ramble on

When I was a little girl and I couldn’t sleep, I used to get up and walk around the house in the dark. It was fun to navigate in the dark and to make as little noise as possible. I’ve done this in many places in my life. My favourite was my Aunt Leota’s cottage in St. Martins, NB. She and my Uncle Hilliard kept the place as a summer home for a while and eventually moved out there in their senior years.

I don’t know why, but I’m … well I wouldn’t call it sentimental, but I’m certainly reflective lately. It’s like my entire memory is playing back for me… considering just about everything that has ever happened in my life. I’m not exaggerating. I get songs from church in my head and remember the words. I see faces of children I went to school with. I hover over my old house via google earth. Can you believe they left the old shed up? Gross.

Where is home, really? Is it where you grew up? Is it where you are now? Is it where you die? That’s what I have on my mind. I’m really going tomiss this place, but on the other hand, I hate it. That can’t be home.

What if, what if. The cheery fatalist side of me decided to show up today, and I started thinking about what if this trip was actually a bad idea. One of those tragic stories where the protagonist chases dreams, and meets an unfortunate disaster (are disasters ever fortunate?).

I don’t want my car to break down. No raping, pillaging or murder. No weird American stuff while I’m in the country. (heh heh country, gigiddy) I will climb as much as possible, and not injure myself. I will not hit myself in the teeth with a cam, or take a fall that results in my hitting the ground and exploding on impact.

My cheerful fatalist side has sabotaged earlier attempts at climbing holidays. I’ve really got to learn how to take risks. I was just thinking about lead climbing - and lead falling – and I broke into a sweat. And that was just thinking about leading in the gym! Eek! I hope I’m ready for this trip. Maybe I’ll just boulder V0s that are 10ft high or less with good landings!

Oh me oh my. It’s so strange. I’m oddly calm with this decision, I know it’s right… I get so excited but goddamn I’m scared. Me me me.

If this trip turns out to be a bad idea, it could change me forever. I won’t be taking anymore risks in life, not ever. I’ll become a boring secretary who is happy to stay at work with her flabby triceps. I’m dramatic as well.

surreality settling down

I'm starting to feel oddly calm about my decision. it's still quite surreal though, I look around at all i have... the fancy job and the pretty apartment... and i think "wow, i'm really just walking away from this." I appreciate it more already!

In other news, I've allowed myself to think about the trip i'm about to take. I'm working out dates and where I'll be when. Depending on how my money goes, maybe i can stay in the SE states for a while... if i can make it through february, i'll go to the red in march. and if i go to the red in march, i'm not leaving until may. :)

ah, daydreams of climbing are coming true! Can't wait to be posting up here from different geographical locations.....

non tylenol-3 induced rambling

so yesterday i was playing Damian for the Tetris Worlds household championship, and i was thinking.... why don't i quit my job tomorrow? it was tough enough to make it into work on Monday, I set a few things up from home to run at the office in the morning and then didn't make it in until 11am. I just couldn't be motivated.

So then later on when I was syringing my tooth holes (one of the beautiful side effects of being wisdom tooth liberated) I got to thinking - why don't I quit my job tomorrow? I couldn't think of any good reason to wait until Thursday... why sit in meetings all week planning for the future when i've got resignation on the brain?

Today I wrote my resignation letter first thing in the morning. I brought it into my manager and said something along the lines of "I was going to do this later in the week but, well, here" and handed it to him. In case he was wondering, I mumbled something about two week's notice. Just being clear that i'm not staying three weeks, or two weeks and a day, but two weeks exactly. i'm leaving on a tuesday then. How strange is that?
Overall it went well. He was happy for me and congratulated me. The letter went out informing the rest of the department later on in the afternoon.
What an experience! It was quite surreal. It's still quite surreal. I was trying to sleep, as most people around this time of the night, and my brain is racing, as always. I feel like a prison sentence was lifted and i'm free to go. Think that's harsh language? I've been with that company since I was 21 - I joined before I even finished college, and before that I was working full-time hours at a part-time job during college. So yeah, I'm ready for a break.

Just rambling again, but it's non-violent rambling at least. Not like the last time.... the T-3 induced rant about life. a life rant. just what every insomniac needs!

Two more paycheques to go, and then i'm gainfully unemployed.

Wow, i'm really doing this aren't I? Uh-oh, not going down that thought road again, if memory serves me correctly, then I finished the last post that way, instantly felt nauseous and went to lay down on the bathroom floor until the urge to regurgitate my stomach contents passed.

What is it about the bathroom floor that seems to cure nausea? I'm guessing it's the proximity to the toilet, so the pressure's off: need to puke? fret not! puking recepticle close at hand!

So yeah. I'm really doing this. I can finally allow myself to plan for my trip.

insomnia and the taste of blood

so. Here i have arrived in the final stages of preparation. i got my wisdom teeth out today... as long as this goes well and heals without major complication, i'll be handing in my resignation at work next week.
This was my first surgical procedure... my first IV, sedation, tooth pulling... what a day!

i've heard of a condition called "dry socket" which is essentially when the blood clot that forms in the hole (aka socket) where the tooth was somehow becomes dislodged. apparently it's extremely painful. so needless to say i'm appropriately paranoid about the healing. i've had the taste of blood in my mouth for about 17 hours now, and i must say i would not make a very good vampire. i'm sick of it already!
i'm nervous. less nervous and crazy (like on the weekend, my last post) and more nervous and keeping my fingers crossed in anticipation.

sleep evades me tonight. i must write a strongly worded letter to the creators of tylenol-3. it should be ashamed to call itself a narcotic - i feel like i just chugged an espresso.

mind you, it's my brain again. racing like it's got somewhere to be and it's running late. the idealist part of me imagines a life happily ever after in BC, watching slow but steady progress in my climbing ability, and a job i love that suits my lifestyle (money to cover gear and rent... maybe food). i read recently in an interview: "inside every cynic is a dissapointed idealist". I really identified with that comment, since i'm slowly coming out of my self-imposed introverted stage of life. some people who didn't know me that well, or at all, described me as a cynic. well pardon me for not instantly believing everything i hear! i wish i could live forever in good health - climbing 5.14 by the time i'm 207 years old... then I'd be set! but things don't work that way, life is unpredictable and we're extremely fragile beings.

i've kept a journal since i learned how to write. it started off as a way to use my favourite coloured pencils (or pencil-crayons as they say here in ontario) and then developed into the quest to find what boy's initials suited my initals the best, and if we were destined for True Love Forever! That period of time gave way to darkly dramatic teenage thoughts, a bit of a hiatus, and then once i started climbing... my journal entries my first trip to potrero were all trying to calculate how soon i could quit my job and move there. i've taken the slow road... about 4 years of preparation, and part of me, a big part of me, feels like maybe this is some sort of joke? my journal(s) certainly would. "oh here's another entry about quitting her job. as if!"

well, journal, we'll see about that! i'm really going to do it this time!

i miss all the places i'll never go again.

it's strange... when compared to others, my travels so far have been very minimal. i guess it's a way that we deal with our mortality - to honestly believe that when we visit a place we like, that we'll visit again. I just sorted through my maps. For those of you who don't know, I collect maps. The free ones put out by the ministry of transportation for different states and provinces. I sorted through so many brochures and pamphlets for places that i meant to return to, that i wanted see again... but now i have to admit to myself that these things may not happen.

I can now understand what it is that ties a person to one place. This is how the last few weeks have been for me, excitement... so excited i can barely contain myself, but then i head to the other end of the spectrum and get really sentimental. Very Sentimental. When I think about it I get dizzy.

I know i've been planning on this trip for a while... saving and planning... now that it has arrived, well, the date is getting closer, i think of all the little routines that i've grown accustomed to and i miss them. Maybe I'm being a bit of a drama queen, but i just really need to say good-bye to this chapter of my life... say good-bye and look towards the future. A lot of discovery is coming up over the next year. New places to see, and hopefully much opportunity for self growth.


this is huge. i wouldn't describe myself as stressed, but i think damian sure would! besides that, i've given myself some sort of repetitive-stress-trying-to-hard type of injury from the gym. that was the "oh my god i'm going on a roadtrip i have to train really hard" period of time that passed. my skin has decided to break out, my hair is always floppy and bad, and sometimes i feel like crying. and sometimes i do cry. maybe i'm staying home too much.

it's a month to go... i feel bad for "abandoning" the people i work with although they DO pay me to be there, and they'll pay another person to do my job and eventually I'll be forgotten.

I'm in the eye of the hurricane as far as preparations go. I've sold off just about everything i wanted to sell, cleaned out just about all the junk i wanted to give away, it feels like there's nothing left to do but pack the car. And it's a bit too early to pack up the car.

in other news, i have to get my wisdom teeth extracted. That's the term the surgeon corrected me with when i said "so i have to get my wisdom teeth yanked?"
i'm not looking forward to it - if you do look forward to getting your wisdom teeth yanked, then there's probably something not quite right with you mentally.

damn do i ever not want to go to work tomorrow. i just feel like staying home and hiding under the bed.

i miss all the places i'll never go again.

it's strange... when compared to others, my travels so far have been very minimal. i guess it's a way that we deal with our mortality - to honestly believe that when we visit a place we like, that we'll visit again. I just sorted through my maps. For those of you who don't know, I collect maps. The free ones put out by the ministry of transportation for different states and provinces. I sorted through so many brochures and pamphlets for places that i meant to return to, that i wanted see again... but now i have to admit to myself that these things may not happen.

I can now understand what it is that ties a person to one place. This is how the last few weeks have been for me, excitement... so excited i can barely contain myself, but then i head to the other end of the spectrum and get really sentimental. Very Sentimental. When I think about it I get dizzy.

I know i've been planning on this trip for a while... saving and planning... now that it has arrived, well, the date is getting closer, i think of all the little routines that i've grown accustomed to and i miss them. Maybe I'm being a bit of a drama queen, but i just really need to say good-bye to this chapter of my life... say good-bye and look towards the future. A lot of discovery is coming up over the next year. New places to see, and hopefully much opportunity for self growth.


this is huge. i wouldn't describe myself as stressed, but i think damian sure would! besides that, i've given myself some sort of repetitive-stress-trying-to-hard type of injury from the gym. that was the "oh my god i'm going on a roadtrip i have to train really hard" period of time that passed. my skin has decided to break out, my hair is always floppy and bad, and sometimes i feel like crying. and sometimes i do cry. maybe i'm staying home too much.

it's a month to go... i feel bad for "abandoning" the people i work with although they DO pay me to be there, and they'll pay another person to do my job and eventually I'll be forgotten.

I'm in the eye of the hurricane as far as preparations go. I've sold off just about everything i wanted to sell, cleaned out just about all the junk i wanted to give away, it feels like there's nothing left to do but pack the car. And it's a bit too early to pack up the car.

in other news, i have to get my wisdom teeth extracted. That's the term the surgeon corrected me with when i said "so i have to get my wisdom teeth yanked?"
i'm not looking forward to it - if you do look forward to getting your wisdom teeth yanked, then there's probably something not quite right with you mentally.

damn do i ever not want to go to work tomorrow. i just feel like staying home and hiding under the bed.

i miss all the places i'll never go again.

it's strange... when compared to others, my travels so far have been very minimal. i guess it's a way that we deal with our mortality - to honestly believe that when we visit a place we like, that we'll visit again. I just sorted through my maps. For those of you who don't know, I collect maps. The free ones put out by the ministry of transportation for different states and provinces. I sorted through so many brochures and pamphlets for places that i meant to return to, that i wanted see again... but now i have to admit to myself that these things may not happen.

I can now understand what it is that ties a person to one place. This is how the last few weeks have been for me, excitement... so excited i can barely contain myself, but then i head to the other end of the spectrum and get really sentimental. Very Sentimental. When I think about it I get dizzy.

I know i've been planning on this trip for a while... saving and planning... now that it has arrived, well, the date is getting closer, i think of all the little routines that i've grown accustomed to and i miss them. Maybe I'm being a bit of a drama queen, but i just really need to say good-bye to this chapter of my life... say good-bye and look towards the future. A lot of discovery is coming up over the next year. New places to see, and hopefully much opportunity for self growth.


this is huge. i wouldn't describe myself as stressed, but i think damian sure would! besides that, i've given myself some sort of repetitive-stress-trying-to-hard type of injury from the gym. that was the "oh my god i'm going on a roadtrip i have to train really hard" period of time that passed. my skin has decided to break out, my hair is always floppy and bad, and sometimes i feel like crying. and sometimes i do cry. maybe i'm staying home too much.

it's a month to go... i feel bad for "abandoning" the people i work with although they DO pay me to be there, and they'll pay another person to do my job and eventually I'll be forgotten.

I'm in the eye of the hurricane as far as preparations go. I've sold off just about everything i wanted to sell, cleaned out just about all the junk i wanted to give away, it feels like there's nothing left to do but pack the car. And it's a bit too early to pack up the car.

in other news, i have to get my wisdom teeth extracted. That's the term the surgeon corrected me with when i said "so i have to get my wisdom teeth yanked?"
i'm not looking forward to it - if you do look forward to getting your wisdom teeth yanked, then there's probably something not quite right with you mentally.

damn do i ever not want to go to work tomorrow. i just feel like staying home and hiding under the bed.

sort of 3 weeks to go

So today is 3 weeks until i give my notice at work. two weeks after that... do the math, i'm outta there in 5 weeks.

so much to do... should start blogging. oh yeah... check.

boring things so far. trips to the dentist, buying smaller coffees to save money... taking the car in for a CAA checkup tomorrow so i can find out if anything critical is about to fall off and endanger my life. here's hoping that it will at least be affordable.

in other news, things are going well for damian to be out of here at the end of january. i know it's a crappy time of year to move but this is how things worked out.