I’m 30 now. I remember finishing up a piano lesson last Wednesday and looking over at the clock and seeing it was midnight. That was it; my birthday. The start of a new decade. I suppose in Canada I was still twenty-nine, but in my life in Scotland, I was thirty. I went straight to bed and woke up at 4am to watch the sunrise on Arthur’s Seat. I did that last year too, except there was too much fog and I didn’t see a thing. This year, the sky was glorious. I don’t know if that means anything; I hope it does. I hope it symbolises everything the year ahead will look like. I’m always trying to find hidden meaning in things. Maybe thirty is when you’re supposed to stop doing things like that. Maybe by the time you reach thirty, you’re supposed to realize that sometimes a sunrise is just a sunrise.
(more…)Tag: Growing Up
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No Salsa, but Something More
I keep wanting to write a post about tv shows I watched recently that made me cry (spoiler alert: all of them) but when it comes down to the moment of setting pen to paper, I can’t bring myself to do it. This time it’s because I have a headache and I don’t have the energy to be emotional right now, but I think it’s also because I am a little bit frightened about knowingly putting myself through the ordeal of feeling things intensely. I guess that’s why they say facing your feelings takes courage.
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A Character in my Story
It’s a rather dismal Monday night in September (a strange month for me back in the day because I would be excited for school to start while simultaneously deeply wistful that summer should be coming to an end. I have since come to learn that we, as a society, are very prone to an “either-or” mentality when it’s perfectly acceptable to think “both-and”. IE: We are allowed to feel two conflicting things and that was very comforting for me to realize and greatly reduced a lot of my inner turmoil).
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More Than…
There are a few remaining rays of August sunshine left and I’m sitting with my back to the window, letting myself soak it all in. I don’t do that enough. Soak things in, I mean. When I read books, I feel like I’m sometimes too motivated by needing to know what happens that I don’t savor every word, sentence, paragraph. And when I eat, I feel like I want to try everything, so I chew quickly, so that nothing runs out before I’ve had the chance. And when I walk, I stride with purpose, propelled forward by some invisible force.
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28 Years Later
Today is June 28th. I turned 28 years old at the beginning of the month, something that came and went like an old friend who so comfortably walks through the door without saying hello and leaves without saying goodbye. That is to say, I didn’t really think about turning older this year. It somehow just happened.
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The Past is Like a Red Balloon
The happy curtain of my childhood has drawn to a close and I feel as though it didn’t even let me catch one fleeting glimpse of me and my sisters playing in the window before shutting completely. (more…)
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When Your Older Sister Moves Out
We dropped my older sister off at her new apartment after dinner. I tried to imagine what she felt like but I couldn’t. She must feel so free and happy…but maybe a little sad as well. I tried to imagine buying furniture and being dropped off and closing the door as my parents walked away. (more…)
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How I Felt on My Last Day Being 21
Today is a sad day for me because it is the last day I will ever able to say that I am 21. I had 365 days and now they’re over and done with, and never coming back. For some reason, when I think about it that way, it makes me incredibly sad and wistful and leaves me wishing that I could go back and get those 365 days back. (more…)
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Why do Happy Memories Make me Sad?
It’s very strange looking through old photographs because they make me feel both happy and sad at the same time. But now I mostly just feel sad. Maybe because I was so happy back then. Does that make sense? It’s kind of ironic that happy memories are the ones that make you the most sad. (more…)
Things I Learned Growing Up 