Bitterness is age The culmination of comments you can’t forget. “You’re better at regular writing than poetry”. I feel the stickiness of humid anger for criticism I did not pay for. Because those that do not create say the most, their life is to be echoed in judgement rather than reflected in sharing and it…
I have had the awesome privilege of living in some of the extremely different subcultures of Canada since I moved here in 2005. Living many years in a small Ontario farming town, the beautiful laid back island time of Vancouver Island, and in the incredible grind of Queen Street in Toronto, I have gotten many…
Watching 13 Reasons Why would have made me kill myself a few short years ago. It is full of damaging mistakes commonly made in suicide, bullying and rape discussions and it is a genuine threat to people’s lives. From glorifying suicide to giving the message that trauma is not meant to be worked through but escaped,…
Grief sits like a bruise on the bottom of your heart. It clings to the warm purple edges – out of reach in the day. It waits – shy of the light – for the night. Then it corrupts your heart’s warmth, the feeling fills you up with urgency like a ship to sink. Then…
The news told me that today I should protest by walking out of my classes in order to highlight the sexism still experienced by women. I learned this plan as I was on the commute to school with the usual excitement in my chest of another day learning and working. With so much expansion and leading planned…
One of the most significant realizations I made during the worst of my depression was that I didn’t have to feel sad. My overly critical thoughts had been convincing me that I deserved to be punished with depression, but there was nothing morally superior or more intellectually honest about feeling such a deep and unending…
Tough times come to all of us. The nature of life includes random misfortunes and periods of deep stress and unease. While the solution to these life issues may be hard to find, there are methods to cope and float through them as they inevitably end (because they all end). Here is a collection of…
Last year I decided that my primary goal of 2016 was to do an unassisted handstand. I certainly failed. And yet, this year was a year of greater accomplishment, moulding and drawing near than any other that I can remember. While it was filled with lots of sorrow, I think we improved as a whole. Here…
Birthdays bruise me, so I have gotten into the habit of writing myself notes of encouragement from outside perspectives (or from my future self). Here is the one I wrote last year, it holds wishes I have for us all no matter the day. May it offer you some support as we travel through this strange…
One of the greater sources of sorrow for me is the loneliness of not fitting in. I have made it my goal to be comfortable in a wide range of scenarios – to live a life of change and exposure – but I did not anticipate the pain this would cause. The larger the variety…
