Good & Bad

I've been thinking a lot lately about if I'm a good person or not, and what it means to be good or bad.

I've come to the conclusion; neither really exist.

Sure, there are definitely people who are solely bad people. Rapists, murderers, racists, guys named Donald Trump, just to name a few. These people are bad people, there's really no arguing that. But when it comes to the general population - when it comes to most of us - I don't think it's so black & white.

Part of that is because good and bad is subjective. Your idea of whether or not I'm good or bad really depends on your relationship with me, which of course, is subject to change over time. You can consider me good for years, you can even consider me the best, but once something goes wrong, I'm suddenly a bad person to you.

I always get a kick out of people who trash their ex. Sometimes, it's fairly warranted. Sometimes you realize you were caught up with a bad person, but it's important to remember, you once *thought* they were good. There was a time, whether it was a couple weeks, a few months, or even years; where you liked them, where they weren't all the bad things you're saying about them. This becomes even more funny when the person trashes their ex and and ends up getting back together with them, just another example of how subjective good & bad can be.

This has been something I've struggled with lately. It's a lot easier to ignore someone telling you you're the best, when later on they're calling you a bad person. Negativity, of course, seems to hold more weight with us when it's coming from other people, so we really take it to heart.

Another reason why I think good & bad isn't so black & white is because we have motives. Sometimes, we do good intentionally, because we really want to because we really care about someone or something. But sometimes, we do good because we expect something in return, or because we have an ulterior motive behind it. We also do bad; sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not. Sometimes we really set out to hurt a person, and sometimes we do bad accidentally, because we're so caught up in trying to do good for us, we don't see the harm we may be causing someone else.

Ultimately, I think it's important to not read too deeply into our actions, into if we're good or bad. Self-examination is important. It really is. It's good to look at yourself and ask yourself if you can do better. But, I don't think we should try and view others, or ourselves, as good or bad. We're all just people, and we're trying to live this life and figure things out and do our best.

That's really all we can do, is just do our best.

Lets Get Honest

I'm gonna talk honestly about a few things here that I haven't talked about before, or at least not in a while (I blog like, what, twice a year? I guess it's always been a while).

Lets just dive right in.

Art

Art is A LOT of different things. You can classify the creation of anything, really, as art. And I love it. I love creating, it's one of those things that kind of shortly validates me inside. But I had something happen the other day that kind of has me feeling out of place. 

I created a photo that I feel might be my best yet, especially from an artistic "this is different" standpoint. It's a black and white night photo of a glowing ball in someone's hand, and it's surrounding by blackness. Before this photo, I'd classify some stuff I did in Grand Haven as my best, but that didn't make me feel anything.

This time, I feel kind of lost because I feel like I NEED people to see this. I NEED to get this out there. Maybe because I'm a bit of an asshole and think highly of my work, but it's hard when you post something on Instagram, on your website, and print it out and that's it. It's done. Now you have to do better. Now you have to one-up yourself. You have to create BETTER art, and while that can be good inspiration to push yourself to create more, it also weighs on you, because you're scared you peaked. I know it's silly, I know I haven't, but that's what I fear. I *always* fear that I'll never do or find better, in anything.

Feeling drowned out

I feel like I'm sort of ignored, or at least pushed aside. My ideas, my thoughts, etc. I'm not the loudest, and I'm not the pushiest, so I feel like a lot of what I say or do is shrugged off, and I'm not given the credit I deserve.

I learned quickly that the loudest, whether or not they're better than you, will always get more recognition. That's just the way it is, because they pull in more attention. But this weighs on my self-perception. This weighs on my belief in myself that I'm legitimate. That I am good at what I do. That I create good work and have good ideas and actually know what I'm doing when it comes to Advertising & Marketing. 

I have to remind myself, every time I sit down to create something new that I deserve to be here. That my ideas will get me somewhere, and that certain other circumstances will not hold me back.

Women

This is one I don't think I've ever talked about on my blog, and I don't talk about this with many people. 

Must of us have this hole; this void that we feel we need to fill, and we all try to fill it with different things. The opposite sex, alcohol, art, drugs, athletics, etc.

When I was younger and awkward and overweight, I had this idea that one day being able to pick up attractive women would make everything okay. It would fill any sense of that void I had at an early age. It was all I wanted, and all I thought I needed. 

Fast-forward to being 22. Fast-forward to 2016 where there's been a lot of women, a lot of attempts at love, and a lot of emptiness in return. It's been a hard reality to face that no matter how many cute girls I talk to, no matter how many numbers I get or people I go out with, it does not make me feel like a validated person. It doesn't fill any hole, at all. And I continue to live in this weird circle where I feel like the *next* one will. "Oh, the last (however many) haven't? The next cute girl that likes me will definitely make me feel whole." I even used to think that even if things didn't work out with a cute girl, I'd STILL be happy because hey, a cute girl finally liked me.

This isn't the case and this is a huge part of my emptiness. There's nothing more draining than thinking something will fill the void, only to get it, and find out that it does nothing.

The Future

We're gonna end this on a positive. 

2016, while being terribly sad in many, many ways, has also brought me MANY opportunities. From all of the road trips, to getting back into photography, to now hosting photography galleries through local businesses, there has been SO much happening, and it's been absolutely amazing.

I've already met so many amazing people through these galleries I'm setting up, and we're only gonna grow and get bigger and get more photographers. My photography is getting better, and there will be more (hopefully paid) opportunities in the future. 

I also went into 2016 telling myself I was going to do stand-up comedy, and I've gone onstage about 7-8 times this year, most of those have been in the latter half of the year too. 

Next up is to begin podcasting. That'll be the goal for 2017. I've always loved interviewing. I love listening to these podcast of people just talking about life, and I want nothing more than to get that started. 

I also got to see so much in 2016. Road-tripping to Florida, going to Nashville & Cleveland, covering most of Michigan. For a kid who had never left the country before April, I've covered a lot of ground and I know I'll cover much more in 2017.

Thank you to everyone who supports this. Who supports the art, the crazy ideas, my regular need for attention, and everything associated with me. Thank you for being behind this. There aren't *that* many regular supports (don't get ahead of yourself if you occasionally like my IG photos), but to the people that TRULY push me forward and inspire me and believe in the occasional craziness, thank you so much.

Guilty Conscience

When I was 12, I took a bus ride with a friend to the mall without telling my mom. As far as she knew, I was just hanging out at his house for the day. We had just moved from Brampton to Cambridge, a much, much smaller city, where I guess it was fairly common practice for younger kids to do these types of things on their own. I knew she would be mad, so a few days later I caved and told her what had happened.

Fastforward to now, 10 years later. That guilty conscience that we joked about - that guilty conscience that made me come clean for years any time I'd do something wrong, has turned into existentialism. That once harmless feeling of needing to clear my head has turned into an inability to relieve myself of anything on my mind. There's a constant need to strive for perfect mental health, for a perfect peace of mind through balancing my life to such a degree that I spend the perfect amount of time with everyone, that I have the perfect relationship, the perfect job, and just genuine comfort.

It's unrealistic. It's impossible.

It strikes at random. I could be sitting in a coffee shop, when suddenly I see someone who reminds me of my grandparents, or my mom, and I instantly think about how I don't spend enough time with them. Maybe I'll drive by a dog, and I'll get sad thinking about my own dog. Sometimes I'll be driving and a certain song will come on and I'll think about that girl. Maybe I'll see a Facebook post from someone really successful in my field, and be reminded of just how close to the starting line I'm at.

What I'm saying is, there are reminders everywhere. Reminders of my imperfection and my struggle to live with a clean conscience. My conscience doesn't even revolve around right & wrong anymore, it just revolves around perfection. 

It's become mathematical. My day is now an equation. Wake up at x time. Shower and eat by x time. Sit outside in the sun for 30ish minutes. Take pictures for an hour, and edit them for two, etc. My day is just broken down into time slots, and I struggle every day to try and perfect how long I should dedicate to something. Sometimes I feel like I'm way off base with my priorities. For example, I seem to either go for multiple runs & bike rides in a week, or I don't at all.

2016 has just been this weird concoction of amazing things and terrible things and there seems to be no in-between. There's death and there's heartbreak, but there's traveling and concerts. There's increased existentialism and deeper depression, but there's new friendships & photography. 

I just feel very burdened right now. I get handed one thing and stripped of another. Everything I do from my freelancing to my love life feels like some high school attempt to throw shit together. Sketchy clients who end up not paying, clients who bail, businesses who I get as clients, but then never send me anything. A job which i'm on the brink of quitting because my anxiety has decided it makes me anxious. An inability to keep something going with a girl for more than a couple weeks.

Everything just feels like it's on repeat, year after year. I'm just repeating my life, but the problems and consequences are getting bigger, as well as the rewards.

I just want to get there. I want to get to that metaphorical happy place which may not even exist, because I'll find something to struggle over. But I just want to be near it, i want to see that light without having it turned off a week later. It's all just so tiring. 

The Road To Self-Empowerment

Have you ever been walking past someone, and you just feel as though they're completely comfortable with themselves? Every little bit of them seems to be working cohesively, from their shoes, to their outfit, to the way their earphones are somehow not annoying them. They walk with such enviable swagger. They look like they are completely, 100% immersed in their world, and unlike you, they're happy about it.

I think we've probably all felt this way many times, if not daily. I don't think a day has passed where I haven't walked past someone in the hall and thought to myself "Wow, I really wish I had their level of individuality and confidence." They appear to feel good, which in turn makes them look good. I continue walking, and I start analyzing myself. "My left shoe is a little bit tighter than the right." "Does this shirt look stupid on me?" "I wonder what my face looks like to people right now." "Did my eye just twitch while looking at that person?"

The looks are just scratching the surface though. What I really want to know, what I think most of us want to know, is what's going on in their brain?

Personally, I really wonder how people view me. What do I look like to people? Do I look confident and comfortable? Do I look like an empowered individual? Or are my insecurities oozing behind me.

I wish I knew what people were thinking. I think, in a way, it would help us as humans be a bit more understanding of each other. It would help us feel less alone, knowing that everyone, in some way, feels really alone. I wonder to myself, what is that person thinking right now? Are they really feeling comfortable? Are they walking wherever they're going with purpose, or do they feel like they're stumbling to their next checkpoint in life just like me. Are they okay with the fact that they're walking alone right now? And if they're with people, are they happy that they're with them, or do their relationships sometimes feel just as empty as mine can?

These are all questions that, unless we find a way to read people's minds, we'll never actually know. And we should probably learn to be more comfortable with not knowing the answer, because in reality, does it really matter? Realistically, we should only worry about ourselves, right?

So that's what I'm working towards doing. That is my new goal. And while I know that it's completely unrealistic to ever think that I'll feel 100% confidence, 100% of the time, it's worth at least slowly working on it. Minor improvements are still improvements, and can go a long way in enhancing the quality of one's day.

I face two roadblocks though:

First, I am very bad at enjoying the process. Very, very bad at it. I spoke about this in my last blog, but being a millennial, I sort of want what I want, and I want it now, and I struggle when I don't begin to see results almost instantaneously. So it makes it very hard to set goals, because I have a tendency to just not follow through, or get caught up in something else. So I am also working on appreciating the minor details of growth in life as well.

Secondly, I have anxiety, and while the attacks and the severity of the attacks come and go, the lingering affects do not. They are always there, that part of your brain that tells you that you're not normal, and that you'll always feel weird? It's always talking. Anxiety likes to rip down every fibre of the confidence you've built up; it likes to tantalizingly tear it to shreds while you watch, slowly seeing everything you've been building towards ripped to shreds. Anxiety is much more than panic attacks and a nervous stomach, it's a demon on your shoulder that tells you that you're wrong, and stupid, and ugly, and that everyone else has their life figured out more than you do.

So you have to fight harder. You have to ignore those demons as much as possible, and try to accept and appreciate the small parts of your day. Enjoy driving down your street. Enjoy that walk to your classroom. Take an extra minute to enjoy the hot water in your shower (not very green of me I know). Appreciate that coffee that you grab with a friend. Just appreciate it all and take it all in stride. You're gonna have your good days, and you're definitely going to have your bad days, but don't discount the work that you've put in just because of those bad days. They, too, are part of the process.

This Ol' Millennial Brain

I read an article recently talking about how we barely have any control over our brains. That our brains are nearly their own entities in a way, because we have such little control over them. This makes sense, because mine seems to really enjoy toying with me.

I'm a millennial, that means I'm from Generation Y. This means I was born somewhere between the early 1980s and the early 2000s. Being born in 1994, I'm actually right smack in the middle.

I don't know how much this truly means to me and the way my brain works. I don't know if it's the reason that I can barely get any reprieve from my thoughts. Maybe that's just the way my brain works. But I have a feeling that it has at least a bit to do with it.

Millennials are raised to believe that we should chase our passion and can achieve anything we want. We're raised to believe that we're destined for greatness, and that a simple, well-paying 9-5 job isn't enough unless we're 100% happy, 100% of the time. This, I believe, is why we're never happy.

I'm never happy, nor am I ever satisfied. I'm never happy, because my brain is always trying to figure out what's missing. It's always telling me lies; it's always telling me I'm not doing good enough.

My brain likes to tease me. It likes to give me a few days, or even weeks of control, of comfort. Then, just as quickly as I gained that control, it snatches it away from me, sending me into emotional tailspins that may last a night, or may last days. These tailspins are frightening because they turn me into someone else. They turn me into an existential mess. They turn me into an emotionally cold person who wants to separate himself from everyone but also run to everyone for comfort at the same time. They send me for long drives and long runs. They make me tired after being up for 2 hours. They make me question every thing and everyone around me.

I'm going through one of them right now.

Whenever one of these tailspins strikes, it feels like it's the worst one I've ever experienced. It's like catching feelings. You're convinced that this time, it's real. This time, it's permanent and will never go away. It's overwhelming, and it drowns you.

I'm a fairly existential person at the best of times, which I again believe goes back to being a millennial. I'm always in my thoughts, and it kind of feels like I'm having an asthma attack, but in my mind. Everything is rushing around, thoughts flying down the highway that is my head. I can't think without thinking about what I'm thinking. I can't experience without dissecting my thoughts. I can't enjoy because I fear for the moment the enjoyment ends.

I question everything. I can't remember the last time I made a decision that I was happy with, because I'm convinced everything I do is wrong.

- I turn left...shit, I should have turned right.

- That girl in the grocery store just smiled at me, maybe she's the one...crap, she's gone. I guess I'll never know.

- Should I text this person back, or should I end it here? *sends text* fuck, I definitely shouldn't have responded. Now I feel stupid, desperate and needy.

I don't really enjoy writing as much as I used to. Maybe because I don't lay it all on the line like I did before. Writing also forces me to be in my feelings, which makes everything a bit less genuine. While  I truly am feeling the way I feel, the most candid writing would be done right when I'm in the middle of a breakdown, but that just can't happen.

I feel very lost and empty, which is another product of my generation. I feel lost, mostly because I feel empty. From the outside, I'm doing really well. I went from high school drop out to college graduate, and now I'm doing another program, one which I'm enjoying much more for many reasons, and it's actually fulfilling in some emotional senses. But none of it is quite enough. I've felt empty for a long time, and I've successfully accomplished many of the things which I've set out to do, which I thought would make me feel a better sense of self. I've graduated, I've lost weight, I've been successful at many sports which I enjoy, and I experience cool things, but none of this has quite filled that void. This scares me, because as much as I think I know what'll fill that void, I also know that I'm a bit of a wanderer. I know that I'm scared that this is it, and I'm always chasing, and I'm scared that that'll continue no matter what I do.

I'm also tired of questioning my relationships and everyone's motives. I go from "damn I'm surrounded by the best people ever" to "please never contact me again" real quick. And the problem is, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's me, and my inability to be accepting and happy, or if it's the people, maybe the people make me feel empty, or maybe it's both? Either way, it weighs on me day and night, because I want to just enjoy my relationships and feel like I'm part of something, but questioning everything stops me from doing that.

Finally, I'm very overwhelmed by changes in my life. In the last year, my friendships have changed drastically. People have come and gone from my life so quickly; some of those good, some of those bad. I've had fights, and I've had heartbreak, and for the first time, I had death. Everything feels so temporary and out of my control. Everything feels so surreal.

I long for the days of doing and being. I long for a time when I didn't compare myself to everyone, where I didn't beat myself up over every little thing. I wish I had more confidence, and believed in myself and my choices. I wish I could right everything. I wish I didn't fight with certain people, or took more time with others. I wish my timing in some situations was better. I wish some people saw things the way I see them.

I wish things weren't like this.

2k15

I grew a bit, in 2015. Not physically, I've done a pretty good job of doing the opposite of that since my major weight loss a few winters ago. But I grew as a person, maybe even just slightly, but one that I find to be a noticeable change; a change which makes my day-to-day life just a little easier.

I suffer from FOMO. FOMO is short for "fear of missing out," a disease many, many of us in our teens and 20's share. Even adults suffer from FOMO to some degree, but it's said to be most prevalent at this age.

I've suffered from it for a while. It first started when I dropped out of high school, because you know what you do when you drop out of high school? Nothing. You do nothing. Aside from my well documented (via old blogs) attempts to do my schooling online, I failed miserably and gave up after less than a month. By that point, I was doing nothing every day. My routine consisted of sitting in front of my computer tweeting until about noon, when I'd eat lunch and then just play video games.

My FOMO continued to be horrendous for about a year and a half, until I started playing tennis half the week in Brampton in the winter. That got rid of a lot of my anxiety from FOMO, because I felt I was really doing something neat. A couple of hours of tennis 3-4 times a week in another city, and then when I'd come back home I'd take advantage and be able to see the few friends I had. It was really nice. Not only was I keeping busy, but I ended up losing all that weight I was talking about.

So I did that for a couple of years, and then I started college. This is when FOMO started to kick in hard again. People were partying, and I wasn't really into that scene. Friends were making new friends, so was I but it wasn't quite the same. I was really feeling the affects of dropping out, because a lot of people had these core groups of friends they'd get together with, and I couldn't really do that.

In second year of college my FOMO went away for the most part. I was kept extremely busy and I was doing some neat things for our college TV show, along with interning at Magic FM in Guelph (which was a great, great experience. I miss the amazing people there on a near-daily basis).

Anyways, fast forward to now. To the start of 2016. In 2015, I graduated, worked an amazing internship, and met so many amazing people who are huge parts of my life now, but what I really did was learn to ditch a decent amount of my FOMO. Do I still suffer from it many nights? Yes. But does it drive me insane on an almost nightly basis? No.

This year, especially recently, I've become much more comfortable with who I am, and just simply being. I've learned there's nothing wrong with staying home and reading a book, or playing some playstation while loudly playing Childish Gambino (he's great, you should listen to him. Start with Telegraph Ave). And I know these things sound insignificant, but they're not, at least to me. I always used to feel like I had to be out doing, and I sort of forgot about being. I'm trying harder now to enjoy the smaller things, like quiet nights in, surrounding myself with things I enjoy, maybe making myself appreciate the time I get to spend with people I enjoy that much more.

Of course, this is just a minor stepping stone, but it's an important one in helping myself feel more human. It's important in helping me feel like I don't need to do everything and see everyone in order to justify my existence. And there are still many things in which I need to improve upon. I still lack a considerable amount of confidence. I give up on things and believe they're over before they actually are. I push people away because I think they're eventually gonna leave me anyways, so I'd rather be the one to end it. I often feel like I'm living in a cycle of mistakes, and it gets tiring, but hopefully these "mistakes" will lead to growth.

So thank you to everyone who was a part of my life in 2015. It was a weird year that I can't quite put into words. I experienced losing a few close people, but I greatly made up for those lost in those whom I gained. I graduated, and then I immediately returned back to school, and I'm loving it and my classmates. They're amazing. I discovered new music of many different genres, I attempted to play soccer in a league, I finally found a gym that doesn't make me hate myself. I biked 1'100 kilometres in four months, and played baseball on 2 different teams. My best friend came home after being away for 2 years, and I discovered Kanye's 808s & Heartbreak, which is honestly the greatest album ever.

So here's to 2016, and the the things I know it'll bring, such as my first trip to Florida, running my first half marathon (maybe even full if I'm lucky), or seeing the Sheepdogs; and here's to the many things which I don't know that it'll bring.

*Sidenote* I just wanted to quickly acknowledge my great great aunt Helen, who passed away early this morning. She was an incredibly strong and stubborn individual, whose life had a great ripple affect through my family, all the way down to myself today. I'll never forget when I visited her a few weeks ago, my grandpa joked to her about her view from her bed, saying that "all she needed was a few men outside her window now," to which she responded "I don't think I'd have any suitors in my current state." She never lost her wit or sense of humour, and neither should any of us, ever. RIP Aunt Helen, hopefully God has enough cats and chocolate for you up there.

Here We Go Again

I've been really tired lately. I've also been getting a lot of headaches. I'm procrastinating everything. The newness of a new adventure has warn off.

I don't know when it started. I don't know when days started dragging like they've been, but it's been happening fairly consistently for a while now. Get up, go to school, maybe pay attention, depending on my interest level; come home, not do that thing I'm supposed to do, feel like crap for not doing that thing I'm supposed to do; repeat.

Advertising has been great. Don't get me wrong. I am IN LOVE with making ads. I stopped feeling accomplished last year in the Broadcast Journalism, no matter how good I'd do on a TV piece, and now I'm finally feeling a sense of accomplishment again. And my class is fucking amazing. I say "fucking" amazing, because it adds emphasis to how ****** amazing they really are. One thing I missed in my other program, that we have here, is that the class feels like one big supportive family. That's what I wanted so badly when I started college, and I'm so happy to finally have that now.

But there are tough aspects too. I really dislike the marketing portion of what we do. Even though I'm doing okay, grades-wise, I really really dislike it, and in turn have trouble forcing myself to just do the work. I'm also having trouble picking up some of the technical work, especially in Photoshop, and because of that I feel as though I have this big, scary box surrounding me and my creativity, and I feel that weighing me down immensely.

I'm also having trouble balancing school and work, I think. I'm not sure, because I feel as though it may just be an excuse, considering that I only have about 18 hours of class per week, and only end up working 12-15 hours a week.

I miss biking every day. I miss exercising daily, and getting out and enjoying nature. I feel like I just watch myself live. I feel like I'm watching myself from some weird "ghost of Christmas past" perspective, and I see myself. I see myself getting lunch. I see myself going to Starbucks to work on something. I see myself interacting with people, but I feel like I'm very rarely actually involved on a personal and emotional level with these interactions. The beauty about biking, the beauty of all those km's i've done since May, is that I was fully awake, fully in-tune for all of them. I experienced and felt every tire rotation, every turn, every bump, every drop of sweat. I heard every beat, every lyric in my headphones blasting. I felt myself living.

It's just hard, and tiring feeling like every day is the same. It's hard feeling like you're dragging yourself around. Maybe I need to start going to yoga again, to make my muscles feel better. Maybe I need to start doing that triathlon training like I had planned to all along. But I feel like there are more than just physical things I can be doing for myself, I just don't know what they are.

I want to feel at one with myself. I want to feel comfortable when I walk down a hallway, or make eye contact with someone. I don't want to feel like a guy just working his ass off to finish today, only to be able to work his ass off to finish tomorrow.

It's weird, because I swear to god I do genuinely enjoy the act of being a living, breathing human. I love taking in life. I like walking down the street and looking at all of the colours of the world. I like driving when it's sunny, but the sun isn't directly in your eyes. I like making eye contact with people and feeling their gaze; feeling their emotions go straight into your eyes. I like learning new things, and meeting new people. I like trying new things, and being good at others. But sometimes, it's all just really tough. Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only one carrying this emotional weight, even though I know that's not true.

We all do, to one degree or another. We all feel uncertain, we all feel inadequate and shitty and not good enough. It's just a part of life. But it's also a part of life to try and search to remove those feelings and gain a sense of relativity; to gain a sense of importance and control and meaning. I know it won't happen over night, and I know there isn't one person, or one thing that will suddenly give me that. It's a process, a process of learning and growing and accepting. Shutting out certain things, while opening up to other things.

It's a process I'm still very much a part of. One I'm sure I always will be.

I'm Back?

I haven't blogged in a while.

I feel like I start every blog with that.

I really mean it this time though. It's been what? a year and a half? Where does the time go? Last time I was sitting here typing I was still recovering from a broken ankle that happened two months prior.

I really don't know why I'm doing it either, which I guess is sort of why I'm doing it. I feel like I've been in the same place for a really long time, and I've just been waiting to break out, and it hasn't happened.

I constantly have an excuse not to blog. My allergies are acting up. I'm hungry. I think I'm gonna have to pee in 15-20 minutes. There's always something.

So how do I explain how I'm feeling? Well, I feel like I'm really bad at controlling how I feel, and it sucks. I'm really bad at just saying to myself "hey, this isn't that big of a deal, seriously, stop feeling this way." Don't get me wrong, I try. I try and I try and I try and I try, and it just doesn't happen. With it, my number of existential crisis' have increased drastically. That's shitty, because I feel like I should be able to stop it from happening. Like, I shouldn't get home and suddenly be hit with this feeling of doubt over everything in my life.

I also have a lot of doubt. A LOT. I doubt that people have good reason to like me. I doubt that they actually like me and instead just tolerate me. I doubt that someone could know this person inside, who has all this existential questioning, who has all this self-doubt, and could actually like me. Then I find people who do, and I think they must be crazy, so I push. I become emotionally abusive. I lay it all out there. I tell them off when they aren't 100% committed to helping me understand. I'm too hard on them. I'm too hard on myself.

It's been a really interesting summer too, because I feel like I learned a lot. There's a saying on Mad Men that goes "People tell us who they are, but we ignore it, because we want them to be who we want them to be." I ignored things, for a while with people. I ignored warning signs, my gut, everything. And every time I have ignored what people have shown me, it's come back to bite me. Ultimately, I'm forced to see the real them, and it sucks.

I've also said things to people, or made decisions, that were simply out of anger or hurt, and that's never good either. When you're hurt, or you're angry, you don't think about consequence. Consequence is irrelevant because you feel this overwhelming, compulsive need to say that thing that you're thinking; to make your voice heard in a way which will punch people right in the gut.

I graduated from Broadcast Journalism in April. That's pretty cool. If you've been reading for a while, especially on some past sites I've had blogs on, you'll know just how crazy that concept is, at least for me. There was a time where the idea of being a college grad was so far out of the question that the mere thought of it was almost comical.

I'm also going back to college. This time for Advertising & Marketing. I'm excited, because it's a need program which combines both creativity and business. I'm also extremely excited to work with so many of the people in my class. They're amazingly talented, and it's intimidating but also so insanely exciting to think that I may be able to work with them, or learn from them.

I also biked this summer, A LOT. That was basically my summer. Biking, baseball, and existential crisis'. But seriously, I did a lot of biking. About 1'100km between May and September, actually. It was pretty neat, because I sort of just began tracking for fun, but then I set goals for myself sort of against my own will. I was worried if I set monthly distance goals I'd lose that passion for simply getting on the saddle and riding. Because that's really what it's all about. I often feel like I'm watching my life pass before my eyes, but for that hour and a half that I'm riding, I feel like I'm in complete control of my thoughts, my emotions, everything. So of course, I had to push myself a bit harder to bike on days that I didn't quite feel like it, but I did it, and I still enjoyed it, and it was so damn rewarding.

Anyways, I think that's about it. I solved approximately zero of my problems writing this, but I sort of missed it. A friend of mine also recently started blogging, and seeing her excitement about it sort of reminded me how exciting it is to post a blog, and have your own little forum.

So thank you all for reading. I promise, it won't be a year until the next one. And as usual, thank you for the continued support. Even if I don't tell you what you mean to me, you probably mean a lot to me. Some of you more than you think. And if I tell you how much you mean to me, and then I also get mad over the smallest things, and send you texts asking you to reaffirm that you don't hate me, it's just because you're really special to me. And I'm sorry for that too. I'm always sorry. I'm in a constant state of sorry, but I'm also in a constant state of gratitude for having you around. You have no idea.

Til' next time.

I Fear

 The following are things that I fear on a daily basis. Not things such as barfing, or clowns, or things flying around my head. This isn't about my absolute fear of being trapped in a butterfly conservatory with a bunch of barfing children and having clowns as tour guides. These are completely different fears, and if my last sentence didn't scare you off, and you choose to keep reading, you'll see what I mean. I think they're regular fears we've all had and continue to sometimes battle; I'm just in the mood to voice them.

I fear change. For someone who likes the thrill of the hunt, and likes experiencing new things, I really hate any change to the life that I know & live on a daily basis. I take it personally when someone moves a piece of furniture. I fear building a really great life around me, and suddenly having it stripped away.

I fear losing friends. I have some really, really awesome friends. I say "really, really awesome" because I honestly have no idea how to describe them any other way. Any attempt at describing them using sophisticated, yarn-spinning language wouldn't do justice, so i might as well just use really lame, mundane words, because at least they're absolute and true. But seriously, I have a really great group of friends who are some of the most amazing, down to earth, fun people I know. I fear losing that, because as you get older true friends become harder to find. I like surrounding myself with positive people; people who don't have an agenda.

I fear gaining weight. Now, this probably sounds like something most people fear, right? And of course it is. But I really do drive myself crazy sometimes fearing that I'll gain back all of the weight that I lost 2 years ago. The biggest difference isn't in new found confidence, but in how much better people treat you when you aren't overweight. I don't get weird looks in the gym. People hold doors for me now. I can go eat somewhere without condescending looks. And most importantly, random people talk to me, because they magically view you as a worthy, self-respecting person the second you aren't fat.

I fear my anxiety coming back. It came back. It came back in December after being gone for over 2 years. It's kept me from doing things in the past, and I fear it'll have the same effect in the future. I fight the anxiety demon regularly, and it's not as bad now as it was in December & January, but it still lingers. I went on a date with a girl to Tim Horton's a few weeks ago, and my anxiety took over the day before and made me feel very nervous, which made me not feel good. Not feeling good lead me to get even more anxious about possibly being sick, which nearly kept me from going on the date. Whilst on the date, I probably spent 75% of the time talking, because I felt if I didn't talk I was going to puke. We never went on a second date.

I fear not being cool enough.  Cool is a really silly word. It's an elementary school word that has sort of hung around like a bad smell and is still a word in everyone's vocabularies today, aside from it being "cool outside." I don't know if anyone is truly cool, or what defines cool, but I guess I fear not being as interesting as other people. I fear that others are doing way more exciting things than I am. While I'm catching up on the latest episodes of Rick & Morty, I sort of just assume that everyone else is out having a beer with someone awesome, or just generally living an interesting life.

I fear not meeting a girl. Sounds mushy, is sort of mushy, so I won't spend too much time on it. But it's true though. I'm a 20 year-old guy who has spent the vast, vast majority of his life single. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I'd rather not be in a relationship than be in one with the wrong person, but at times it really does start to become a bummer. Being single can be fun and exciting, but there's nothing wrong with finding a really nice person who compliments your personality, and having them as a regular facet in your life.

 I fear doing nothing/not being relevant. This sort of comes from the cool point, but I really do hate not doing anything. I did nothing for a whole year when I dropped out. Then I did nothing but tennis and sports and shit for two years, but at least I was doing something then. I just really hate feeling like I'm not contributing something either to the world or to myself. I could take a train to downtown Toronto with a few buddies, hang out downtown for the day, grab an amazing meal, then hit a pre-game festival and take in a game. I can train it back, and arrive around midnight. The second I sit down at 12:10am and realize that I'm not doing anything, I begin to feel that itch, despite the fact I just spent a day downtown enjoying life. The second I'm not doing something, I worry that means I'm not relevant, or not exciting. The second I'm not preoccupying my brain, I begin to try and think of ways to preoccupy my brain.

I fear a lot of things. These are really only a few prime examples I could think of at the moment, but they're major players in my everyday life and thoughts.

So let me ask, what do you fear?

From The Couch

The couch that I'm writing this from is the same couch that I've been stuck on for the past 5 & a half weeks. It's a couch that I've had a lot of time to sit on and think. It's a couch that I'm probably going to avoid when I get out of this cast in  5 days.

When I broke my ankle 5 and a half weeks ago, I really didn't think I broke it. I got up, feeling embarrassed that I took yet another spill while skating, and prepared myself to keep on going, and to fall again. Instead, I stood there, both skates on the ice, wondering why the pain wasn't slowly getting better, and why it was so much different than any minor tweak I had experienced before.

I stood in the same spot for a couple of minutes, then finally decided to try and skate it off. I skated to the other end of the rink, but every time I put my right skate down, it felt a lot more wobbly than it had just a few minutes ago. I finally got to the boards and stood there for another few minutes, until I decided to test out my leg. I lifted my good leg, and magically, I couldn't feel my right leg or foot anymore, and almost went down.

Fast forward now past me getting off the ice, going to the hospital, having a nurse laugh at how I stupidly injured myself, and the doctor coming in and telling me I broke my fibula. I'm on crutches now, in a tenser-wrapped splint that eventually became an air cast.

Five and a half weeks have gone by since then; and in that time, I've really had no other option but to stay at home when I'm not at school, and sort of just wait for the time to pass.

Before I broke my ankle, I would usually go out somewhere after school. Whether it was for a short drive, or to pick up a friend, or just to find somewhere to go, I went. I'd try and avoid coming home at all costs, not because of anyone or anything at home, but because I don't really feel comfortable with the idea of facing my thoughts, and not having something to occupy my brain.

In being stuck like this, I've had no other choice but to be stuck with myself, which has brought on both good and bad. It's good, because it's good to confront things that make you uncomfortable. It's good to push yourself, and hope that you can get past that certain thing weighing you down. At the same time though, it's been tough. I've had periods where I've felt like I lost all of my determination to get better, or to work on school, or to interact with anyone. At times, I've felt like all I want to do is sit and think about how much I hate being like this.

I've also had to learn how to plan ahead, but also to focus short term as well.

While in the past I feel like I've had a good mix of these, they were sort of on different terms while being non-weight bearing in a cast. In the long term, I had to plan ahead what I'd need in the hours to come, so that I could have it close by, or how I'd do something on crutches, or get somewhere on crutches. At the same time though, and almost for the exact same reasons, I've had to learn how to do things very short term as well. When you're on crutches, you're sort of at everyone's mercy. You can't drive, you can't carry things, and you really just can't fend for yourself. So you sort of need to plan in the now when you know that someone has a free moment.

And while I'm on the topic of people, I really can't understate just how appreciative I am of everyone who has helped me. I've really become extremely dependent, and so many people have been there to help me out, and have made this whole situation that much easier. Especially my mom, who has basically become my driver everywhere, and has helped me so much at home.

I joked the night after this happened to someone that I went from watching "how-to" videos on youtube of how to skate, to watching how-to videos on how to use crutches on stairs, and that I had sort of gone full-circle. I suppose in another sense I've gone full-circle in that I was planning on blogging about being a 20 year-old learning how to skate, to now possibly blogging about my rehabbing process.

Anyways, I just wanted to share those few thoughts on what has been going through my head these past weeks. I've certainly gained a larger appreciation for walking, and for those who still continue to work and actively do things despite a major disability.

When I see someone else on crutches, I'll happily go running to help them out...that is, when I can run.

Thanks for reading.