first week of my new writer’s group.

Words with Friends

I tried my best to write about my first experience, as a part of the group, as scary as it was at the time.

It was also exhilarating too. I wish I’d started months ago, but this group only began last January, I was told.

For the part where I was recognized, which made my first week in a group of strangers a little less overwhelming.

The woman who runs the group is a friend of a family member of my family.

This woman happens to work at the library and she knew who I was.

For the chance to talk about a favourite book of mine.

Jean Louise the Silent: My Review of “Go Set A Watchman”, Part One

This woman just happened to mention her book club the following night and what they had read. She wasn’t sure how many were going to come out in favour of Watchman, with the deep attachment to Mockingbird which exists.

Jean Louise the Silent: My Review of “Go Set A Watchman”, Part Two

When I spoke up about my love of this book, she right away invited me to join her, to be at least one person on her side, in favour of the new one.

For a festival of words and a friend who accompanied me, even if she may have been a little bored at certain moments. She made it memorable.

I only made it to the opening night reception, but perhaps next year I will attend more of the events which were put on yesterday and today.

It’s both easy and hard to be somewhere where words are what it’s all about.

I love being anywhere (whether it be critique group, book club, or festival) where writing, books, or words are the sole topic of conversation.

However, as with the reception the other night, I looked around the room and listened to the remarks made and little bits of conversation. I felt a way, perhaps, that many others felt. Everyone else here is more literary and more experienced with books than I am, whether true or not.

I’ve learned about writing, that to share and read other writers is just as wonderful as anything. I want to include a few examples, from each previous week’s TToT, at the bottom of each post I write, every single week, from now on.

GIRLIE ON THE EDGE – On autumn and the falling back of the clocks.

THE MOM CAFE – On the struggles and rewards of motherhood.

GETTING LITERAL – On the poetics of certainty.

I am moved by words, now, on a weekly basis.

“The world is wrong. You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard.”

–Claudia Rankine

2015 October Platform Challenge: Day Nine, #platchal

I missed a few days there, or a little more than that, as I already have both a Facebook page and Twitter, but I’m back for more of a refresher.

Create An Editorial Calendar

I outline what I want for my blog, in my very first post,

Bucket List,

but I had no clue how it would really be to have a blog, day in and day out. I couldn’t have known then.

I do like to keep a rough schedule, more in my head, but the categories I select before each post help me keep things straight.

I stayed up, into the night, before I actually launched this blog, coming up to my thirtieth birthday in 2014 and mapped out which days I wanted to post.

I would let alliteration lead me.

Memoir Monday: My Fear of Going Blind

Fiction Friday: An Old Woman’s Regret

Spotlight On Saltz

From there, as the months of blogging went on, more weekday categories were added.

Touching Landscapes: Feel the Vibrations

This was my regular post, my growing favourite, Travel Tuesday as I called it. This was how I eventually decided to branch out further, creating

The Insightful Wanderer

and my blogging schedule continuing to change.

Slowly, my favourite weekly posts have become

In The News and On My Mind: #1000Speak Edition

because these allow me to focus in on what may be going on, in the moment.

It is a difficult question, how often to post on a blog. I don’t like to box myself in by telling myself I have to post, but I understand consistency and regularity.

I have not run out of things to say, like I’d feared in the beginning, and only really the opposite is true.

Every day is too much, but I hate to go more than a few days and not publishing something.

My Mondays have become a series on disability, for which I have a vested interest.

When It Rains It Pours – The Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge

I do the well known TBT thing.

Throwback Thursday: World Kidney Day

My weekends were where I featured interviews. I wanted to give the spotlight to other people who write, blog, and make a difference in some way.

She’s the Bomb

Eventually, my weekends would evolve into what they currently consist of: Stream of Consciousness Saturday and 10 Things of Thankful on Sunday.

SoCS: Engraved

and

TToT: Extra Thankful For These Last Eighteen Years

So this is just a selection of my posts, an example of the kind of blogging schedule I keep to. This won’t be the way others can or choose to do it. I don’t know. Is this too much? I know it’s enough and I am happy because my blog, its content, style, and all other elements, including number of weekly posts is me…just me.

When an idea hits me I make a note of it, trying to decide when and if it might fit. I plan things, sometimes weeks or even months ahead of where I am. It works for me. Writing is a lot of hard work, more than people realize, but the weekly practice is the best thing for me. I like to have a plan wherever possible, but yet I also like to go with the flow and let things happen naturally.

A blogging calendar, like a yearly one, has certain markers of importance and note. What might take place in between is anyone’s guess.

I am enjoying this challenge for the month of October. It has given me more to think about. It is now a part of my month.

Follow the guy who runs the challenge.

@RobertLeeBrewer

Dates to make note of, things to come on my blog, of course always subject to change:

**More posts for Redefining Disability, including my thoughts on a woman who made the news for making herself go blind.

**An “In The News and On My Mind” post about voting. Will I or won’t I?

**A post about love (tentatively titled Somebody That I Used to Know), a list of songs to help with heartbreak and how to get past lost love.

**Halloween themed posts about spiders, werewolves, and ghosts.

**My story about a giant book fair, by the lake, in Toronto.

That should get us through October anyway.

NANOWRIMO 2014: Priorities, Goals, and Motivation

Okay, so in case it has skipped anyone’s notice, we have arrived at the end of November.

This means that the month of NaNoWriMo is nearing its finish.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed this either, but I missed last week’s Fiction Friday, my usual post here and I did it for a reason.

Not for the reason I wrote about in my previous NaNoWriMo edition of Fiction Friday:

Rebellion.

Not for the cool, wild, hip concept of being a rebel.

🙂

But more like avoidance…avoidance of returning to the place I was at last year at this time.

The reason why I avoided writing any sort of update last week was I knew then and I certainly know now that I will not be reaching fifty thousand words on any novel, not this time.

I did it on my first try, but I guess I’ve learned that, in writing as in life, my priorities can sure shift, only one year on.

In author/writer Alana Saltz’s latest blog post,

What NaNoWriMo Has Taught Me About the Writing Process,

she writes about her own experiences, over the past handful of years with this writing challenge.

It is a helpful thing to me, to read about someone as successful as her, and how the same ups and downs (although not wanted or welcomed) can happen to anyone.

Alana says the two things that made the difference for her, the year she completed the challenge, were focus and a lack of distraction. these two go hand-in-hand, in a big way.

Last year I had distractions, sure, but I was highly focused on getting the novel I had been storing in my head for years down in actual words.

I don’t know where to go with it next and I do know I love the writing I am doing now. this means I didn’t want to give up all the focus I use for blogging multiple times a week, for this huge novel, that has not moved out of the first draft stage since I wrote it one year ago.

Will it have a sequel or will I keep writing?

What do I want it to be and to mean?

I definitely have my share of distractions at this point.

I have discovered that I love blogging, that I find it highly therapeutic in my life right now. I can’t say I feel that way about my novel-in-progress at this time.

In this day of technology and with the advent of ebooks, I hear authors saying all the time that it does no good to have one book, but what counts is to write one and then another and another, until you can build momentum.

As for the points made by Alana, this is my take on it:

1.
Motivation

I am motivated, but apparently not to grab the reins of the story I started last November, and run full-speed ahead.

I am motivated and I set goals all the time with my blogs, every week and month. I keep a fairly steady schedule of posts, present and future. I live by certain deadlines all the time with a blog and now a second one, especially when I am guest posting and hosting guest posters. It is imperative. People, not only me, expect this.

2.
Community

I do not have this, quite as much, with NaNoWriMo. There are no local NaNo groups, at least none I have discovered readily.

As for a community, I have found this in the blogosphere and I like it.

3.
Distractions

I am distracted constantly, my mind constantly wound up. I feel a sense of focus and calm when I am blogging that I couldn’t give up nearly enough to return to the novel that I started while still a part of the life I used to live and am not living in the same way anymore.

4.
Determination

I am determined to make something of blogging and more recently, with travel blogging. This is where I am right now and, although I may regret putting more and more time between myself and the novel I started, right now I must live in the present and future and not allow myself to return to a past I can’t afford to reexamine at this time.

The problem, for me, is that I don’t know if I have more than one novel in me, if I even have this one and the ability to finish it to any real end.

In an extremely uplifting video I came across earlier today, as I was thinking on how I was going to end off my lack of a completed NaNo goal for the month, what I wanted to say here, author Alina Popescu made some valid points:

NaNoWriMo14 – The Deadline Menace – Video on YouTube

I am a writer, like she discusses, whether I write novels, short stories, memoir, reviews and interviews, or travel articles.

I AM A WRITER.

I have discovered I like writing, in a way I did not understand one year ago, and I will follow this path, wherever it may take me.

All I know, at this point one year on, is that I have things inside me to say: about love and relationships, about heartbreak and moving on, about the movies and music that are my inspirations, and the people and places that move me and teach me so much.

Now that I have discovered this world of blogging, and most recently travel blogging, I needed to put all my focus on these things because they are getting me through.

I guess I didn’t really think anyone who might happen to read this would really care that I could not pull off fifty thousand words in a month, two years in a row.

Really, I am the only one I owe any explanation to, whether in my own head or heart. This post just helps me lay all that out, for the record, because maybe next year I will return to this post and start again with Till Death…

I am not giving up on that dream of publishing a story of fiction, but perhaps I am not meant to be mainly a writer of fiction at all.

Living in the present of November 2014 I am a blogger and I like that title and the feeling that gives me.

Post Breakup: How I Survived The First Six Months

“Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind … when a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her.”

Alice Munro, too Much Happiness

Just Breathe: Keep Breathing
Six things I’ve used to help get through.

I gravitate towards song lyrics which expressly tell me to breathe, right there in the song, over and over again. I literally need this reminder, at least once a day. In addition, I have found six more things that have made the months just a little more bearable, six techniques, one for each month I have found myself single once more and just trying to move on. I like symmetry and so here are six things, one for each month so far.

1.
Family and Friends.

Where would I have been in those initial first days, when I was in a fog of denial and disbelief, if I hadn’t had my siblings to rant to.

From my oldest brother’s calm wisdom, to my sister’s been-there advice, to my younger brother’s patience as I railed in anger. A reminder that I was not alone with a single unexpected delivery of flowers from a friend. The comfort from my parents and their unwavering support and love. I would be nowhere without these people. Nowhere!

2.
Music.

There are only so many times a girl can hear John Legend’s hit song All of Me and not want to throw something. This is where these soulful ladies came in.

Of course there’s no shortage of weepy breakup songs out there. I found the ones that spoke to me. How could I ever have gotten through the feelings of anger and loss without such artistes as Ingrid Michaelson, Lily Allen, and

Lana Del Ray’s “Summertime Sadness?.

These women’s strong voices were just what I needed to push through the heartbreak and make sense of the nonsensical.

3.
Animals.

I had a dog already, but my family were surprised, to-say-the-least, when one day out-of-the-blue I announced I was getting a kitten. Was I crazy, they demanded? Did I really want this or was I simply making a rash decision that I would regret later, when I realized all the responsibility?

What they didn’t understand was that I needed something. I needed to feel loved and be able to give love in return. Dobby and Lumos gave me something to get up for in the morning, because I knew someone or something needed me.

4.
Chocolate.

Because…come on!

5.
Writing.

Whether it was my rambling release of anger I directed toward the end of the life I thought I had and toward the one who hurt me or the catharsis of writing just because I love it and it keeps me sane. I was able to filter what I wanted or needed to say in any particular moment, by saving the really harsh stuff for a private journal. This was a friend’s idea, (see Number 1).

Or my blog, where I could express myself in a more constructive and appropriate way. I would have been lost without both. Just hope I never switch the two accidentally.

🙂

6.
Being surrounded by the memories every day.

This last one might sound strange, given all that advice out there to burn absolutely every item of his so you don’t have to look at it and be reminded. Well, that’s a little tough, considering I am living there still, in my house, the house we lived in together.

He packed up all his clothes and computers and left. Wherever he is, he is able to not have to look at the memories all the time, but this is my house and I wake up and go to bed surrounded by the things we did and had and the images are unavoidable. Sure, I could have moved and run from all of it, but that just wasn’t practical.

I did little things to deal with the in-your-face reality of my situation, such as sleeping in another room that wasn’t ours. I still can’t sleep in our bed, but I know (with a little help from a new set of sheets and pillows) that I will reclaim the master bedroom as my own. By staying behind I am forced to confront the past every day and to let it make me strong again.

I reclaim a spot on the couch or a shelf in the bathroom and I take back my power. The ghosts of the relationship linger, sure, but I face them and I grow from that and keep moving forward.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve months and a year.

After six months I am doing my very best, by finding all the things that make life bearable, that make life better.

These last six months have been some of the hardest of my life, but they have also been some of the most character-building.

Who knows what the next six months and beyond will bring, but I hope within that time I will continue, no matter how fast or slow, to heal.

We don’t get to choose how fast we recover from heartbreak and move on with life, but I will continue to focus on myself and on doing what’s right for me.

How long did it take you to get over heartbreak? What are some of the things you used to cope? What music do you listen to when dealing with life’s struggles?

Ingrid Michaelson, Keep Breathing, Youtube