For anyone who takes it for granted, please trust me when I say that pregnancy journeys are not always black and white – not all of them start with a quick check of the stick and cute baby announcements on Facebook… some of them are dark and mucky.

For some of us, these journeys include things like surgeries, needles, constant bloodwork, biweekly ultrasounds and sterile rooms.  I thank the beautiful women in my life who shared their closely guarded stories with me, almost like taking my hand through the process.  There is something to be said about strength in numbers and easing the load through connection and shared commonality…

My husband and I tried a round of IVF in July.  It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be – I dreaded it forever, but the experience itself was manageable (yes physically uncomfortable with the constant pokes and prods, and yes emotionally up and down) but manageable nonetheless.  Having a Doctor with an amazing sense of humour sure helped a lot too.  There was a lot that came out of the process, huge invaluable realizations I might not otherwise have ever come to.  Maybe it was the hormones?  The heightened state of sensitivity I was in?  Or maybe it was the acute awareness of the potentially life changing measures we were taking…whatever the cause, this is what I learnt while taking hormone injections:

1.  Life isn’t conventional, and the expectation that it should be poses a huge barrier for those of us outliers to accept and live out our realities.  Even just getting to a point of accepting fertility intervention was a tall task for me.  The thing that most held me back (ironically) was myself!!  It was my attachment to the “natural course of life” and my perception of the way things were “supposed” to be that kept me from moving forward.  At the heart of my beliefs was the driving expectation that babies are conceived in bedrooms (or backseats….just kidding) not hospital rooms.   I believed that if I were intended to be a mother, it would have happened without me having to take such inorganic and peculiar paths to get there …But true enough, life isn’t conventional.  There really is no norm, and the only things our expectations produce are barriers to living out our lives with more ease than harm.  There is no definitive so-called “normal” way of life.  There is just life.  And it is up to each of us to live out our own realities and our own lives the best way we can.

2. For the last at least twenty years of my life, unbeknownst to me, I have mistaken control for love.  Okay yes, I am definitely a Type A kinda gal, chalk full of lists and organized schedules.  Being in control has always felt somewhat natural for me.  And sure, that’s fine and dandy when it comes to my day to day living activities…but not fine when it comes to matters of the heart.

I had become so entrenched in my way of doing things (my choices, my decisions, my way of living) that it was almost impossible for me to relinquish all of it to my Doctor.  It was almost paralyzing trying to imagine giving someone else control over my hormones, my body and my future, I was petrified of the transition!   I hadn’t realized how far and how deep I had gone in my need for control, it felt irreversibly engrained.  What had once served me so seemingly well, had become hugely debilitating when it mattered the most.  It baffled me!  How had this happened? How had my Type A personality morphed into this unhealthy control freak way of being?

Somewhere between prayer and reflection, the origin of my misguided desire for control started to surface.  Many many moons ago, I had experienced the dissolution of a relationship I had been crraaazzzzzyy attached to at that time.  That ending was beyond my control and choice, and that separation at the time had felt like it had happened to me (not for me, not with me) but to me.  It was in that state of perceived “helplessness” that I first felt unloved.  So somewhere over the years, from that point on, the mistaking of control for love started to mutate deep down inside of me.  Somehow I began equating a connection between control and love.  Kinda like subconsciously believing that  if I were to lose control (be too vulnerable) that it could lead me to feeling unloved again – so conversely, I think I sought maintaining some level of “control” to ensure the feeling of “loved”.

I don’t know how this has impacted me and my relationships or friendships over the years, but realizing these things resonate with me – not to say of course that I haven’t experienced real love, because I definitely believe I have and do now– but I can admit that while looking back, it hasn’t been often that I feel truly vulnerable or allow myself to be truly at the mercy of many things….but that saddens me, that I would have been coming from a place of  seeking control instead of love – I guess so much so that I might have stopped really recognizing the difference between the two.

3. Despite being Christian, despite having been a part of a great Church community and an amazing Church family…despite so many levels of growth and maturity I had thought were taking place in my spiritual life…despite thinking I was almost ready to eat solid food instead of the milk I was so accustomed to drinking (1 Corinthians 3:2); I didn’t realize until it was crunch time, that deep down I’ve been recklessly holding onto the lie that life is ironic and God doesn’t work for us.

I came to realize that this is what I’ve actually been believing!  I’ve been believing  that His will is to test us and that things happen in life to make us ‘stronger’….but this isn’t a proper reflection of the God I’ve been seeking relationship with, and this certainly isn’t the outlook I want to have on life!  Talk about a negative lens to look through!  The revelation stunned me because I’ve always believed myself to be a positive and hopeful person.  When friends and family have problems, I’m always the wiz problem solver, the hoper of all things possible and good.  But when the chips were down, I surprisingly found myself coming from a place of doubt and disbelief.

It’s easy to allow fear and worst case scenarios weed and suffocate the fruits of patience and process.  All of a sudden quick answers and need to knows became more important than trusting, waiting and letting it all unfold.  What started off as a peaceful process became chaotic and commotionary because of the fear that made me jump ship on faith.

But I recognize that, if at the end of the day I have been holding on to this belief that life is ironic and God is not for us, then that must mean that I am living from a deep place of insecurity and fear without even realizing it.  But why? When did I stop trusting the process? When did I stop believing in God’s goodness?  When did fear replace love? Where was love when I was seeking control? Where was God when I was supposedly in control?

Big stuff! Big eye opening, heart bursting stuff.

At the end of the day, we were “unsuccessful” in the process….the fruits of our labour were many things but conception….and vulnerably speaking, probably won’t ever be… And though this outcome is entirely unconventional, and completely out of my control – I oddly feel unusually and supernaturally hopeful….

Wow, it’s already December!  Never mind Christmas though, I’m now just months away from another milestone birthday.  Sigh, the big “4-0”….it’s around these milestones that I often ask myself, am I where I want to be?  My thirties have been full, but they don’t quite feel complete yet.  There are things that I still want to accomplish before my next birthday….eeeeeeekkkkk…February is just around the corner. 

1.  I want to lose 10lbs. 

Ugh these damn 10lbs! The same 10lbs I started this blog with a few years ago.  I may go up or down five pounds, but in general, it’s always these 10lbs that I end up picking up again when I move off of a round of discipline and hard work.  This is the weight I default to when I stop trying.  But I know this place now.  This weight is full of comfort and good enough.  This weight is a reflection of destressing through mindless eating and channel surfing.  These are the times that I shut down and tune out.  It’s almost a coping mechanism, my food bandaid.  This weight has little boundaries and lots of indulgences. This is the weight I can expect when I know I am acting impulsively and seeking immediate gratification.  But this is exactly why I want to lose it.  Living and floating through “good enough” isn’t actually good enough!!   I haven’t gotten the upper hand on this yet, but I’ll be damned to settle at this state.  I want discomfort, I want challenge, and I want growth.  10lbs is just the number really…what I’m actually looking for is to conquer this steady default state; clearly the security blanket I haven’t let go of yet.    

 2. I want to learn how to windex my parents regularly.

I try and be there for my parents.  I help them with cleaning and meal planning. I drive them to appointments and talk to them every day.  But what I don’t do is treat them with the fragility they deserve.  I still see them and relate to them as I have almost all of my life. My ever “smart mouth, know’s better impatience, constantly busy, got better things to do” attitude they’ve always gotten from me.  It’s easy to see my parents kind of frozen in time.  It’s a taken for grantedness I’ve stupidly used as a life jacket.  It’s tough though!  They seem like the same people who use to be able to handle my sassiness and brattiness.  There are characteristics about each of them that are unchanging. …Mom’s bun, Dad’s propensity towards brand names and sales…Dad’s ability to guilt me…..Mom’s indifference and half an ear she gives when I talk to her…..but of course they aren’t the same people they use to be.  They have aged…a lot….if I can see those physical changes…I can only assume the impacts they are feeling mentally and emotionally.  It’s not like they’d ever truly share what they are actually burdened with, outside of the usual knee and joint complaints I’ve heard most of my life.  But I’d be a fool to not recognize that they aren’t rocks anymore,  they’ve turned into glass.  

 3. I want to love more than less. 

Loving people is effing hard!  ESPECIALLY when they don’t do things as I would do, when they aren’t strong as they are supposed to be.  When they make the same mistakes over and over again…or when they lie, cheat, deny accountability or seek to only serve themselves.  But truth be told, these behaviours shouldn’t be barriers to love, they should be reasons TO love.  Too bad it’s so hard for me to wrap my brain around that concept because it feels counterintuitive, but actions don’t equate to worthiness of  receiving love.  I’m not sure if people still parent in this way, but I remember growing up that people often withheld love punitively to shape behaviour.  It was common to feel the absence of love when I messed up as a kid…and that would make me feel guilty or accountable for my actions…and somehow I unintentionally translated that into actions dictating love.  I think I might have read that into religion while growing up too…that I was supposed to act in a certain way, and do certain things to earn favour or love.  Unfortunately, I’ve somehow engrained that into the way that I love as an adult.  But it makes sense that conditional love would force people to act out of fear, while unconditional love would allow people to act out of love.  When confronted with things that make me want to run, I need to practice staying put and loving harder.

 4. I want to take my relationships back old school.

I have to admit that as I get older, the flakier I seem to become.  I jump head first into commitments, then waiver when the time comes to follow through on them.  Maybe I over commit myself?  Maybe I need to budget more downtime in a week, but regardless it’s important for me to begin properly honouring my commitments and showing up for people.  It’s time to take my relationships back old school, long before text messaging, facebook and someday plans. 

I recently underwent a surgery. it wasn’t hip replacement or a transplant but it was surgery nonetheless that put me out of commission for a little over a week.  I can’t even begin to describe how comforting it was to experience people’s actions of love while I was down and out. Days before my surgery my girlfriend Erin gave me a container of homemade slow roasted turkey soup…..the day of my surgery (and quite frankly every day since), my thoughtful husband Jason, bent over backwards to care for me, including much kanoodling and grape peeling…the day after surgery my EFF Christa came over and had lunch with me with an awesome bag of tea in hand. ..my family visited within a few days to show their love and support over dinner with flowers and a huge bottle of rum eggnog in hand (classic Suma move), my friend Jenny dropped off some food from a dinner and bible study we weren’t able to go to…my girlfriend Ayah came by with delicious arabic food and marinated chicken I could pop into the oven, and my friend Teresa sent a care package of tea with a lovely card attached.  These actions were invaluable to me.  I get now, how supportive and comforting it is to people when we make it a point of showing up for them.  I can recollect times recently that I peppered friends with “how can I help, I’m here for you” text messages, and sure those reminders are nice, but how effective are they at actually communicating love?  Maintaining relationships via text is easy and convenient, and I get it, lives are busy….but we don’t build or deepen relationships via message, we simply placate them. It’s like a poke on fb reminding someone your there…but it doesn’t lend to the experience of love though it appears to.  Conquering my flakiness is worth it if it makes a difference of someone’s love quotient in their life.  Relying on my presence instead of my phone seems old fashioned but certainly worthy of revival.

 5. I want to be open to unconventionally growing our family

It’s no secret that we don’t have kids yet.  Having our own children may or may not be a potential for us following an ectopic pregnancy we had earlier this year.  That was a hard truth to confront that led to many other difficult questions and conversations we worked our way through this year.  And though I’ve fretted and stressed about it for so long,  I am beginning to realize that family doesn’t have to be boxed into the way I’ve grown up believing it to be.  Maybe we expand through adoption, maybe we foster…maybe we have more fur babies, maybe we develop rooted relationships with brothers and sisters who aren’t blood…maybe we strengthen relationships in our extended families…whatever it is I just want to be open to the possibilities.  Both Jason and I recognize how important family is; and we need to also recognize the blessing in being able to create family in more ways than one.

 T-86 days

Being an adult SUCKS!

I nostalgically remember the days when I used to wish I could hurry and GROW UP so that I could be taken more seriously. I remember the days I wished for more independence and autonomy.  Eventually time passed and I finally became an adult, a real one… damn, it’s not half as glamorous as I had once imagined!  

I was a fake adult in my late teens and early twenties.  I use to drink chai in a to-go cup on my way to University which was toooottaaallllyyy GROWN UP!   At the same time however, I use to always carry my jacket on my arm during the dead of winter… less I put it on and it mess up my hair or clash with my outfit!!  (Fake adult).  I use to deposit my own cheques and pay for my own phone line at home. But every payday I use to run to Mariposa and buy a new shirt for the club that weekend.  I thought I managed my money well, but when I would run out of cash before my payday came up, I would inevitably hit my cousin Sheeba up for 20 bucks to support my pint of Rickers Red habit the following Friday night at the Power Plant.  (Fake adult).  I use to help my parents clean the house  – but I think at that time, “cleaning” only comprised of my room and the bathroom I used.  I think I might have done my own laundry…well maybe folded it? Okay, at best, put it away. I remember being “mature” enough to fall in love and have a boyfriend in my first year of University – in that same breath, I definitely remember crying like a baby and the emotional tantrums I threw in my misguided attempt to lure/demand that love back when it flew away. Sigh. 

Those were the days of reckless abandon and carefree living.  Those were the days of idealism and unmanageable emotions.  Those were the days when the most pressure I was under, was a busy Friday night at the hotel front desk I worked at maybe twice a week.  Did I mention the days I use to opt to make dinner for the family…shake n bake and some Lipton’s sidekicks dish…macros weren’t even a thing back then.

Truth be told, being a real adult isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. 

It means aging parents.  Watching my parents go from strong independent people to aged semi-dependents who need help driving, and doing tasks they would have otherwise managed easily on their how like shovelling snow or cleaning, is hard.  It SUCKS to palpably experience their invincibility dissipate into vulnerability.  It hurts my heart while frustrating me at the same time. It’s a lot to manage but at the same time, there’s nothing in the world I would rather do than help them – but did I mention how tired I am and how much I hate doing stuff when I’m tired?

Being an adult apparently means I am constantly tired.  Being tired if I sleep less than seven hours is a guarantee.  Gone are those days of getting into bed at 4:30a and waking up a few hours later with old mascara and new dreams.

It means full time work to pay for bills and mortgages. Gone are those days of breezy part time jobs and four hour shifts.

It means getting up by 8:30a on a Saturday and if I’m lucky a forced sleep in until 9:30a.  Gone are those days of deep teenage ‘dead to the world’ sleeping until 1 or 2 in the afternoon.

Of course, being an adult means buying adult styled clothes.  No wonder old people wear waist high pants or loose tshirts – gone are the days of low rise jeans, flat bellies and no back fat! Being an adult means taking selfie pics from higher angles to make one’s face look skinnier….

Being an adult usually means monogamous marriages. But for the assholes who can’t manage that responsibility, being an adult means that breaking up with cheating partners isn’t as easy as a long conversation, a mixed slow songs cd on repeat and a pint of ice-cream –  not when children, mortgages, pension accounts, matrimonial homes and savings accounts are collateral damage.   Gone are the days of flitty dating and coasting through different relationships depending on the direction of the wind that day.

Being an adult means I spend more time at work during the work week than anywhere else.  These use to be a time, (when I was fake adulting), that I use to spend time working an eight hour day–  and THEN go on to spend endless hours in the evening with friends.  Hours upon hours of talking, laughing, hanging out, dinners, coffees or partying.  The time spent ‘after work’ hours may have sometimes exceeded or come close to the number of hours I spent ‘during works’ hours.  Now I swear that ratio feels like it’s 4:1 in favour of work.

Being an adult means sooooooooooo much responsibility and planning each minute of the day.  Every minute counts. Like those minutes that I spend first thing in the morning washing dishes….or as soon as I get home, again washing dishes…or the ridiculous dishes that pile up again before bed.  How about the minutes I spend checking in with my parents, sleeping, cooking, doing laundry, grocery shopping, meal planning, working out, budgeting, juggling friends and family time…minute to minute to minute to minute…remember the days of having all of the time in the world to breeze through life?

Being an adult means colouring my hair once a month, nothing fun and sassy though – just black. I can’t do red because it will show my gray too quickly, and heaven forbid I do blond streaks again!  I mean, sure blonde would be fun and sassy….but who cares now about fun and sassy?!  Blond would damage my hair, and who wants to risk having to cut off the damaged hair and wait the forever for it to grow out?  Responsible Adulting at it’s best.

I say all of this kind of in jest but mostly in truth.  Being an adult can honestly SUCK sometimes.  But then I realize, there are joys that I experience now, that I never would have known in my younger fake adulting years.

There is a joy that is fundamentally rooted in emotional maturity and experience.  It is the pleasure of foresight now, to choose my battles instead of diving head and heart first into every emotional wave and rallying every issue into a cause.  Experience has honed my intuition and separated my gut instincts from the fog of wishful thinking.  Time has brought me numerous opportunities of loss and regret which have allowed me the truest practice of humility and gratitude.  Growing into an adult meant growing out of my ego centric self.  When my eyes started to open and my world started to get bigger, I started to realize how small I actually am.     Adulthood gave me the freedom to finally stop caring so deeply about what everyone else thinks of me, and gave me the courage to stop hiding my insecurities….It is only in this place of vulnerability and total acceptance of my humanness that I can experience deep faith, real faith. 

Also, growing through 38 years of life has blessed with me some amazingly long standing friendship and family relationships.  And of course, the greatest gift of my adultness was the readiness for REAL LOVE, my forever love … This love is so different (thank God) than how my fake adult loves had been……I suppose it’s definitely love I needed to grow into, something I never would have been mature enough to manage back then…whew, thank God my fake adulting eventually evolved into me becoming a real adult….it’s not always easy…but I suppose nothing with such meaningful payoffs ever is… <3

 

My wonderfully loving, ever playful, (often exasperating) husband and I have been married almost two years now.  As I sit and admire the horizon of our two year anniversary, I recognize my heart is full and grateful.  Sure he makes me laugh and is fun to be with.  He’s a great Dad to our fur baby and would be an amazing father should we ever be blessed with children.  He’s light and good hearted, a committed partner and a hardworking guy who would give the shirt off his back should he come across someone in need. Thankfully his skin is warm and his embrace comforting, but those are not the things I am grateful for today. 

I am grateful for the promise he gave me almost two years ago now.  The same promise he commits to, well WE commit to each and every day.

In a world that is constantly changing and breaking apart; in a life with no guarantees; he promises me permanency.  He promises me, he’ll stick.  It is in this sacred space between us, I find the freedom to truly be myself.  I can be myself without caution, without filter and without political correctness.  Yes there is judgment because we are not perfect.  Of course there is insecurity, or times of resentment and conflict.  But always, in the parameter of our space, is the freedom to just be; regardless of what that is.  What greater love than this?  He knows my scars, has carried my baggage, has felt my weaknesses and knows my faults, but even still; we remain.

I once had a girlfriend, express to another girlfriend that she has a “forgiving heart”, is that the glue?  Is that the fence that holds this intimate space?  Maybe it’s love, forgiveness, support, companionship, loyalty, commitment – or maybe it’s something simple like a promise that holds the space between two people where they can be in relationship, be fiercely themselves and still be accepted just as they imperfectly are; even if they bloom in different directions.

This kind of permanency and security in my marriage is familiar to me, it comes from my family.  It is the unconditional presence my mom, dad, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews have always offered; it’s not always pretty or presented with a beautiful bow, but we are blood; ever changing but ever remaining. 

I was driving home the other night after having met a girl friend for coffee.  It was pretty late and dark outside.  As I rounded the bend to turn into our garage, I was heartened to drive closer and notice  my husband, without me having to ask, had left the lights on for me.  That small gesture of love touched me.  That’s what love does, in our spaces, regardless of what is going on, we leave the lights on so our loved ones can find their ways easier. 

So this day, I am grateful.  My heart is full for these people and these spaces in my life that have given me the gift of being loved, understood and accepted; these ones that have lightened my way.  I realize that it’s in these spaces that I truly grow and find freedom ….it are these spaces that I claim; the ones I live in, live for and give my promises to….<3

I went to Lahari Yoga Studio last Friday with my girlfriends Mona and Norine.  The minute I walked in, I was delectably enthralled; the beautiful sari wall hangings, the vibrant colours, the smell of lavender and the welcoming souls around us….Sigh, too bad that initial charismatic high fell flat just moments into my incredibly awkward and oh so taxing yoga session!   The inflexibility and tightness within my body translated into mild stretches and weak attempts at the poses; never mind the rising disdain and frustration within me for yoga in general, (obviously hot yoga is only meant for rubber bodied people)….

But despite the rising internal resistance inside of me, I was also feeling so conflicted; I wanted to like it – the music, the atmosphere and the unfamiliar path our yogi was taking us down (away from the hustle and bustle of the world outside, to this quiet and beautiful promise of freedom within was so titillating and sweet, I so badly wanted to follow her down that rabbit hole), but I couldn’t do it.  I watched with envy as our instructor wrapped her legs over her shoulders and contorted her body in such beautiful ways seemingly radiating eternal youthfulness…I relished in her whole hearted encouragement to play and explore our own mobilities, I was drawn to her radiant energy and uninhibited playfulness.…but NOPE, I couldn’t do it.

I gave up part way through the session.  I mentally detached, physically flopped, stopped trying and sipped from my water as I patiently waited for the last of the minutes to tick by.  I rationalized excuses in my head to take me off the hook.  It’s probably against my religion.  Yoga isn’t for everyone.  I’m better at running….blah blah blah.  Bottom line was, I tried but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even flatten my palms on the ground when I stretched down, couldn’t keep my heels on the ground for downward dog or keep my hips on my ankles for child’s pose.  Sigh, it’s not for me I begrudgingly surmised.

When asked by our glowing yogi after class (over delicious treats) how I liked it, I told her it was too taxing for me, I tried but couldn’t do it – and she plainly with a smile, asked, why was I trying, what was I trying to do?  Um, you know, the poses you were leading us through!….But she replied that yoga isn’t about trying, accomplishing or being anywhere else other than where you are at….huh?  Wow, that’s some deep shit. I finished my baked quinoa pasta with red thai curry sauce and chicken and bid them adieu convinced yoga just wasn’t for me.  It was uncomfortable, awkward and too hard.

But her words stayed with me that drive home – why was I trying and not just doing?  Why wasn’t it good enough for me to just experience the poses in the state that I was in(tightness and all) without trying to go further?  Do I ever perform without striving for certain levels? Do I ever work without standards? Ever act or play without trying to constantly get better and progress or accomplish something?  Aren’t I always in forward projection mode? Isn’t that the direction I’ve been programmed to head all of my life? Succession, progression, keep getting further ahead, further up or keep accumulating?  I mean the purpose of volleyball or basketball practices back in high school were to make us play better as a team, not just play.  But then it dawned on me, that’s practice when understood as a verb.  When I looked it up, practice can also be defined as a noun, “the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use” – the actual application of yoga, the practice of it, seems more about being than trying – experiencing than striving, accepting than fighting, releasing than holding on to…..wow so interesting.

The more I stewed on this, the more I realized that I have accumulated so much over these past years. I am literally wearing layers and layers of past experiences, good and bad: the ways that I’ve understood them, the meanings I’ve given them, expectations I’ve unconsciously put on myself of how I expect myself to perform,  defined standards of where I expect myself to be….never mind the layers of excuses, justifications, default patterns and ways of thinking I snap into without even realizing.  For so long I thought I was fending off expectations I thought others were putting on me, only to realize that I’m fighting myself and the expectations I’ve burdened my own self with.  There was a time I felt freer to play, explore, give, experience, jump off cliffs….part of my accumulation over the years include such things as caution, safety, fear, ego, defensiveness, self-preservation….

So this year, when I put together my vision board for 2015 – there is a shift, a palpable shift from where I’ve been headed and the direction I’ve been going for the past few years.  I do want to lose, but it’s not pounds or inches this year…I instead want to lose in a different way…I want to strip myself of all the accumulation on me and around me; free myself from my own accumulation.  I want to stop practicing and really just practice life.  Michelle our yoga instructor last Friday said we as humans spend too much time thinking, doing etc…all we need to do sometimes is just be….we are human beings after all.  Yes. Exactly. <3