Renovations Complete!

With the renovations over, I have been trying to clean up, throw away junk, reorganize and decorate the basement since. Furniture still needs to moved downstairs, cable needs to be installed and more finishing touches done before the basement is completely livable but here are some sneak peeks!

These photos are of the former storage room before it became the luxury bathroom it is today!

And now who could resist spending hours in here? Not I!

The separate shower stall is made yummier by the tile pattern I chose myself. 

Dontcha LOVE this mirror? I'm not loving my camera though. It doesn't do the colors justice.

Last but not least the inviting, working Jacuzzi that I snagged for $95! The push flow toilet for $75. The pedestal sink for $60! 

Here are some more views of my new, super fun basement entertainment suite!

This is the landing covered with slate tile. Yummy! I'm working on an enclosed storage space under the stairs...

This is the living area freshly painted and tiled. Gone are the puke green of the walls, the temporary support and the  ugly concrete floor! My wood burning stove is going to get some use this winter!

This is the guest bedroom that still needs many finishing touches. I've added a wardrobe for useful storage!

I'm super excited and will be posting more pics once the finishing touches are complete using, hopefully, a better camera!

Yikes!

A stubborn cold + renovations = a long absence.

It's kind of hellish trying to get over a cold amongst banging and sawing and  dust. It doesn't help that I seem to have hired The Two Tenors to renovate my basement. I'm not complaining though. The price is right and the basement is coming along swimmingly. O Sole Mio!

The back yard is almost finished.

Let me refresh your memory. This was my garden before....

You can't see the Nova Scotia slate path, but it's there. In the last photo there's a brick wall that enclosed a mound of soil that used to contain Sumacs which grow like weeds. After they were dug out, that garden looked bare and random.

This is what it looks like now...

You can finally see the slate path. The wall was dismantled to make borders around the two flower beds. I still need to get more wood chips, and to string the solar lights and it's done!

The basement is almost finished as well. The tenors were so fast, that I didn't manage to take decent before shots but here was the work in progress.

This is the laundry closet. The machines and doors were removed in order to lay down the ceramic tile.
The floor was just painted concrete before.

Here is the living area. It looks like a hurricane hit it, and you can't see the wood burning stove amongst the rubble.
In the foreground is the jacuzzi tub I bought for $95! Surprisingly, it works!

This was the storage room that now is in the process of becoming a spa bath. I can't wait!

Very soon, I will have a finished basement and a wonderful garden to entertain in. Since I have moved here, I have not really entertained as the space on the main floor is so chopped up and small. I can't fit more that four people in my "living room". 

This project has depleted my finances, however, it's going to significantly improve my social life. What good is money if you're living like a hermit, right?

Stay tuned for photos of the finished basement. Whoop!

CSI: Genie

Sometimes I get too caught up in my inner space, intent on solving it like a crime scene. I become an investigator, trying to piece together the remnants and fragments of past hurts, trying to find clues that have lead me here. I become a medical examiner, deconstructing the body I carry around, disconnected to who I was and who I am. I become a prosecutor, condemning myself for all my faults and many mistakes. I become a forensic specialist, taking the jack hammer to the hard shell that encases my heart to find what hurt it so.

There is much to investigate, but I'm not a crime scene. I'm a person. Speckled, imperfect and alive. I don't have all the answers, but I am responsible for the life I am leading right now. I can let it slip by while I swim in a murky pool of whys and wherefore. Or. I can get on it.

So that is what I choose to do. Get on with my life. I can't promise myself that every day will be as perfect as today with the sun streaming in through the windows, the smell of Murphy's oil rising from my freshly washed floor, and the smell of mowed grass wafting in from outside; but I can promise myself that today is a new day. A fresh start. A slate of possibilities.

Over the next few weeks I will be chronicling the changes I will be making, and the steps I will be taking in pursuit of a more authentic life. A more productive one. I need to tackle my procrastination and see at least one vision to its fruition. So many started projects have been left by the wayside while I moan about the way things suck in my life. Moaning doesn't get anything accomplished. Action does.

I have been considering deleting all my posts on this blog and starting fresh here too, but that would be as inauthentic as buying a rug to cover the scratched floor. There's no reason to delete anything. This blog chronicles my ups and downs, my joys and losses and it is part of me. Its the forensic evidence of who I am. Speckled, imperfect and real.

Requiem for a Stinky Boy

I loved him from the first moment I laid eyes on him, in the birthday box smelling like baby powder. He fit in my palm, a soft bundle of  little grey tabby -all ears and tail and boundless energy. As he curled up and slept where I held him lightly to my chest, I fell deeper in love. He became my furry son.

His name was Stinky. Before you judge me, know that he actually chose this. I tried every interesting name I could think of but he wouldn't respond to any of them. Then one day, after he took one of his famous nature breaks, I passed by the litter box and exclaimed, "Oh my GOD! That's so stinky!" He stopped in mid-trot, turning to look at me. "Is that the name you want?" I asked incredulously. I tested it out a little later, calling him by that name, and there he was, trotting toward me from some corner he was exploring. He responded to Stinky for the 18 years he honored me with his company.

He's been with me for every day after that, barring that terrible night he stayed over at the vet's after being neutered. He's curled up next to be and slept, soundly snoring. We've played hide and seek; he's sunk his teeth into me a few times; we stared out the window together, each in our own reveries. He took my papers hostage, terrorized some of my friends, hid all my hair accessories, and faced the many changes in our loves with me.

Two weeks ago, life happened. He had been acting increasingly unsettled and meowing mournfully, so I decided to let him go outside which he'd done only a few times in his life. He was an indoor cat; but he would explore the world close to home, on occasion, and come back a few hours later. He hasn't been home since. 

I have been struggling with emotions of guilt and torment, resignation and acceptance. If I had not let him out, he would be still with me. Yet, I did not want to keep him prisoner, since it seemed he longed for freedom. Possibly one last hoorah. I have been praying that he hasn't suffered. That he's found the freedom he sought. That he is where he wants to be and he's happy. Yet, I ache for him, and the pain overtakes me. He was the last of my family, and I have been mourning for his loss.

Today, I celebrate his life. He was a splendid boy. Mischievous, funny, smart and loving. No one could have asked for a better son. And today, I take the time to honor him wherever he roams.

I love you Stinky. Thank you for being in my life.

Manifesto of Change

Here's the thing. I can write about my problems until my fingers fall off; it's therapeutic. However, I don't want to get stuck chasing my own tail of issues. To the outsider, I might be bitching too much, or focusing on my losses too much, or stuck in a holding pattern of regret.

Regret is a waste of time.

Things change even in infinitesimal amounts. This weekend my almost 20 year old indoor cat decided he had enough, taking off to explore the world as his last hoorah.  He's been out before, but never for four days; and I am left to struggle between sadness and hope. Sadness because I didn't get the chance to say goodbye, and hope because I know the courage his little soul has in taking on the world at his age. He has become my new hero who has delivered a powerful message to me. It's time for me to do the same.

I have decided to sell my house.

It's time to acknowledge that the reasons for buying a house have been miscalculated. I felt that in a house I would feel more of a sense of community, but I have not done so in either houses I have owned. Neighbours in reality, I have discovered, bear no resemblance to neighbours in the media. Sure, there are the waves and quick hellos as I walk to my car or water my garden or shovel the insane amounts of snow that fall, but there have been no block parties, or casserole dishes or friendly cups of tea. In a house, as in an apartment, I have been left pretty much to my own devices.

In a big city, everyone tends to their own, and good luck to you if you don't have a family or a group of friends that you've grown up with. You have to struggle to make and keep connections, otherwise you're a floating buoy in a sea of nuclear families and couplings. I thought purchasing a house would have given me a sense of belonging, instead, it's given me bills, and chores and headaches.

So it's time to call it a failed experiment and go back to compartmentalized living. I need an open concept unit with windows, in an area that's mixed residential and commercial. I want to be able to walk around, window shop, go for a coffee, get to know my neighbourhood. I need to be in a environment that's not solely occupied by families, couples and retirees. I'm looking for the right lifestyle, not just a place to live. I'll leave the gardening, snow shoveling and remodeling to those who love it.

It's time.

It's time to focus on the things I love like painting, jewelry-making, writing, dancing and photography.  It's time to look forward not backwards. It's time to heal from past wrongs, mistakes and abuses. It's time for my manifesto of change. Rather than go home to read or watch TV or putter around, I am putting together an interesting cocktail of classes for me to take during week nights. It's time to learn more about and participate in the things I have always wanted to do. It's time to act rather than wish things would change in my life. Now that I understand why I'm so screwed up, it's time to get over it, and just live the best life I can in a new environment with renewed interest.

It's time to follow in my beloved cat's footsteps. Meow.

~~~~~~~~~~

As I browsed through my favorite bloggers, I found that, yet again, Jamie Ridler has worked her magic. 

In her Wishcasting Wednesdays Jamie asks, "What do you wish to transform?"

 And there it is, perfectly aligned with my post. 

I wish to transform my life. 

Please join the Wishcasters as we weave some dreams into reality.

The Wrong Man

It's as simple as a choice, but any given choice can be monumental, no matter how simple or difficult. We make choices every day sometimes without even thinking about them because they have been so ingrained into our subconscious. They almost seem instinctive, but they're not. They're learned, like deciding which route to take home. What items to order from a take-out menu. Who we're attracted to.

We've all made choices that we question, in hindsight. The "if only I had" is probably one of the most common statements. There are many choices that I've made without knowing that they would turn out to be staggering turning points in my life. I've let opportunities go. I've taken wrong turns. I've chosen questionable paths. But, I can't be too hard on myself because I did the best I could do with the information, the perspective and the maturity I had at the time.

And I chose the wrong men. Almost like clockwork.

It would be easy to become bitter, saying all men are pigs; but that's just ignorant. There are many wonderful, courageous, intelligent, caring, loving, admirable men out there. I just didn't choose them. I fell into a pattern of destructive relationships.

Given that I was emotionally stunted, physically tortured and psychologically impaired early in my childhood, it makes absolute sense. I grew up without the invaluable education of getting to know the opposite sex. So, it's not surprising that mistrust and fear became ingrained in me. Experience became instinct; an instinct that has brought me to where I am today.

At 17, I started with a series of anguished crushes on men who neither had the knowledge nor the capacity to understand someone such as myself. They probably didn't know I existed while I went through into the nightmarish world of unrequited love- the kind of love that not only is the loneliest, but one that leaves the most emotional scars in a person already rife with them.

My first full fledged boyfriend, at the age of 20 seemed to start with promise. I met him at a bar, and fell in love with him because he asked to brush my hair. How was I to know that this unbelievably romantic beginning would end in disaster a year later? It turned out that this sweet gentle man, chosen because he was so unlike the abusive role models I grew up with, would eventually cheat on me, get another woman pregnant and marry her, all while still carrying on a relationship with me.

That was not an auspicious beginning. It was followed by a string of misses until I met the man I was to eventually marry 3 years later. After his divorce at the age of 27, he came to stay with his mom who lived in my apartment building. I noticed him because he would start coming out to the terrace where I hung out with my coffee and crossword puzzles. He was a gentle, funny and loving guy. How was I to know that he also  was a dead beat dad with a drug problem? I found that out after we got married.

In the four years we were together, our relationship became a project for me. In the beginning, I got him to pay his ex-wife child support, to go back to school and get a better paying job. I cleaned up his look. I reinvented the man. I was so proud of him, until I noticed he spent hours in the bathroom, could not sustain an erection and was acting very erratically. Three years into our marriage, I stopped sharing his bed, stopped being his partner, and became his therapist. By the fourth year, I gave up trying and got out to save myself.

I was 27, bruised by two shatteringly disappointing relationships, and clueless as to what went wrong. I needed to rally myself and find a way to navigate life and romance. That's when I discovered the treacherous world of online and embarked into an even more destructive set of relationships.

But that's a story for another day.

Today, I'm wiser. I understand what went wrong, but I'm still struggling with the aftereffects. If I'm ever to have a healthy, fulfilling relationship with a man, I need to navigate into safer emotional waters. I need to identify the trigger within myself, all the barriers I have put up, and finally be free.

The Factor of Zero

The journey toward change and understanding has two legs: reflection and action. These two must go hand in hand in order to achieve anything successfully. One without the other would cause an imbalance that would topple the blocks and make us start all over again. Without reflection, there's impulsive action; without action, there's endless reflection. As I reflect here, I act out there. My thoughts have become the blueprint of my decision to change my life into something more meaningful, productive and fun.

To that end, I need to make the following disclaimer. This is really a communication with myself, a communication I'm making public in the hopes that it might help anyone else in some small way. It's also a way of keeping myself honest - when I hit "publish", I'm committing to my words. In order to reach this point in my process, I have had to overcome the fear of being scorned, or judged, or pitied because of what I am publishing here. It's of vital importance I do not censor the feelings, thoughts and words that need to come out for fear of public scrutiny. I know it comes with the territory and I'm good with it.

I have noticed what I like to call the factor of zero come into play in my life quite often. It's the nadir to the zenith, the low to the high, the exhale to the inhale. My life all but empties out of people. It's as if it's multiplied by zero; and we know anything that's multiplied by zero equals zero. For whatever reason, whether by decision or circumstance, I lose people. They never call again; they move on with their lives, without me.

I tried to stay in touch often realizing that I'm the only one putting in the effort. One sided relationships never work, so I gave up, doing what I have been trained to do - blame and berate myself. I would ponder, some say obsess, about the reasons why this happened, what I did wrong, why I am so cursed, or boring or unlovable. I felt like a deflated tire tossed in the landfill of life.

How freaking dramatic, right?

On the opposite side of the coin, I have had to make the difficult decision of cutting off some people out of my life. This is no judgement on them; sometimes in relationships there's a chemical imbalance, the explosion of vinegar and baking soda. We're just not good for each other. These decisions have been difficult indeed because they often happen during the zero factor phases in my life. This is made doubly difficult by the looming threat of aloneness. I don't say loneliness because I am comfortable in my own company; and I can amuse myself; but I would be lying if I said I don't need people. Quite the opposite is true. I need a consistent tribe in my life.

The question remains, what factors need to come into play so that I can achieve this? How can I eliminate the factor of zero once and for all? This is where action will come into play.

Tsunami of Mindless Entertainment

I'm pissed off. I have been torturing myself over the past few days, not wanting to post on my blog about my petty issues and problems because whole nations are under siege by war and poverty and natural disaster. Who am I, to sit here whining about a past I can do nothing about or a few extra pounds that I can't seem to shed? How shallow and self-absorbed am I?

And then I turn on the TV or the computer. Apparently not as much as I thought.

We live in a world where a genuine tragedy is lost in the mania of spotlighting the trivial, the fake celebrity, the latest meltdown. People who are overpaid, pampered and idolized just because someone has decided that they should be promoted into the limelight, lose their shit and we lap. it. up. Maybe they have talent, or charisma, but do they really count more than unknown people who are suffering simply because nature is fighting us back for our moronic notions and self-aggrandizement? Does someone's grief or tragedy only prove worthy if some celebrity in designer jeans and an equally designer dog decides to get on the public relations bandwagon of giving a fuck about the real issues that have torn the very fiber of our existence to promote it?

Do we want to be known by future generations, if there will be any left, as the ones who are fascinated with a bunch of illiterate, morally degenerate, tasteless and classless idiots getting laid, doing laundry and fist pumping? We churn out the minute men and women, boys and girls of celebrity. We line them up in our single-minded obsession with entertainment. Entertainment at someone else's expense.

At work, today, they were gleefully watching the latest YouTube child stars brought to the public by production companies paid by parents to spotlight their kids in sugar-coated meaningless music videos. Students know all the lyrics and happily sing them causing a mind torture like no other to those within earshot. Those same students who cannot read or follow instructions properly or remember how to footnote their sources, or how to put together a cohesive sentence, know. all. the. lyrics.

I don't know where to even begin. My brain hurts.

Cave Girl

This morning I woke up looking like a Kiss extra. I really should remember to wash my eye make-up off before bed, but sometimes shit happens. Besides, it was good for a morning laugh. It's funny brushing Tommy Thayer's teeth in the mirror.

Now back as myself, gulping morning coffee and pondering on my plans, I am stuck with how many times I have had to reinvent myself. When I went to Greece at age 16, my life had changed drastically. I left the cloistered environment of my restricted adolescence to enter a world filled with fascinating people from all over the world, rife with ideas and enthusiasm, filled with the pit falls of social interactions.

You would think that I would have fallen flat on my face, given the sorry state of my social prowess, and my zero understanding of the male species, other than men who can take the form of a benevolent dictators or preying abusers. Quite the reverse is true. I thrived. For the first time, I had the freedom to be, even though I did not have the slightest clue as to who I was. The truth is I was 16 frozen at 10. Stuck somewhere between the age I was a relatively normal girl to when the darkness swallowed me.

They call it sunny Greece for a reason. I went from a very proper, slightly robotic life to one bursting with the sticky, sweet juice of living. There was noise everywhere. Everyone talked at the same time, with the the same gusto that they laughed, ate, argued and loved. I felt like the cave girl discovered under layers of ice, perfectly preserved and frozen in time. I thawed a little bit more each day, as I became conscious of the world around me once again. I also became painfully aware of myself and the fact that somehow I was very different from everyone else.

Yet, I was deliriously happy and empowered for the first time in 6 years. This set a pattern for me, a pattern I only just recently realized: I am most happy around creative, thinking individuals. I love the chaos of discovery much more than the stability of knowing. I dive into new ideas as if my soul is parched for them. I swim in pools of color and textures. I don't like to lounge in the sun of complacency. I need movement.

Over the years, I have often felt the need to change things up. to experience a different perspective. If I stay stagnant too long, I start to wither. And this is precisely why I have decided it's time to make another step in my life. I need to be around creative people in environments that breed discussion and ideas not conformity and routine. In other words, it's time to stop living a life I think I should be living while yearning for a life I love, and start living the life I love.

Emergence

To the outside observer, my process of healing probably seems like a bipolar ride in a dysfunctional theme park. It ain't no piece of cake being on it either. There are days when I'm coasting high, scattering rose buds on the road toward a brighter future, and others where I feel like I've been fitted with the cement shoes of my past. And I'm sinking in futility.

This is made doubly hard by my propensity to sabotage myself, an activity ingrained in me by years of being constantly and relentlessly criticized. Somewhere inside me, there's a girl cowering in her room praying that her exacting father will finally realize that she isn't perfect. She is fiercely, and often, obnoxiously defended by the warrior woman I've created to shield her from the seemingly endless barrage of fate's stumbling blocks.

Am I just another case of a bipolar in a dissociative state? Or am I just trying to survive the challenges this life has posed me? 

As I sit in my fun room, listening to a bird sing through my open window, seeing the first awakening from the thaw, sipping my morning coffee, I make plans in my head.  Maybe it's time to stop wishing that things were different, that my life hadn't been hijacked onto this collapsing trajectory, and actually take steps to change things. There's no magic formula to happiness. Happiness is or it isn't.

I have been making visualization sketches about the things that I have the ability to change, like where and how I live my life. Then as my pencil poised for another sketch of my optimal loft space, I started to create this...

I called this sketch "emergence". It wants to evolve into a painting that will serve not only as an inspiration but as a driving force for me to get off the bipolar express, and begin becoming functional again.