These words, simply lyrics sung to a beautfiul tune, are exactly what I’m feeling. Like there’s some part of me that lost the ability to live life to the fullest. To put every ounce of myself out there like I used to. To say “screw it” and take chances and not be afraid of being hurt, of falling, of getting lost.

I’m not sure if it’s a combination of the invisible scars on my heart that come from loving and losing, coupled with losing the most important man in my life (if you don’t know what that is check out the banner image up top), or just fear of experience it all again. Whatever the cause, whatever the food supply is that feeds this feeling, it’s there. It’s always lurking behind the sunny smile and cheerful disposition that I feel I have to present to the world.

Sure, I smile , I laugh, I party, and I feel with the best of them. I just sometimes wonder why I always feel slighly disconnected from the world. Like there’s some bond that just isn’t happening. And then I worry if it’s just me? I just don’t feel as whole as I did when I was younger. Does that even make sense?

Then again, maybe it’s just change. Maybe it’s just my brain having a hard time adjusting to change. Because, strangely enough, my opinion on a few things are changing. Gradual of course – it’s not like my brain flips a switch and goes “Ta-da, here’s your new view.” At one point this weekend I had to stop and contemplate a remote possibility. And what’s scary, is that my opinion on this remote possibility is far different than what it would have been 10 years, 5 years, or even a year ago. When the decision was made for me I was left feeling confused and riding the fence. And if there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s riding the fence.

I’ll stop writing now. This could easily turn into a bizarre and rambling post. Well, even more than it already is.

Happy Birthday, Dad. I love you….

Hello there fellow internet friends. I think it’s fairly obvious that my attempt at blogging on a more frequent basis was a complete failure. Turns out I didn’t even have a few spare minutes during the day to which I could dedicate to expressing opinions, thoughts or rants.

However, and I say this with some mild trepidation, that’s changing. The new girl is turning out to be a godsend. She has a lot of ground to cover, but she’s doing surprisingly well. Now, if I could only get my coworkers to accept that she is not my clone, and she can’t be expected to hit the ground running with all the knowledge and experience you accumulate when you’ve been working with them for 5 years.

Holy crow – when did the 5 year mark sneak up on me? I don’t feel like I’ve been at my company that long, but my hire date on my PTO form proves otherwise. What I’m also trying to figure out is when I became the “go to person” for both the West offices, Ottawa office AND the Montreal office!

For a girl who started off with no experience, or knowledge of the industry, I’m now the fountain of all things marketing related. The designers have questions and the agents tell them to call me. Marketing budgets automatically get routed through my team for co-op deals. A marketer creates a new template? It gets run past me for verification and design ideas. And the newest thing? Our Montreal office is hiring a marketing person to work directly with the National Investment Team in Montreal. And, from what I understand, if they didn’t think the idea would immediately be rejected by my boss, they would have asked me to join their team. However, knowing just how critical of a role I play for my team, they didn’t dare. They did ask me to vet work samples and portfolios submitted by the job applicants though.

I also received an email from the Senior VP of a major client not too long ago thanking me for helping him out with a request. This client is also a well known company hence leaving the name off of this post. Anyways, this Senior VP sent me an email thanking me and telling me that I saved him, and just how important I was to my team. He actually said in the email that he thought my team would be dead without me. It was one of the nicest emails I’ve received in a long time.

Does any of this mean that I think I’ve found my forever job? Certainly not. I’m still thinking of moving, but I’m going to take my time. Because the truth is, I love my job!

Okay, enough bragging for one post….

Trust me, I’m well aware of the minor lag. After all, this interruption wasn’t by choice. When you’re working 6 days a week, with each day averaging 11 hours of work, most without lunch breaks, the last thing you want to do is blog. Sure, I had blog posts written in my head but by the end of the day, the idea of typing out one more word on a computer was impossible. The vague urge to type just a few lines of text would almost bring me to tears.

However, I swear to change that. I swear, that if it means I have to take a few minutes throughout my day and type a few sentences into Word, I will have a post on a fairly regular basis.

I can’t promise that they won’t be mild rants about the latest attempt by my co-workers to drive me insane, but I can promise you that I will be posting.

So, keep an eye out in the coming weeks. Things look as though they could get very interesting.

I’ve always maintained a realistic view of life. A brutal approach to the ways of the world that make it easier for me to accept disappointment. The optimism that seems to come so easily to some, has always been a difficult thing for me to grasp. That pure, and almost innocent like hope and faith that everything will work out fine, always a strange and distant concept to the practical side of me.

But in the last few months I’ve started taking more of a positive outlook on life. Embracing that positive outlook, and placing my faith in the idea that the world has more in store for me than just what I’ve been dealt. I’ve started believing that all the “ifs” in my life, could quite possibly be “whens”. That all those things I never stopped to put any stock or value in, may one day be an option for me. That view has always been, to put it mildly, a tenuous one, which ebbs and flows with my mood and experiences.

I’m not giving up on the positive viewpoint that I’ve been using the last little while. I’m a fighter and I refuse to give in so easily. It makes sense because I’m starting to wonder if perhaps it really is better to feel pain than not feel anything at all? That without the experience of loss and hurt you lose sight of the true glory of love and hope?

I’m not sure. All I know is that I have faith in my God, that he knows best for what’s meant for me. And that perhaps I can take an optimistic view on life because I know that He has great plans for me that he just hasn’t yet shown me.

I guess that’s one of the other sweet illusions….faith. And faith is something I have never been short on. I may question the madness and the chaos that exists in our world, but I know that there’s a bigger picture taking place that we just can’t see. Faith is what helped me get through losing my dad. Faith is what helped me to learn to be comfortable being on my own. Faith in Him is what allowed me to put my faith in my friends.

Wow. I’m not sure what this is all about. Too much introspection for a Sunday night, that’s for sure.

If you’re this girl, you pack up and leave your office only to jump into the waiting van that’s holding a good friend and her brother (also a friend of yours). The destination? The home of your friends cousin (yet another person you call a friend).

After a failed attempt at parallel parking by the driver, the cousin is enlisted to help direct the parallel parking job. Ironically, after the cousin gets in the van a large parking spot is discovered on the street that was previously jammed tight with cars and the van is parked without any assistance from the cousin.

You parade back to the house and settle in for some conversation and a fresh brewed cup of coffee. Your friend’s brother proceeds to have a detailed discussion with his mother in an attempt to help her program her remote control. The outcome of the conversation? If your mom can’t differentiate between “on” and “off”, then chances are programming the remote is going to be a bit beyond her at that point in time.

Coffee having been consumed, your friend, her cousin, and you march to the local bar around the corner from the house. A fantastic chicken burrito is consumed, raspberry wheat beer is sampled and reluctantly approved (it truly is an acquired taste), and good conversation flows.

You blink and the time is magically 11:30 pm. The group (which once again includes your friends brother), files back to the cousin’s house for another cup of coffee and a sampling of this whole 3D TV craze. The opinion? Highly overrated for the cost involved.

Next thing you know you’re driving home at 12:30 am and singing along to the radio in the car, with plans to visit the cousin again in less than 2 weeks for a small house party you suggested he throw. Also, you have provided him with full notice that he’ll be kicked out of his room as your friend and you will be crashing in his room while he will get to surf the couch.

Any night that involves friends, a few beers, good food and constant laughter is a welcome event. Let every Tuesday moving forward be the new Friday.

But here I am in 2011. A significant change has been made in regards to my outlook on life. Positivity is the name of the game, and optimism is a regular factor in pep talks both to my self and my friends.

2010′s resolution of doing whatever made me happy was a great success. I graduated from the Marketing Management certificate program at Ryerson. I continuously received praise from my coworkers about the quality of work I put out. I traveled to dear old Ireland and walked the land that my family once called home and immediately fell in love with a country that I’ve always been intrigued by. I’ve renewed friendships that had not just stuttered but almost faded, and maintained those that were always strong. I fell in love with countless babies in 2010, and possibly, felt the beginning stages of that desire to one day have a child of my own.

2010 also saw loss both for myself and my friends. The loss my friends encountered were mirror images of what I went through when I lost my own dearly loved, and still desperately missed, Dad. Watching them go through the stages of grief was a struggle. All I wanted to do is comfort and protect my friends from the loss, sadness and anger that comes with losing a dearly loved parent or family member. And there’s nothing worse than knowing there’s nothing you can do to stop it. I offered my time, dedication, understanding, and my own experiences to help them through it and will continue to do so faithfully.

But here we are in the infancy of 2011. A year of unknowns stretches out in front of us filled with both opportunities and struggles. I offer up the following resolutions for 2011:

- To continue with the positive outlook on life and share that view with my friends and family when needed and maintain an open view on life and not close myself off to any possibilities.
- To continue to maintain the strength of my friendships and to never forget the importance that these relationships play in my life and not take them for granted.
- To spend more time with my family, so not to miss out on any events in the lives of my nephew and neices as they continue to grow into fantastic people and not take my family for granted.
- To cut my television time in half and dedicate more time to both spiritual, mental and physical development (ie. read more, work out more, and spend less time lazing about).
- To enroll in my next certificate program at Ryerson (Business Management).
- To work on my writing skills on a regular basis both by posting and writing in my personal journal.
- To drop my body fat percentage by 5% and be able to run a minimum of 10 kms.
- To read at least 50% of the massive book collection I’ve managed to accumulate over the last 2 years.
- To clean out the clutter from my storage space.
- To continue to travel the world (destinations to be determined).
- To travel back East to visit my family.
- To rebuild my wardrobe to a respectable level.

So I bid farewell to 2010, and welcome in 2011 with an open heart, mind and arms. May this year bring the positive changes we all desire. May we all find happiness in all of our efforts, and may our lives be filled with more laughter than tears. And if there be tears, let them be from laughing too hard with our family and friends.

NKOTB Concert - September 2008

Because Steph tagged me, I figured I’d play along. But since most of my photos are still stored on CD’s and an exernal hard drive, and I have yet to condense everything into one place, I was lucky to have 4 photo folders on my new computer. And since none of the rules stated it had to be a picture of you, here it is.

September 2008, NKOTB concert in TO, 3rd row seat, backstage passes, and one childhood fantasy fulfilled. I love the fact that I have someone’s hand doing the “Rock On” sign, right next to a set of bangs belonging to a girl who was either reliving the big-bang phase of the early 90′s, or just never left it. At this concert it could have been either one.

Here are the rules if you want to play along.

If you’d like to play too, this is the way it works:

1. Go to the 4th picture folder on your computer.
2. Post the 4th picture in that folder.
3. Explain the picture.
4. Tag 4 more people.

*I’m not tagging anyone because just about everyone I know has already been tagged. Sometime in the next few days, I’ll do another post after I’ve combined all my photos into one location.*