musing from the other day (August 12)

It's been a weird day. "What happens to the secrets that don't get posted?"
Saw this on www.postsecret.com a while back and it's a question that's stayed in my mind. We all keep secrets. Some are trivial. Some are serious. Some are shaming and we bury them deep in the recesses of our minds.

Too bad that secrets have a way of coming back to haunt you. You push it down, it will come back up. You bury it, it will dig itself out. I wish that everybody would say what they wanted to say.  Secrets are such a painful thing to keep.

I kick myself on a regular basis and wish I could have done so many things differently. There are things I wish I hadn't done and chances I wish I had taken. Hey, I'm not perfect. I've made some pretty big fuckups. And it's now that I'm realizing that even though I can try my damnedest, I can't ever fully run away from them. Now, I don't know why I bothered running in the first place.

So, the order of business I'm calling attention to for myself: enough of this going-through-the-motions nonsense. I feel like I haven't really been thinking, but just doing and existing- exactly what I always despised about some of the people I knew in Prince George. Going through the motions, as it were.  Enough of this going through the motions in the hopes that I'll forget to remember what a failure I've been to myself in the past. What's done is done. Can't change it, can't unmake it.  What's strange is that this doesn't really bother me anymore.

Moving away from Prince George has really messed with my head, in both good ways and bad. The good way is that it helped me to regain some faith in myself. The bad way is that I lost my faith in other people. People on the island are more relaxed in a lot of ways, but they're largely not as friendly as on the mainland. Nobody says hello to people they pass on the sidewalk. Nobody gives up their space for anybody. Nobody comes up and says "how are you, dear, you look familiar. Who's your family?" Among everyone I work with at the Tim Horton's here, I'm the only one that will draw a smiley face on a random person's coffee lid. When I checked my email at Starbucks earlier, I told a lady with small children that I'd give up my table if she couldn't find a place to sit. She found a table but was grateful for the offer; some people within hearing range gave me strange looks ranging between oddness and admiration.

I'm a little intense in a different way from some of the intense people here. I'm not artsy, I'm not a genius, I don't work in an office or have expensive clothes. All I have is a mess of brown hair, what I like to think of as "common sense", and a whole lot of faith in people. Somewhat diminished since moving here, but still a decent amount.

For the last little bit I've looked in the mirror and been unable to meet my own eyes. Yesterday, I looked in the mirror and saw a person changed. The look of shame and indignation that used to be there was replaced with a look that I really have no words for. It was a look of resignation, but not submission; more like an acceptance of what couldn't be changed but must be dealt with. Questioning trust; assured doubt; whatever you want to call it, it was there, and it was a look I hadn't seen in a long time. It was a look that told me I could not only rejoin the game, but I had a few tricks up my sleeve and I could play hardball with the best of them. I felt as if I was someone else, and had just met myself. It was probably the most exhilerating feeling I'd had in a long time. I forgave myself. I knew myself.

"Do one thing a day that scares you."