A Bermudian police brigade brought me home

Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

I didn’t keep many friends I made in the accounting program I attended in University, but the ones I did keep are actually… friends. Both of whom are batshit insane crazy, but in the best way possible. I truly love and respect them, and they know it.

I lost touch with the both of them for years but they each came back into my life in strange and funny ways, years later. One of whom is in Bermuda now, having taken a great job there a few years ago. Let’s call this friend, “R”.

If anyone knows me well, I’ll be the first to jump on any opportunity to travel where there’s a local I know. Immediately after R moved to Bermuda I went to visit her. And then I visited again, and again.

They say the first is the worst. I’d say my first time in Bermuda was the best. We did all the typical touristy things; beaches, caves, scooters etc. I wandered around while she worked, and at night it was full on debauchery. One night I just took it too far.

I have a habit of wandering off on my own when things get really rowdy. I either go home or go… anywhere else. Maybe it’s a subconscious part of me wanting to get away from masses of inebriated people whenever I see them.

Or maybe it’s me seeing how similar I am to them, wanting to get away from the thing I loathe most. Whatever the motivation this time, it allowed me to leave R and our friend group entirely. Well… not without a bit of convincing.

I met a (sort of) police officer on the dance floor of the bar my friends and I last were. He looked like a short-haired, pretty Tom Felton. We spoke (amongst other things) and he was trying really hard to convince me he was a police officer (because I blatantly laughed in his face when he said so – I guess I’m hard to impress).

I asked for his badge, because at this point his yelling in my ear that he had some sort of authority on the waters surrounding Bermuda had no effect on me. He shows me some sort of ID. At this point I’m so drunk I can’t even read, but I told him I believed him (I didn’t). So we continue dancing, and soon we leave the club, abandoning my friends who have no idea I’m leaving.

On our adventure we manage to wander off to the boardwalk where the water was. Downtown Bermuda (St. George) is right by the water, a walkway that spans the south end of the island.

Down some stairs we go – how we manage to not slip and fall into the ocean is way beyond my comprehension; all I know is that it was not my time to go yet. So we get up to some debauchery on the stairs, and I tell him I have no idea how I’ll get home.

At this point the bars are closing, people are leaving and walking everywhere, and I don’t know where my friends are. Without data or even my phone (can’t remember, obviously), I wasn’t able to contact R or vice versa.

I just had the address of where she lived. With the address in hand, this “officer” of some sort suddenly finds soberness of a miraculous degree. He says he has to leave me for 5 minutes, and 5 minutes later he drove up to me on a scooter in some sort of blue uniform and two police cars behind him.

“Get in the car behind me, I don’t have an extra helmet.” In to the car I go, making small talk with the big black driver, the second cop car trailing behind us.

We arrive at R’s house, and I’m so fucking thankful for life, I run in, she watches incredulously, thanks them for the late delivery and fends them off. And that was that.

It’s a goddamned miracle that I’m still alive, honestly. Thank you mister whoever you were for not killing me and probably saving me multiple times from falling into the ocean. Hope you’re well.

Millennial dating: 5 years later

Photo by Hisu lee on Unsplash

As a young 23-year-old I hated online dating. I hated the fact that there was the intent of wanting the same thing because it was somehow shameful and/or embarrassing, mostly because I wasn’t confident in myself. I hated that I had to result to this and couldn’t wait to meet a fairytale prince to show up at a bookstore – bookstores that I spent a lot of time in. And I hated the fact that I hated all of this – because fairytales aren’t true.

Millennials these days have an unproportionate amount of intrinsic belief that humans are monogamous. Yes, articles always point to Disney – but if a person makes the same mistake more than 2 times, they’re contributing to their own failure, no?

The main reason why I hated dating while young was… because I was young. And so was everyone else. And the people that were older that I filtered for still saw me as young. And now I can see how young as I was, even though I didn’t think so at the time – in other words, immature.

No, I was not at the wrong place at the wrong time. Dating in your 20s is the worst; no one knows what they want but everyone thinks they know what they want. Young men with no ambition want something casual and young women with a career and their mid-level positions want to settle. Listen, ladies, it’s just not time yet. Live it out and enjoy it. I am now meeting hoards of married couples at my age who wish that they got to try online dating (they truly don’t, though).

Online dating in my twenties was terrible. People could not control the amount of drunkenness they were after work, and no one could control how much they want to wake up next to someone the next morning. This cycle led to many of me and my friends becoming jaded.

Luckily, I quit.

I stopped the drink dates, coffee dates, lunch dates, and brunch dates altogether for 2 years. That led to me thinking I met the person of my dreams (who turned out to be the person of my nightmares). And after a major life change I decided to try online dating again.

Please believe me that online dating in your 30s is the absolute opposite of online dating in your 20s. At this point you just don’t give a fuck and neither does anyone else. No matter what country, city, what career, what mindset you’re in, you’re already so confident and happy with your body and mind that no one else’s opinion matters anymore. And because you don’t care, you start to meet the people of your 20s’ dreams.

CEOs with $100 million Series A VC investments. PhDs in molecular biology. People who grew up in the exact home and neighbourhood environment that you did. Everything of your goddamn 20’s dreams and beyond. It’s insane.

None of it will matter. Finally at age 30 and beyond you realize that home ownership (especially in Toronto) and everything that screams “validation” mean fuck all to your well-being. People stop trying to one-up your travel experiences, and they stop competing with your accomplishments. You start attracting more people of this calibre because all you want is to meet kind, generous, and sweet people. That’s all. When you expect very little, sometimes you get a whole damn lot.

You don’t need someone who understands your childhood. You need someone who understands your needs NOW and much later, whatever that looks like for you.

And for me, there are so many checklists to fulfill, but in the end none of them will really matter. It’s been so long that I’m just trying to find someone understanding, kind, loving, and not a Trump supporter. Just like a recent date had mentioned about a great sales person: “it’s impossible to hire the right sales person, because they will either be able to only train their team or be the best sales person on their team”. I believe the opposite – I think we can be the best team. And I believe there is more than a fairytale.

Be open to it being way better than you imaged.

I froze my ass off in Antarctica instead of freezing my eggs

Mid 2015 marked my 1.5 years of working at a place I’d dreamed of the moment my business dreams came to be. I wanted to work for a large company as soon as I chose business as my career in grade 11. No, not as a slave at the Big 4 (I’m an accountant by trade) – but somewhere that people spoke highly of – a Fortune 500. And then I did it, thinking that I finally hit the revered jackpot, skipping away from the humble small business world where I had first started my career.

In Western society we’re raised to stay “safe”, keep decision-making conservative, and lean towards being risk-averse. Apparently this had gotten into my head so well that at the age of 20 – in the midst of my undergraduate degree – I was already researching ways to freeze my eggs. Just like my savings, I was not going to take any risks with my reproductive system – I wanted all options that life had to offer. Best eggs I could have in 15-20 years? Sign me up. Of course, at that point I didn’t have the financial means to support my star lineage.

But I did 7 years later. And at this huge corporate job that I had finally acquired – I was bored. I was literally so bored out of my mind at this “secure” corporate job that one day I opened up Chrome in Incognito mode and typed in “how to go to Antarctica”. There is no rhyme or reason to this. I did it out of curiosity and boredom; I love traveling to novel places, alone. And guess what – it’s entirely possible to go to Antarctica as a tourist. Alone.

After many calls, emails, and Googling, I realized that the cost would be relatively similar to freezing my eggs. I had the money, I was not getting younger, and when else would be the best time to do it? These questions could allude to either going to Antarctica or freezing my eggs.

Making the decision was not easy. However, I did always have a rebellious side to me – getting tattoos, running off to developing countries alone, and testing my mother’s patience in many more ways was not new to me. I’d taken risks like running off to Argentina in third year university when my marks were barely passable, and I’d tried everything I could to have my father die as terribly as possible (he died better, unfortunately).

So why was I obsessed with freezing my eggs? Going to Antarctica would have been the epitome of my adventures so far – the novelty of it, the strangeness of it, the mystery of it all. And wanting to freeze my eggs was literally my subconsciousness’ way of telling me about how well society had molded my thoughts and wants in life. It was pulling me back to the safe zone of fear and a mindset of lack.

Just like joining the huge, safe, risk-averse company I was in (literally – it was a mutual fund company), I would be picking the side of safety rather than see what the other side of fear and curiosity would offer.

After asking nearly every single friend I had about what I should do (and getting the answers I expected), I went with exploring the unknown. I decided that I should have faith that one day if I wanted to start a family of my own, I’ll have the chance to do it with someone that was my life partner, using my own eggs or not.

On February 16th, 2016, I let go of my fear and skipped off to Antarctica, alone. What happened there, the incredible things I witnessed, and the experiences I had are still difficult to capture into words. Pictures never do anything justice, but posts to come will attempt to do so.

After my bout in Antarctica, I went on to eventually quit my safe and stable job to go back into the world of small business, joining a boutique branding firm for a position of my career’s dreams – for it to wind down 6 months after (but that’s a story for next time).

I wouldn’t have been able to chill with 500,000 penguins (literally)

If I hadn’t taken that risk to go to Antarctica, I would probably still be wondering about it. I would not have met the 3 friends I later went to the Arctic with, and they would not have been there to convince me to quit my 9-5 and live in the north of Canada guiding people to see the northern lights, go dogsledding, ice fishing, and snowmobiling.

You know how they say that most of our fears never come true? Well, much later I was able to discover just how fertile I really am. And that was another set of fears.

Life will keep throwing you different fears – and in many words put into one – excuses. They will hold you back from doing your best and being the best version of yourself. Use your amygdala like a muscle – ignore it and just go for it. What’s the worst that can happen? Take calculated risks, and think of what you’d imagine when you’re on your deathbed or what you’d like written in your eulogy.

You will never have the same moment, ever again, to make a decision with the same amount of resources or timing to make that same decision again. Make the best of it and live your life to the fullest.

My “IDGAF because I’m having cider in Antarctica” face

A letter I wrote to myself days before my mom died

Photo by John Jennings on Unsplash

I read Rachel Hollis’s “Girl, Wash Your Face” and other such off-the-shelf, millennial self empowering books while I was taking care of my mom last year. They were what you’d expect: motivating and instructive. While going through the torment of the deepest and darkest fear of my life, I was able to write a letter to myself, as instructed by Ms. Hollis, that had to fulfill the following criteria:

• a letter to yourself as an imaginary friend
• unconditionally loving
• accepting
• compassionate
• sees weaknesses and flaws
• sees strengths and good qualities
• and keep writing for 10 minutes

I wrote this in my journal, while lying on my bed and trying my best to do all those things as genuinely as I could right before making dinner. It’s funny because this morning, as I sat in the bright, airy Airbnb my friends and I are living in here in Lima, Peru, I randomly opened my journal to this page and found the letter. And although it’s only been 5 months since I wrote it, my god it really shows that it’s been 5 long months since I wrote it. I was quite impressed with myself, because the 5 months ago me reminded me of things I needed to hear today.

This is what the letter wrote.

Hey friend,

I know you have just gone through the hardest year of your life. You found a few new callings, were able to leave home and fend for yourself in the great white north – you did it all successfully and ultimately realized the millennial dream – all for it to be taken away from you. You faced horrors you never thought would occur, and you loved so hard it created a negative effect. I know. I’ts been the worst year, and your worst fear is a living, pulsing thing that’s been drawn out for 5 months already.

But trust me when I say that if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger. I know, with 100% of my soul and spirit and being that you will take everything you’ve gone through this year to live life as best you can for the rest of your days.

You are well-loved, because you have loved. You have kind and generous friends, because you have been and are a kind and generous friend. And you have a family that loves you unconditionally, because you have loved them unconditionally.

Of course there will still be difficult days ahead – but not really. You’ve seen discrimination, worked at the bottom, worked at the top – you know how it is. And everything will be breezy from here on. You have what you need to do anything you want in the world. You can realize all those beautiful dreams you want to achieve.

I know some of the fear and anxiety is coming back. That’s ok. Because remember your resting bitchface? That’s what you do best; put it on, erase the anxiety and just take action. No more inaction, no more paralysis by analysis. You are so well disciplined – a perfect model of your mother – and so much more. You keep her memory alive by taking advantage of her teachings – and not implementing her habits that ruined her; the things she never liked about herself, her overworking, her antisociality. You, my friend, are a most improved version of your beautiful mom, and you should know that you inspire so many others.

Don’t worry about social constructs of timelines – not even those constructed in your head. Always remember that the universe has your back, that what needs to happen next will always happen next. Don’t think or worry too far into the future. Ask questions. Ask for help. And remember to ask about your friends. Not every detail matters. And not everyone you meet matters in your life. They are all lessons. And be ok to be yourself around people. You will find your true friends ands soulmates better that way. Remember, I am only a pen away.

Love,

Me

I suggest you also write a letter to yourself, as an imaginary friend, whether you’re going through a tough time or not. Look at the way you speak to yourself while stuck in your own mind, and look at the way you speak to yourself as a friend. Our minds are traps for abusive relationships – lifelong ones if you allow the mean things you say to yourself manifest into your daily life. Find compassion for yourself, just like you do for your friends when they’ve lost a job. Be kind to yourself, like you’re kind to your friends when they’re disappointed someone else’s actions. And most of all, be a friend to yourself, give yourself the advice you give to your friends when they can’t get themselves out of their own minds, as well.

Thank you, friends

One time on a first date I was asked, “who is your best friend and why?”. I thought it was a fantastic question because it tells you quite a bit about a person. And this was and still is my answer: I don’t have one and never really have. In high school I got along with most social groups and cliques. Since then I’ve done a good job of seeing everyone for their strengths – every relationship you have has a purpose and a value to exploit; if you don’t know how to take advantage of each person’s ability to be a good friend you’re going to run into emotional turmoil. No, you should NOT go to your mom who married at 20 and has been at the same job for 35 years about modern-day dating issues. Yes, you should go to your level-headed male friend when you’re drowning through a breakup and about to contact your ex. Again.

If I’m lucky, I’ll have only a few more decades to do whatever else I’d like to do on this earth. Our sunsets are numbered, our conversations are limited, and our hugs will come to a startling halt one day. I find it difficult but good for my inner peace to focus on these people only, and be the best friend I can be to them. Our parents and family and friends are only getting older, weaker, and sicker. One day I’ll be needed, too.

All that being said, I did some strange and unforgivable things during the 6 months my mom was slowly dying. And for some miraculous reason the group of people I call my friends still did the things I needed them to do as such: they’d forgiven me and are still the kind, generous, helpful, caring people I’d ever known them to be. And they deserve some special recognition, so here goes.

 

• Thank you, friends, for telling me you have no idea what to say about my mom dying. I value honesty so much more than meaningless words to fill sound and space. I was happy to hear it. I had no idea what to say, either.
• Thank you, friend, for reaching out after 20 years of no contact. Hearing about your own mother’s story was cathartic while I was living through the same thing.
• Thank you, friend, for forgiving me after I yelled at you at a Korean restaurant. I know you had the best of intentions, and even though I still don’t agree with what you said, I should not have made you feel bad about it.
• Thank you friend, for forgetting about our disastrous sexual encounter and trying fiercely to help me function and keep my family alive while your own mom was sick at home. Your boldness and tenacity is inspiring. I’m still wondering how to reach out to you again.
• Thank you friend, for forgiving me after getting your car squashed by a semi. It’s just a car, I know, but you didn’t have to lend it to me for months, and by choosing to do so I was able to buy groceries, drive my mom back and forth to the hospital, and keep my family functioning(ish) and alive.
• Thank you, friend, for flying across the country to take care of me.
• Thank you, mentors, for reaching out consistently to make sure I was still alive.
• Thank you, beautiful, smart, gentlemanly men for saying things to me I probably don’t deserve. Because of that I believe a little more that I am that hot, intelligent, kind, interesting person you all seem to think I am.
• Thank you childhood friend, who I only see when my parents die. I’m sorry. You’ve got a strong hold in the recesses of my memories. I promise this will never happen again.
• Thank you, friend, for sharing 3 bottles of wine with me in 3 hours. I never told you that when I went home that evening, I got off the bus and cried so hard at a bus stop that a fire brigade came to my aid.
• Thank you, friend, for remembering the qualifications and skills I have and still want me to be a business partner. I’m a shell with good business skills.
• Thank you friends, for constantly offering to adopt me. Those I’ve lived with – I will do so again, and I’m constantly making my rounds.
• Thank you friend, for consistently and constantly asking me out, even though I kept saying no for months and months. I am so happy you’re in my life. Let’s do more skiing together.
• And thank you universe, for allowing me to cross paths with such fine human beings. I am grateful for their strength and generosity; I hope that one day I can do the same for them as well.

 

Thank you all for being genuine, honest, patient, and taking care of me while I bumble around the globe trying to get back on my feet. Please keep calling me out on stupid shit that I do, and please keep sending me off to private islands when my personal safety is threatened. You are all the best of friends. I love you.

 

Irene

Orphaned at 30

As a child my biggest fear was my mother dying. When my dad was still around and my mom worked night shifts, I’d sneak into my parents’ room where my dad would be sleeping, way past my bedtime, and look out their window where it faced the garage door of our condominuim. From the 3rd floor, the 8-year-old me would always rush to see when my parents drove the car out whenever I knew to do so Then for nights on end when I couldn’t sleep I’d sneak past my snoring father and peer through the dark window, imagining that my mom would never come drive through those garage doors again. That’s all it took for the waterworks to start; I didn’t need to imagine her in a car crash, or slipping and falling, or being stabbed to death by anyone. All it took was to imagine her never coming back again.

That was when I tried to practice grieving for my mom. I tried to practice being less fearful of her ever leaving me, leaving this earth for any reason. I thought that if I cried enough times over her, that this fear of mine would become less scary. It never did, and realizing this I eventually stopped practicing crying and imagining her leave me.

As an adult my biggest fear was still about my mother dying. You know the crippling fear that holds you, brings up a lump in your throat and tears well up in your eyes because something so terrifying could possibly become true? That happened a handful of times over the fear of my mom dying while I was an adult, before she got sick. One time while I was about 19, we were living in a basement and my 13-year-old sisters and I freaked out because mom never came home after work. There was a huge snow storm, and my mom worked about 7 minutes away from home, so there was essentially no reason why she wouldn’t be home 3 hours after work ended. My sisters and I brought chairs out into the complex lobby and sat watching the cars go by, forgoing dinner and waited since she had no cellphone (and would never eventually get one). She came home and was so surprised; she thought we were silly to be so worried because she was at the mechanic the whole time.

As an accomplished young adult in the role of my most ambitious career dreams, I got a call 2 months in, working at a boutique branding firm, about my mother’s ovarian cancer having no chance at a trial medicine that we thought would save her. I cried then, in this beautiful office of a mansion, so uncontrollably hard that my boss at the time was very nearly traumatized by it. This would be the start of my adult practice of trying to fear her death less.

And it never got better. Over the following 4 years I would be at a constant state of shaking fear of every small thing that happened to my mom through the disease – the best feeling I could get was relief when I realized whatever it was would be treatable. During the middle 6 months of 2018, when I had left my life and work in 2 glorious new careers in Yellowknife, Canada, it never got easier. April 30th, 2018 I moved back home to Toronto to take care of my mother fulltime. The trial medicine that had kept her alive for the last 2 years had stopped working; the disease was spreading with vigour again. And the crippling fear of my mother’s impending death brought me to tears every single day for 6 months. Every day I would hold myself back, and every night I’d cry myself to sleep, violent sobs vibrating through the walls of our house. My mother never mentioned to me that they kept her up. My sister, having to wake up every day for 6am for work never mentioned it either. These were sacred nights and the last times for me to practice embracing the fear of her impending death.

On the day that I turned 30, September 11th, 2018, my mom finally told me that she had to die. Her disease had manifested in such a way that everyone was suffering to an unimaginable state. And my mother, my sweet, bold, incredibly honest mother, asked for an assisted death. I did what she asked for, facilitating my biggest and baddest and largest fear in life the day I turned 30.

We never stop being children, they say. My father died over 5 years ago, and although he was a bad person and a bad father, I still remember him as he was when I was a child. But now without my mom around, I’ve truly lost the idea of being anyone’s child.

On October 17, 2018, I lost my identity of who I was, along with my beautiful mother who created me. And on that day, I finally lay my largest fear of life to rest. I was finally relieved from the staggering weight of years of anxiety and it was replaced with a kind of emptiness that is impossible to put into words.

As I work my way through staying afloat through life these past 4 months, I realize that I’m cultivating a new kind of practice now; the practice of being a functional human being again. I understand that this will never resemble any sort of life I’ve lived prior to my mom’s death, but I also, if impossibly numb from all emotions, feel deeply grateful to the friends and family that have tried tirelessly to dive into the deep emptiness to retrieve me, over and over again. There’s a special place in the universe for these people, and they deserve special recognition in my life. I try my darned hardest these days because I think of them, because I’d disappoint myself too badly to ever not try as hard as they did and do for me.

There is not a single day that goes by where I don’t think of my mom. But with every other thing in life, everything is managable when you practice, and try over and over again. Each time I mention her, the lump in my throat gets smaller, the wells in my eyes turn out smaller. Each time I see her mail and name unexpectedly, I cringe a little less. And each time I can’t relate to a conversation of people speaking about their parents, I try a little less to ignore thinking of my own. Unlike my fear of my mother’s early death, practicing living life gets easier the more I try. And as I do so, I think of all the other things in life that I can practice over and over again, so that living life and being a functional human being again gets easier each time.