Friday, April 15, 2011

she said, "you make me better, boy, I just mailed you a letter, boy, and oh so you know I'm still in your sweater, boy"

If you read the title of this post and now have this Hedley song playing over and over in your head, I'd like to apologize.

I'd like to, but I won't, because I can't get rid of it either. Misery loves company and all that jazz. Though, sometimes, misery needs its own personal space, a little alone time, too.  For example: have you ever just had one of those nights where you needed to drive? Not anywhere in particular, not with an endgame in mind, but just drive around aimlessly?

I had one of those last night.

I dropped off some friends, with the full intention of heading home. I pointed Mia the Kia in the direction, but when it came time for me to turn down my street, I just didn't. I went the opposite direction, looped around the city about twice, my new playlist of sappy, slow, rainy-day kind of music (including the Hedley song!!!)playing all the while.

I didn't do it to kill the environment with a few more gas fumes. I didn't do it because I can afford to waste gas (lord knows no one can with the prices these days...vom!). I really didn't even do it because I was particularly in need of time killing--who is really?

I did it because I needed to think. And sometimes just trying to get the thoughts out in text form, be it in a notebook or here in this little blog o mine, just isn't enough. Sometimes I need to drive around in the dark and think about the things that are bothering me, til I can formulate them into sentences, enough to put them down on paper or in a blog post.

So here it is:

I've been letting myself down. I know that sounds a little bit crazy, but it's also true.  I made a promise to myself this year that I was going to be braver. I wrote it down on paper, I wrote it in my blog, I labelled it a resolution, and so far, I've done nothing but let myself down and break it altogether. Which is crap. I didn't make it so I could just stare at it and think "Oh, Jess"--I made it to keep it, and yet I haven't. And why?

Because I'm scared. Good Lord, am I scared. It's interesting- I can make big changes and take big risks when it comes to things like moving, or work, or applying for grad school. But make me think about my personal life, and holy henna, it goes to hell in a handbasket.

See, the thing that spawned this entire need-a-drive thought process of mine, aside from there being someone particular in mind, are the two friends I dropped off before I took said drive. They are just one of the cutest couples I have ever known. I knew them pre-their coupledom, and they're easily some of the coolest cats on the planet, and they just make each other smile and laugh and they're so freaking awesome that I realized I want that. I really, really want that, and I'm so freakin' sick of not having it because I'm too scared to take a chance, to risk a friendship; too scared to see that there's possibilities beyond rejection, and far too terrified to put my heart out there just in case. I'm one tough chicka, but it took a lot of hurt to get me that way, and I haven't yet been able to let it go. "Once bitten, twice shy" and all that.

But I'm tired of being a cliche, and I need to take the reins and stop being such a chickenshit.

With big risks come big rewards, and I'll never know until I try.

So here goes.

Wish me luck?

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

i can't decide if i'll let you save my life, or if i'll drown

And once again Jmart fails the blogging by only posting one during the entire 31 days of March.

I'd like to lie and say that there's a really good reason, but there isn't. Typing in the medieval torture device that was the wrist brace I ended up in was crappy, and I didn't have a whole lot of anything to ponder.

But now I do.

And instead of being able to sum it all up in my usual verbose way (oh, that was an oxymoronic sentence), I've decided to give you this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvbErM6ZTBA

It's "Arms" by Christina Perri, an artist I discovered only recently, though I'm told her "Jar of Hearts" single has been around for quite some time and I've apparently just been hiding myself under a musical rock.

Anyway.

Her words speak everything I want to about my scenario. And yes, there is a boy, and as a result this song has been on repeat for me for days, because it gives me this feeling of just being understood. Her struggle between wanting to be loved and worrying about destroying the one who loves her; between finding her place in their arms and still wanting to run and look for her place; they're me. They're all me right now, they're everything I've wanted to say and everything I can't say. I want to be saved. I want to be caught when I fall. I want all of those things, but I'm more terrified of trying to get those things than I have been of anything else in my life (including an incident in my store with a bird, which, for the record, is really effing terrifying. For me.)

So just listen to the song. Listen to all of her songs. I hope they help you think...of me. Of you. Of your wants and dreams and hopes and fears and how you're going to get those all into one place and ultimately get what you want and who you want and who and what you deserve.

I promise that as it plays over and over, I'm doing the same. For you. For me. For all of us.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

today i finally overcame, trying to fit my world inside a picture frame

So I've been thinking a lot about pictures as of late. I've also been running into all of my good friends' douchey exes. Really, stellar week. You may wonder how these things connect--the answer, of course, is that my brain is magic.

...Okay, not exactly. But here's the thing:

In the last few weeks I have had several encounters of exes of my girlfriends. These particular girls mean the world to me: they've pulled me through some of the hardest moments in my life, and in turn I've had to see what these particular exes have done to them. Now, I want to go with my "angry best friend" voice and call them terrible people, or rant and rave about them being balding-ginger-douches, but...I won't. While I will call them that on occasion, and I truly do have a lot lower opinions of them than I used to, I also have to play devil's advocate and realize that in every relationship that eventually ends, there has to be a bad guy. Who you put in that role sometimes depends on which side of the fence you land on, who was your friend first, etc.

I am in no way discounting the shitty things these boys did. In fact, I would have loved to have spent the awkward interaction moments with them yelling at them for being morons and raving about how they're the ones who've lost, because obviously losing one of my friends is the biggest mistake of their lives.

I still believe all of that (and girls, you know how much I love you).

But beyond this two-sides-to-the-same-coin outlook that I suspect my cold meds are responsible for, I've also began to wonder about some other parts of our interactions.

Why is it that these guys thought to seek me out in a group scenario, to greet me with a smile, to ask how I am and what I'm doing and how things are going and to comment on my still-casted arm? What said to them that it would be a good idea to be civil, nay friendly, to me? Was it my cold "you hurt my friend" glare? My obviously sarcastic, short and terse responses? The way I started to back away when one of them moved in for a hug? Was it that??

Or...was it because they thought that perhaps, beyond the connection of the girl they used to date and ultimately hurt, perhaps we had some sort of relationship, connection, friendship? This is where those old pictures come into play. I've been doing a lot of creeping on Fbook as of late: not in the trying-to-find-a-man sense or anything like that, but just looking at photos from a year or years ago, albums my friends have posted or have tagged me in. They bring back some of the happiest, funniest memories, with captions that trigger a hilarious reaction to a long-forgotten scene in our friendship. They bring back the: "Remember the time?" and "How about when we?". They spark the random quotes that are thrown into conversation, inside joeks that make us laugh until our stomachs hurt. These pictures have been inordinately successful in helping me waste time while I am continually broken.

And in some of those pictures are these very douchey exes that I've had the pleasure of running into over the last little while. And some of the funniest moments include them, and some of the funny things were said by them, and some of the funniest faces I've ever made were because of them.

So I'm left to wonder: what exactly do I do in these scenarios? Most of me wants to yell at them and tell them they're crazy and various other expletives; a quarter of me wants to remember that they're only human too, and the remaining fourth realizes that there are good memories tired to and shared with this person. What's a girl to do?

Simply: the only thing she can. Grin and bare it through the awkwardness; show disapproval for their shitty choices in expression and intonation; and then haul ass as far away and as fast as one can, texting the girls all the while: "omg, guess who I just saw".

I'm learning to forgive, but not forget: you're only human, you make mistakes, and everyone, in one way or another, deserve a second chance. That's my forgive, and I'm working on it.

But I won't forget: not the shitty things they've chosen, but also not the hilarious, happy moments we shared somewhere along this road called life.

Forgive, but don't forget. Today's moral from the broken one.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

i love you but i leave you, i don't want you but i need you

And despite my crossed fingers and hope for the best, I enter week seven of injured wrist-itude with a new, equally neon-coloured cast.

I saw my arm for approximately 3.4456 seconds. I got to scratch one dry spot. Then it was back into fibreglass, at least for another two weeks, til the poking and prodding and testing of our marvellous health care system can figure out wtf is wrong with me. Because apparently, apparently, there might not have been a fracture at all. But: "Oh, scaphoids are pretty hard to tell my dear" and "I'm about 90% sure that it was fractured" and "Well you're still having a lot of pain right there, so there must be something"

No shit.

I'm getting a little tired of guessing games when it comes to my health. I want my arm back, I want to go back to my full-time job, I want to be able to shower without a freakin' plastic bag having to join me (plastic bags, unlike other people, do not make good shower companions)...I am just frustrated at having been injured, and even more frustrated that this medical system has been jerking me around for SEVEN WEEKS.

Either it is fractured, or it isn't. If it isn't, figure out what's wrong. Being given guesses isn't good enough for me anymore, and when an xray tech brings me to tears because the pain is excrutiating as she's trying to get my wrist in the right spot for a (count it) fourth set of radioactive pictures of my freaking arm, I think it's a PRETTY GOOD SIGN that somethin' ain't right.

I'm not asking the hospital to know everything. I'm just asking for some answers, and maybe, maybe just a little less condescension in their tones when they talk to me. I'm not 2, I'm 22, and I know my own body. When something hurts, it hurts. Help me figure out why?

....In the meantime, I'm going back to my basically-pretty-happy attitude. Sometimes you just need a good rage post!

I leave you with a photo of my new bright green roommate--I promise I'm laughing about this all sometime tomorrow. Especially my guinea pig status.

Much love, everyone who sat through that <3

Jmart out!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

there's no guarantee, that leavin' town's gonna set us both free

So, I'm still broken.

This wrist baloney makes typing blogs incredibly difficult, but I've decided to not let it get me and to keep on blogging just the same. Unfortunately, because blogging is so sucky with this broken arm thing, I won't be posting any deep, meaningful rants. Instead, today I thought I'd share my list of top 10 things that are next-to-impossible-to-do when your arm is casted from elbow to fingers, including your thumb.

I don't know if it's ever possible to truly be ready for this, but here goes:

10. Paint your nails. My left hand's look good, my right hand's cannot be completed. Fail.

9. Bra hooks. I now understand why males complain about their difficulty.

8. Buttons. Buttons are the devil when you can't use both opposable thumbs--good thing I work in retail.

7. Zippers. See above comments. Retail's AWESOME.

6. My dishes. When a cast cannot get wet, dishes become incredibly tough to deal with. It's really freakin' hard to tape my arm into a plastic bag in order to be able to just wash my dishes. And even harder to try and cut myself OUT of it.

5. Shower. The plastic bag rant applies here, too, only add in trying to wash one's hair with only one hand--squeezing out shampoo, conditioner and body wash is so not as easy as you'd think.

4. Do my hair. My hair is short. It requires a straightener, product and teasing half the time to get it the way I want. Teasing cannot occur with one hand. And I've burnt my forehead twice with my straightener. I'm awesome.

3. Cleaning. Not that I actually enjoy cleaning ever anyway, but it becomes even more of a pain in the ass when you've only got one hand that can actually grasp stuff. Carrying clothes basket? Nay. Folding clothes? Not a chance. Working the dustpan and broom together to sweep my floor? I suspect it's pretty comedic to watch. Someone should film.

2. Sleeping. I am a deep sleeper, but I also move aorund a ton. As a result, I have rolled over and bashed myself in the arm and/or face with my cast. Also, my wrist aches like a motherbitch a lot at night, making it hard to sleep. Rock on, broken scaphoid, rock on.

Annnnnndddd finally:
1. Playing video games. So it turns out you actually need both your thumbs to play video games. Including Super Mario Bros Wii. And Wii boxing. And Guitar Hero. I'm already pro (literally) at Wii Baseball and Tennis...I'm running out of things to play.


Honourable mention goes out to scratching hard-to-reach itches, including those that happen underneath the cast. Apparently you're not supposed to stick stuff down your cast to reach those itches--who knew?!

While my list seems bitter (okay, it is a little bitter), I hope you managed to get a chuckle or two out of it. And if you didn't...come watch me try and accomplish any of those tasks. I can guarantee you'll get yourself a laugh then!!

Thanks to my dear friend Lee, who helped me out big time this weekend and was the inspiration for this here blog post.
Til next time, pals, I leave you with this vision of my lovely, construction-cone coloured, casted broken arm, and how I really feel about it:


Take care, blogosphere. Stay alert, stay safe (and in one piece!!)

Monday, February 7, 2011

you don't wanna be here in the future, so you say the present's just a pleasant interruption to the past

Oh man

I've been MIA for exactly a month.

I feel terrible, but I have legitimately good reasons, blogosphere. They include such exciting things as working a week of 5:30 am start-time kitchen shifts (which were, as you may suspect, pretty terrible); having someone in my building *attempt* to break into my place (but they didn't, and they've been dealt with, and I'm totally fine); getting into a minor, albeit also scary, fender bender with my beloved Mia the Kia (she's okay, just a little bent license plate) and breaking my left wrist in one of the stupidest, and klutziest incidents of my life (I was late for work, wiped out in my kitchen and am now willing my left scaphoid to heeeeaaaalll).

Of course, I make it sound like I've spent a month having an awful time, but that isn't true. With the bad always comes the good, and in that month I've had a lot of good- meals with friends, nights at my favourite bars, "Charlie Sheen" weekend with some of my favourite people in the entire world, drinks and laughs and dancing...All the important stuff.

It really makes the whole 'bad' crap seem like it hardly exists--which is awe-some.

So in short, I've been off living life. I gotta say, I really think the first month-ish of 2011 has seen me fail some of my resolutions (broken wrists are hardly taking better care of myself, after all), but really, really rock some of the others: in particular, the whole appreciating everything I have thing.

As a result, I just want to say thanks. Those of you who worried for me, with me, and about me. Those of you who made me laugh, made me feel better when I cried, who kept me fed and helped me with my dishes, and drove six hours to see me and drink with me, and those of you who just consistently check in. Without you, I'd have probably just curled up in bed after the break in attempt and called 2011 another waste. But it's not...and I love you all so, so much.

Let's just hope that the remainder of the year has a few less accidents- car, kitchen and otherwise.

Til next time, blogosphere.

Friday, January 7, 2011

your voice was the soundtrack of my summer

"Well, I don't tell you everything"
"...What?! You don't tell me everything?"

Those could have been throw-a-way lines in the screenplay that is our life. They could have been something I said just to screw with your continual need to know everything I do and everyone I know, everything I think and everything I am. (This sounds derisive, but it isn't--your need to know everything makes me feel loved).

They could have been.

But they weren't. They aren't. I can't get them out of my head.

They're stuck there, on replay.

I don't tell you everything, because I can't tell you everything. And I know you're going to want to ask questions- but don't. Isn't it time we both learned to leave well enough alone?

And besides, everyone's entitled to their secrets.