Resolutions & Predictions

This is something I do annually with my best friend. (The list from last year can be found here.) My best friend and I grab some pizza and talk through the previous year. We talk about what we've accomplished, if it met what we hoped and expected, what the big things, whether they were good or bad or something that happened. We list out our resolutions and predictions for the coming year. It's therapeutic. It's a reminder. It's something of a guideline. It's how we can see potential in the next year. And well, it's tradition.

Here is mine for 2019.

PREDICTIONS

1. You'll get more tattoos.
2. You'll recommit to yoga and movement.
3. You'll see more of the world. 
4. You'll learn what it means to take better care of your body.
5. You'll find a job worth staying at for a while.
6. You'll laugh more and worry less.
7. You'll find art again.
8. You'll stay single. You'll fall in love with yourself.
9. Your health will deteriorate. It'll be OK though.

RESOLUTIONS

1. Stop living in fear. Stop living in this mindset of lack, of absence. Start living with the mindset of plenty, of abundance and bounty.
2. Live for yourself for once. Your existence shouldn't be an apology. Your life wasn't meant for chasing others. Please internalize your value. Let it glow.
3. Figure out your relationship to your lupus. Whether that is through writing or art or therapy. Please stop hating yourself.
4. Move towards a waste-free lifestyle - as much as you can.
5. Come home to art.
6. Travel. Open your eyes again. Open your heart to the world.
7. Reassess your relationship to alcohol and weed. Learn what it means to live with yourself without apologizing, without so much fear and anger.
8. Save $15,000. Have a total savings of $30,000 by the end of the year.
9. Pay back the kindness you've been given. Save a bit of money each month to do something nice for the people in your life; an experience to share. 

GOALS

A new edition this year. Goals are different from resolutions because whereas resolutions are overall life habits and thought patterns that can be changed, I think of goals as tangible things, events and decisions I can and will apply to my real life. 

1. Try the complete Whole30.
2. Make it through two 30-day challenges.
3. Make reading before bed a thing.
4. Produce at least one piece of art a month.
5. Find a community or a circle or event outside of what you know now. Meet new people.
6. Get your license.
7. Plan two big trips and some small trips.

Hello, I'm 25

Leading up to my birthday, I felt a lot of emotions - mostly negative. A lot has happened in the past year and I'll be the first to admit that most of it was more than I can handle. So, it meant a lot to me when my friends showed up and celebrated me with me.

Film photos coming, but here are some phone photos.

Pictured above: Bennett, Terrence, Harlie, Jennifer, Mishi, Isabella and myself. 

And of course, a few missing but deserving acknowledgement goes to Katy, Tamar and Chloe.

My Body

I want to write about my body. Tonight, I'm at a storytelling event. It is so intimate, so personal, so painful and so healing. It is sold out. We are standing in a dark room of mostly strangers listening to brave souls talk, tremble through some of the most painful moments and experiences in their lives. I don't cry but one thing that was said stays with me. She talks about her body as this other entity. Something that existed outside of her. Her body now invites her back. Says that she loves her, tells her to come home, to come inside. And so, I wonder if I did not cry at the event standing in the crowd, I wonder if I will cry now as I am writing this.

I hate my body.

That is the truth.

My body is resilient and strong. It endures for more than I think it can. Despite all its broken pieces, it continues to endure. To wake up each day and move with somewhat grace through the day's motions. This body is soft and smooth. It is delicate, beautifully so. It stands so proudly despite its smallness. My legs are so powerful with all the steps I take with my worn soles and the shoes I've worn away. My body is an object of male appreciation - all the things they say they want to do to this body, how they wish to fold me and shape me, all the holes they want to fill, all the things they want to snarl to my face. My body is small, appropriate and in line with what this society wants all girl bodies to be. Small and in need of protection. This body carries me through each day, from point A o B, no matter how tired I am. No matter how much I don't want to exist on any given day. This body is powerful and enduring and even, beautiful.

I hate this body.

I don't know if there was ever a moment in my life, in nearly 25 years that I loved this body of mine. A moment where I didn't resent this body's limitations, its malfunctions, its delicacies from the organs that fail to work and look as they should, to the bad blood that courses through my veins, to the fingers and hands I now see as damaged, to the legs that remind me of old people - why do my legs have age spots resembling an 80-year old woman? How can this body be me? The way my skin on my face is raised and inflamed, the way my eyes are oo small, my nose too flat, my voice too low, my body not thin enough. There is so much to hate, so much to insult and pick apart. How can someone be so imperfect? How can speech be so mean?

I am not stupid. I know how society teaches us, particularly young girls, to speak so cruelly about our bodies. How many industries and the number of jobs that must rely on the cruel way we speak about our bodies. How many jobs it is to find new and interesting ways to say mean things about our bodies, this body. I am aware that this is a social construct. I am aware these lies are invented. These lies have never been my truth, nor will they ever become my truth. I am aware of the benefits and the sheer necessity to be naked. To face my nakedness and my vulnerability. I know. I hate my body anyways.

It is entirely isolating. Some days, I want to shout - scream from the hills - "I HAVE LUPUS." I have this life-altering illness that shapes every decision in my life. I can't move abroad because if I do, I don't know what I will do about health coverage and my frequent doctor' appointments. I can't go deeper in a pose or I can't run faster because that means I won't have enough energy for the rest of the day. I don't know how to tell potential partners about my lupus because I'm not sure they would want to deal with it. After all, I wouldn't want to deal with it. I'm so scared about getting sick. How do you explain the physical pain of a common cold to normal people? People who have often never experienced great physical pain so early in their lives. If I shout my truth at them, how can they possibly understand? And yet, I want to shout. I want sympathy. I want a second chance. I want to be treated delicately. Granted too much undeserving kindness. I want it all. I do not have it all. I do not shout I have lupus. I have kept it inside for so long despite the resh living on the outside, on my skin always. Despite the questions, the looks, the bullying.

I need to be more open about my body; with my body. I need to be more vulnerable. I need to trust my body. For fuck's sake, I need to learn to love my body. I need to learn to accept all its struggles, my struggles. Acknowledge that some of these struggles will stay with me all my life. They may never disappear and likely, they will worsen. I need to love her anyways. I don't really know how. I spent so long hating her.

I'm hoping to learn. I'm hoping to improve. I'm hoping to love.

May 30th, 2017

August 28, 2016

September 28, 2015

Dying Business

Did You Know?

The following is another attempt at some point over the years to explain the frustration, intense anger and sadness I've felt about my body. It's repetitive. All of it is, and perhaps, it is exceptionally so - for someone who doesn't live this existence. I admit though. It is repetitive, but when it is not repetitive, it is often catastrophic. 

• Did You know that World Lupus Day is May 10th? 
• Did You Know that lupus is a chronic autoimmune illness? 
• Did You Know that lupus is an invisible illness? 
• Did You Know that I have lupus (SLE - systemic lupus erythematosus)?
• Did You Know that's why I won't go near you if you have a cold? 
• Did You Know that a guy once used this as a reason to dump me? 
• Did You Know that in second year (end of 2012/beginning of 2013), I experienced one of my worst and most difficult times with lupus? 
• Did You Know that even though my leg was so swollen and I couldn't walk, I cabbed to and from classes, and to and from exams during the end of October to December 2012?
• Did You Know that I finished second year on time despite how terrible, exhausted and weak I felt? 
• Did You Know that it took well over half a year to recover fully?
• Did You Know how much weight I lost? How skinny I looked? 
• Did You Know that I dropped to the weight I was when I was maybe 13? 
• Did You Know how absolutely sick I looked? 
• Did You Know the amount of time I spent in the ER, at doctor appointments, in bed because of how bad it was? 
• Did You Know at the age of 18/19, I had three blood clots and a pulmonary embolism on top of pneumonia?
• Did You Know how absolutely painful it was? 
• Did You Know I sat awake all night because it was painful to breathe, much less lay down and try to sleep?
• Did You Know that these are all complications of lupus? 
• Did You Know I have had this diagnosis since I was a kid?
• Did You Know that's why I have a rash on my face and my hands look the way they do? 
• Did You Know how rarely I tell anyone about this or having lupus, or how lupus affects my life?
• Did You Know the number of drugs I'm on to keep my lupus in check?
• Did You Know that even though it is free to see a doctor in Canada, it is not free to pick up your meds? 
• Did You Know that one of the drugs that could help manage my lupus and drastically make my life better cost nearly $2000 per month? 
• Did You Know that $2000 per month is not a reasonable or possible expense? 
• Did You Know how tiring it can get? The physical drain, the emotional drain? Feeling like it's unfair to be so young, and sick? Feeling like your life is out of your control?
• Did You Know how strange it is to be so young but so vulnerable to the state of your health? To have your capability capped off? To feel so limited compared to your peers? 
• Did You Know how difficult it is to know and feel your body giving up on you? Collapsing on you? 
• Did You Know that my lupus is still so much easier to manage than many other cases of lupus? Many other invisible illnesses?
• Did You Know that I have always tried very, very hard not to let this diagnosis or this illness get in the way of living? 
• Did You Know that I have an incredible support system? People I love who are helpful, understanding and encouraging when life becomes more than I can bear? 

Lupus is something I deal with on a daily basis. I am reminded and confronted when I put on my makeup in the morning. I am reminded and confronted the three separate times a day I take my pills. I am reminded and confronted when I feel my hands tingling. I am reminded and confronted when strangers stare too long. 

But I am also reminded and comforted by the number of people in my life who are so, so supportive. I am reminded and comforted by how lucky and blessed I am to live the way I do, to have the resources and mobility I do. I have the resources to control the pace of my life. I am able to live as comfortably as possible. I can manage my lupus and I have access to resources when things get out of control. I have friends and family who understand that things can get tough. When I say I'm too tired to do something, or cannot do something, they understand. This is lucky. I try not to take it for granted. I try not to take any of this for granted. I am very lucky. I try to remind myself of this as often as I can - above or along the frustration, anger and sadness I also feel. 

Did You Know I have lupus? Did You Know I live an incredibly privileged life?

A few pictures from that second year when my lupus got the worst it did.  

The Light

One of my favourite things about visiting Los Angeles was the light. The light was beautiful. It was astounding, majestic. To be somewhere where it felt so open, so boundless. The light - both in the sun and the airiness of the place - gave you a real sense of brightness. An extra bounce to your step. An extra dose of positivity. I would've stayed in LA for just this. To feel the energy of the sun coursing through you, igniting you. I think you can see it in everyone there. There's a kind of smile you can only get when you're surrounded by so much sun.

"New York was my first introduction to the possibilities of light, crashing through gaps in curtains, transforming people and sidewalks and buildings into golden icons, or black shadows, depending on where they stood in relation to the sun. But the light in front of the mosque - the light I stood in as I was greeted like a local hero, simply for rising from my bed three hours after most of the women and children I lived with - this light was something else again. It buzzed and held you in its heat, it was thick, alive with pollen and insects and birds, and because nothing higher than one story interrupted its path, it gave all its gifts at once, blessing everything equally, an explosion of simultaneous illumination" (Zadie Smith, Swing Time, pp. 254-255).

In people, it is just as important to look for the light. To be around light, surround yourself with light- with people who glow and radiate light and goodness.

There are people out there who, I think, really are the embodiments of light. Individuals who see only the goodness in people, the goodness in the world, the potential for goodness in everything. Individuals who extend a hand, a smile - something that makes the world tilt on an easier axis. I see it in some of my friends. I see it in my favourite yoga teachers. I see it in myself sometimes. I see it in some books, a truly moving concert, a bright smile on the street. I see how rare this light is.

Seek it. Seek the light.

An Open Letter

The following letter was originally written on September 10th, 2015 - more than three years ago. I have written about this topic again and again. I have never published anything publicly. I rarely talk about it, I barely disclose it at all. But here it is. 

In the month or so before my 25th birthday, I want to be a little more honest with myself. I want to be a little more honest in general. Vulnerable. I think I owe it to myself. 

I have lupus. I have had lupus since I was 5 or 6. I can no longer remember my life without lupus. The vast majority of people in my life do not know this about me. People who have known me for decades may not know this about me. I never disclosed it as a kid. I rarely disclose it now, and yet it shapes my world in so many ways. A few quick examples: I take a small handful of pills every day. The appearance of my cheeks and skin. My energy level. The occasional brain fog. The emotional turmoil. The financial burden of paying for medicine. 

Over the next month and a bit, I want to try talking about it. I want to try to be honest about it. Sometimes, it really fucking sucks. It can get so, so painful - physically and emotionally. A couple weeks ago, my favourite yoga teacher tells the class: Don't think of life as Why is this thing happening TO me? Think of it as Why is this thing happening FOR me? 

Let's begin with the letter I wrote more than three years ago.

Dear Phil:

I remember our first date when I told you I had lupus. It was probably more casual than it should have been. Lupus isn't a casual thing, and I'm not sure why I mentioned it on our first date. I think I was telling you about a time when I fell very ill. I think I almost died at the age of 18/19.

Nothing happened after I told you. Typical. Most people don't really understand lupus. You certainly didn't. Lupus is largely an invisible illness with some celebrity hosts like Selena Gomez and Lady Gaga. These are only media speculations though. I'm not sure how many people have come out and said they have lupus and they actively deal with it. I can't say much about you knowing very little of the illness. Most people are that way. You brushed it aside. We continued our date, and we started dating pretty quickly after that first date. I think you saw me as someone whose cheeks were rosier and maybe not the best skin, but ultimately just like anyone else. I remember you telling me I was pretty on our first date. I may have blushed, said thank you and brushed off the compliment. I don't remember much of it anymore. It was a while ago, and we no longer talk so I cannot clarify these details with you.

Lupus is shortened from systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). It is a systemic autoimmune disease that can affect various parts of the body and organs. Each case of lupus can be very, very different. There is no cure. It is mostly treated with drugs that suppress the immune system. Wikipedia explains lupus as "the body's immune system mistakenly attacking healthy tissue". When I was little, my doctors explained it to me as my body's fighters attacking itself. There is a war going on in my body. This doesn't always happen though. Just during flare periods when my lupus is active. During other times, my body can be fairly healthy and I function just as well as anyone else. OK, almost. Because of the nature of lupus and in particular my lupus, I do always have to wear sunscreen, avoid excessive stress, get my flu shots, and wash my hands.

A short time after we started dating, you texted me to tell me that you have to stop seeing me. You told me that you did some online research about lupus and if you continued to see me, you would hurt me. I don't remember if I asked you what kind of research you did. You didn't understand the nature of lupus and you didn't know the history of my lupus. I didn't object. I said OK and I didn't say much else to you. Two days later of radio silence, you messaged me again. We continued to see each other and we eventually ended things for reasons unrelated to my lupus. I never told you how hurt I was that you cited my lupus as the reason why you had to stop seeing me.

Fast forward a year, we haven't spoken since 2014. (We had our last real conversation in December. I ran into you once on the street.) I know you have a new girlfriend and I've been dating around too. We don't talk anymore. We don't have any point of contact. No social media. You likely will never read this. Today, I saw a new doctor. I sat at the doctor's office and I explained my lupus. I told him about when I was diagnosed, some of the medications I've used, some of my flares. I explained some of the concerns I have now. We changed some of my medication around, but he explained that my counts were normal for the most part. I go back in six weeks.

My lupus bubbles now and then, but I haven't had a bad flare in a little while now. Knock on wood. For the most part since I was diagnosed as a kid, my lupus has been manageable. I don't have any trouble taking care of myself. I lived by myself for four years while I was at Queen's. I do a lot of what other people my age do - date, drink, the occasional smoke, have sex, stay up late. It takes me longer than typical to get over a cold and I can't ignore flu shots, but that's OK. It's nothing too bad. All things I can handle. I feel normal.

I was hurt when you cited my lupus as the reason why you had to stop seeing me because as a kid, I hated my lupus. I hated that I couldn't do the same things as the other kids. I always had to be careful. I hated that the other kids used to call me names because of the rash on my face. While lupus can manifest in many different ways, mine manifested mostly on my skin as a butterfly rash on my face. I hated being different and being excluded for it. With those words, you told me I was different and that I couldn't be more than this part of my body. You were wrong. You realized this after two days of radio silence.

Today after my doctor's appointment, I didn't know how to feel. I think my lupus is bubbling a little, but nothing too extreme. I'm mostly fine. I guess I was a little upset because the first time I saw my last doctor, I was severely ill. It was a bad flare. When I said bye to my last doctor in June, she told me she still remembered meeting me because I came to her so frail. I was skin and bones, I could barely walk. It was bad. I recall constantly being in different doctor's offices reciting my perfectly memorized medical history. It's been a long way since then.

Today brought back bad memories, like that last flare and that first appointment back in 2012. Like when you told me you had to stop seeing me. Like the kids from my childhood. Ultimately though, I'm doing well now. I live with my lupus. I try to be careful with my body and taking good care of it. I try to be more comfortable with sharing my lupus and accepting of it. This isn't a casual mention of lupus. This is me saying I am working on myself- lupus and all.

Halloween 2018

We stayed up till 3 and I dressed up as Spinelli.

Pictured above: Bennett, Kyle, Alice, Mel, Christian, and myself.

October Favourites

Sudoku.com (app) - I've been obsessed with this game. I recently rediscovered my love for this puzzle. It's something I do when I'm watching or rather, listening to TV, or when I'm on the streetcar heading into work. I like the way it challenges me to think and consider all the different possibilities. It's about more than just one box.

Blood Orange concert at Danforth Music Hall - This is one of my favourite concerts. It was a beautiful evening. It was a truly beautiful concert. It felt like an otherworldly experience. It was transcendent, ethereal. Blood Orange is much better live. The music is good, but it is a different experience to hear it live. He is amazing, the instrumentals are amazing, his backup singers have the voice of angels. I felt the music vibrating on my skin, into my soul. When I heard it, I almost cried. There can be so many things we do wrong, but this - that moment - cannot be wrong. Nothing quite so beautiful can be wrong. It was so, so lovely. So, so transformative.

Westworld - I'm very late to this bandwagon, but I'm glad I joined anyway. I think it's a powerful look at where our technology is headed. It's a powerful look at how we decide to treat the world and its people. In the second season, there is a conversation between a couple of characters that I found particularly powerful. It talks about Westworld and the other AI worlds as where we go to commit our sins without fear of judgment. It is where we can be our worst selves with no repercussions. If there is God to watch us, what kind of sins will we commit? It's a truly frightening thought.

A Star is Born - It's all that it's hyped up to be. Lady Gaga is a wonderful actress just as she is a powerful singer. While this will not go in the list of my favourite films of all time, I thought the way that it treated addiction was worth commemorating. It is an honest look with no way out. It doesn't allow or provide excuses for one of the cruellest things we do to ourselves.

Imanishi Japanese Kitchen - I can't believe how long it's taken for me to visit this restaurant. It really is a true gem and now I can see why. I'm not 100% sure but I think it is in the style of Japanese home cooking. Or at least, an elevated version of that. The food is so well then. There's not much pretension to the place. It feels very homey and practical. The food is great - a lot of smaller dishes that go well with drinks. I think I want to make this into a regular spot.

Something one of my favourite yoga teachers, Krista, said in class - We think of life as something that happens to us. What if we thought about life as something that happens for us? What if instead of life happening to us, we thought of life as happening through us? What a powerful sentiment.

Film Leftovers

Pictured above: Chloe and her dog, Pablo.

The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis.

These days, I'm in awe of the world. I'm in awe of the beauty and the torment we as a collective put into the world. Some days, there is so much beauty and wonder and goodness. Some days, there seems to be nothing but devastation. We are seemingly at a standstill. Or maybe it is me at a standstill, unsure of how to feel and how to act. I only want for things to turn out alright.

The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis. 

I'm trying to be more mindful of where I stand in the world, what I do to the world. It's been a slow journey. I admit there are things and habits I will never be able to change. For example, one of my pills is in a sheet of 10. I take 5 pills a day, so every other day I throw out this sheet of garbage. It is inevitable. I can't stop taking my meds. There are things I try to do. That's all we can ever really do.

In the last few weeks, some things brought perspective. I finished Sapiens (I & II). I thought it did a wonderful job of outlining the existence of Sapiens and all we have done to change ourselves and the world. It is informative and witty. It ends asking about the next steps, and what those look like. It ends by acknowledging how scary these next steps can look. I went to the Anthropocene exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario last week. Anthropocene is what our human epoch is called. Humans have caused irreversible changes to the Earth. Some of these changes are beautiful. They look stunning, but beneath the beautiful aesthetics, the Earth is hurt. The animals are disappearing. Cities grow bigger and tighter as more and more people are fit into ever-dwindling, ever-shrinking spaces. It turns out we cannot escape our mess either.

I went to see Blood Orange this week. I have almost no photos - certainly no good photos. I was just trying to enjoy the show. To live my existence instead of photographing every minute. To experience fully instead of partially, missing so many details. It was a truly beautiful concert. It felt like an otherworldly experience. It was transcendent, ethereal. Blood Orange is much better live. The music is good, but it is a different experience to hear it live. He is amazing, the instrumentals are amazing, his backup singers have the voices of angels. I felt the music vibrating on my skin, into my soul. When I heard it, I almost cried. There can be so many things we do wrong, but this - that moment - cannot be wrong. Nothing quite so beautiful can be wrong. It was so, so lovely. So, so transformative.

I wonder if I am simply in a time of transition. A lot feels so tentative. I am in flux. A wave of change. I'm rounding 25 soon. It may be the most exciting year yet. This year has been full of dramatic changes. I'm so far away from where I was last year, and yet so much feels the same. I live in the same place, have the same clothes, my body is mostly the same. I did another year of school, I quit a job I had for almost three years - a family of almost three years, I'm working in a different job and industry, I have so many new friends. I'm in a different financial situation. So much has changed and will continue to change.

I'm rambling. I don't know what I am trying to say. The world is beautiful, and it is in crisis. I am in crisis, but standing so tall.

September Favourites

Good Girls - This show is hilarious. It's a NBC show but I watched it on Netflix. I am a big fan of Christina Hendricks after finishing Mad Men. Three women in Detroit are friends and each has her own desperate reason to need money. Their solution? Rob a grocery store. The plan seems to be fail-proof until they steal more than they accounted for and they learn there is some gang involvement. The show premise reminds me of Nancy Botwin from Weeds and Walter White from Breaking Bad. Ordinary, seemingly good people face unpleasant circumstances and they turn to the dark side. Chaos ensues.

Sam James Chinatown - It may be the routine more than the coffee, but it is a routine I really enjoy. It's a little bit of peace. It's a treat. Here, I will be honest and say that I'm making more money than I'm used to. It's not a lot of $$/hr but it's a full time job. As a result, I justify this $2.50 to $4.50 expense every morning. I've earned it.

Every morning, I leave home around 8:10AM and walk over to Sam James. My usual order is an Americano in my KeepCup, but I will occasionally get a brew coffee or an almond latte. I then hop on the 8:20AM streetcar and make it into work around 8:45AM. Monday to Friday routine.

Glossier You solid perfume - Everyone has been raving about this perfume and I finally understand why. The scent is hard to describe - there's barely any description of it online. I'm not sure if there are scent notes somewhere. To me, it smells almost like a baby, but in the best possible way. Every time I wear it, I wonder if innocence can be a scent because that's what it smells like to me. Try it, please. I really like it.

*My only qualm was that the packaging for this was so excessive. The solid perfume itself is wonderful. It's small but heavy. That's fine but the hard plastic wrapper, the foam rectangle and elastic band that wraps the small solid perfume is so over the top.

Farmacy Honey Butter lip balm - Admittedly, this was a total impulse purchase but it's been the lip balm I've been gravitating towards. The scent is faint. There's no colour. It's very moisturizing. I believe in all things Asian beauty and skincare products. They can do no wrong.

From Sapiens II

It's taken about two months to finally finish this book. I think it's so interesting and important to read. There's a lot to take in and a lot more to explain. What I loved in particular was the afterword at the end. Here it is.

From Yuval Noah Harari:

Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.

Unfortunately, the sapiens regime on earth has so far produced little that we can be proud of. We have mastered our surroundings, increased good production, built cities, established empires and created far-flung trade networks. But did we decrease the amount of suffering in the world? Time and again, massive increases in human power did not necessarily improve the well-being of the individual sapiens, and usually caused immense misery to other animals.

In the last few decades we have at least made some real progress as far as the human condition is concerned, with the reduction of famine, plague and war. Yet the situation of other animals is deteriorating more rapidly than ever before, and the improvement in the lot of humanity is too recent and fragile to be certain of.

Moreover, despite the astonishing things that humans are capable of doing, we remain unsure of our goals and we seem to be as discontented as ever. We have advanced from canoes to galleys to steamships to space shuttles - but nobody knows where we're going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have very little idea what to do with all that power. Worse still, humans seem to be more irresponsible than ever. Self-made gods with only the laws of physics to keep us company, we are accountable to no one. We are consequently wreaking havoc on our fellow animals and on the surrounding ecosystem, seeking little more than our own comfort and amusement, yet never finding satisfaction.

Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?

Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto Canada

This past weekend, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Toronto re-opened. It's been a while since MOCCA closed its door on Queen Street West back in 2015. For its opening weekend, admission was free and it was crowded. Lots of kids running around, particularly on the first floor where Andreas Angelidakis's DEMOS installation lets the audience play and move the colourful foam blocks. 

Housed in the former Tower Automotive Building, the new site is beautiful and fits so well with what MOCA has done and continues to do now. The space is a true dream with the concrete beams and unfinished, industrial vibes. 

The exhibits are not underwhelming either. From addressing highly relevant social issues, to exploring disagreement and the anxiety we feel towards disagreement, to giving a glance of the resident artists' spaces, MOCA's opening weekend was great. Here's a look at my Saturday there.

The first two photos are pulled from MOCA's website. The rest are my own. 

Room Update

Saying goodbye

Dated August 8th

I'm seeing Will tomorrow - nearly a year since we dated and broke up. I'm not really sure what to expect. I'm not really sure what I want. I don't know what my ideal is. I don't know if I have an ideal situation in this case. He's leaving. There's a high likelihood that I may never see him again. I'm sure he'll be back in Toronto but things as they stand now, I'll never be part of his life again. That thought haunts me even close to a year since we broke up. It's hard not being able to share any part of my life or his life. Even in conversation. It feels cold and mean.

I'll acknowledge how weird it is that I reached out and asked to see him. It'll acknowledge that I'm surprised he agreed to see me at all. But I'm glad. I'll tell him my fear. How I am uncomfortable with the parallels between a breakup and death. It is never not weird to me. Someone I spoke to every day, one day disappears from my life. We don't acknowledge the other person's existence, and that is something I'm not OK with. I'll ask why he agreed to see me. Why he bothered to give me an hour at all.

I want to tell Will that I miss him. I don't know and I don't think I miss dating him. I think a year has changed those feelings. I don't feel the same way as I did. I don't feel pangs of hurt or even anger anymore. I miss him though. I miss talking to him. I miss sharing parts of my life with him and hearing about his. I miss hanging out with him. I want to tell him that maybe it's a strange request but I want to be friends. I wish we can get to a place where one day if he's in town or for whatever reason, I'm in his town, we can grab a drink and trade life updates. I want us to be happy for each other. I want us to be friends because I think he's a really good person. Maybe the nicest guy I've dated. I would really like for us to be friends and that's why I asked to see him. He's a good person, and it would suck to completely lose him from my life without trying at all to salvage our relationship.

From another month earlier: 
I hate losing parts of my life like in a breakup. It feels cruel. It feels confusing how someone is in your life and then they are not. It feels unnatural to me. I don't want to lose you, Will. For the first few months, I just missed having someone to talk to. I missed talking to you. I missed hanging out with you. I didn't just miss dating you. I missed you. I missed having you in my life. You were good even if/ even though you haven't figured everything out yet. I haven't either.

I want to tell him what's happened in my life in the year that we've been apart. I want to tell him it's really been a struggle with work and school. Everything was constant and I felt constantly overwhelmed. I didn't know how to exist. I wasn't really, truth be told. I was hanging by a thread for a lot of it. But I made it. I made new friends. I learned more about myself. It was one of the first real challenges I put myself through. It challenged my sense of self. After so long (nearly a year), I finally made it. I start my internship next Monday.

I want to ask him about his life. How has his life been in the past year? How happy or sad or conflicted was he about leaving his job? How excited is he about starting his new life? I want to wish him well. I want to tell him that I hope he's able to change the world for the better. The world needs it, and I think the guy that I met and dated really wants to help the world too. I want to wish him the best life, the best grades, the best experience. I want him to tell me all about it the next time I see him, and there will be a next time because we will stay friends.

I hope tomorrow goes well. I hope I'm able to tell him all of these things. I hope I don't cry or feel panicked. I hope I still feel safe with him. I hope when we leave, we can give each other a big hug and well wishes. I hope we stay friends. I hope tomorrow is not the last time I ever see him. I really hope that reaching out to him won't prove to be a bad idea. I hope that we can be honest and vulnerable with each other. I hope that if I lay my heart out on the line, Will won't hate me for making him deal with this again. I hope tomorrow goes well. I hope we can stay friends. I'd really like that.