Poison & Wine – The Civil Wars

“Oh I don’t love you but I always will
Oh I don’t love you but I always will
Oh I don’t love you but I always will
I always will”

Have you ever had that moment? Where everything you thought you knew, every perception you had, every feeling, seemed in a moment of startling clarity to be false? It’s almost as if every decision, every moment flashes before your eyes and suddenly the pieces of the puzzle finally fit together and make sense. It’s strange, or perhaps not, that these moments of clarity always seem to happen to me just as I sit on the precipice of change.

Almost six years ago I had a moment like this, where I reevaluated everything I knew and all the plans I had. It would take four more months, but by the end of that time I had packed up my entire life, moved across the country and reinvented myself. It seems only natural then, that it is one of these moments that has me planning to pack up my entire life, move once again across the country, and reinvent myself. Or perhaps just return to the me I left behind.

While some things and people are easier to leave behind than others, it is in these moments that I also feel the strongest sense of loss. For the boy who couldn’t grow up enough to be the man I needed him to be. For the man who couldn’t be honest enough with himself and with me to realize what a bad idea we were from the start. For the friends who risked our friendship to take a chance at something more, who are no longer friends at all. Most importantly, for the ones who the timing was always wrong. The “what ifs” who could in fact be the biggest loss and the hardest to leave behind.

“You only know what I want you to
I know everything you don’t want me to
Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine
Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine”

The process of saying goodbye to six years is a long one. You reminisce, you make some poor decisions in order to feel the connection that once was, and in some cases you realize how much you have overlooked a possibility, a situation, a person. I felt that way this weekend. Such a profound feeling of heartache and loss, but I haven’t lost anything that I know of. A man who is the closest I have to a best guy friend after the loss of my former guy friend at the beginning of the year. Someone who has known me for more than three years, who has been passionately obsessed with me, coldly indifferent of me, demanding my attention and hiding from me needing the same from him.

I’m not sure if it was the music we were listening to in our quest to create the perfect playlist, or the looming feeling of the inevitability of my departure, but something made a moment so electric, and yet so torturous that everything around us seemed to fade to black and white. There was only the two of us, our hatred, our adoration, our missed moments and the moments we would both rather forget. A beautiful mess, a relationship that never finished, but likewise never really started.

“I wish you’d hold me when I turn my back
The less I give the more I get back
Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise
I don’t have a choice but I still choose you”

When he kissed me I kissed him back with my entire being. Every touch was magnified a million times, and when I lay alone in my bed that night I felt close to tears, but I had no idea why. I still don’t. I’m not in love with him, but I grieve for the love that never was. I want him with everything I am and know that if that were to ever happen I would be unhappy and break both of our hearts. Such a strange mixture of fear, excitement and hope. I’m not sure if it’s him or me, maybe it’s just this precipice taunting me, waiting for me to jump. It’s a year of change, a year of starting over, a year of remembering what was and what could have been and loving every moment of the adventure along the way.

“Oh I don’t love you but I always will
I always will
I always will
I always will”

Poison & Wine is off of the album Barton Hallow by the Civil Wars. The group made up of singer-songwriter Joy Williams and John Paul White who met during a recording session in 2008. Since then they have been producing amazing music that recently got them two Grammy nominations for Best Folk Album and Best Country Duo/Group Performance categories. Their first full length album Barton Hallow have U.S. sales of more than 280,000 copies and 360,000 digital tracks.

 

Cut – Jimmy Eat World

“I made it
And now there’s no turning back
I know there’s no depth you wouldn’t sink for the chance
I’m sorry, boy
I’m not cut for this no more”

It’s not often that I write about something fresh, usually it takes me weeks or months to feel ready to throw all the hopes and feelings out there. In this case, it’s so raw, and so big that I think it’s better to put it out there right away. Tonight I took a bubble bath, something that usually cheers me up, and while I was sitting there I just felt so numb that I realized I was scaring myself. Purging all of this here and now, is my way of at least feeling something so this giant black hole doesn’t swallow me alive.

I made the mistake of dating a friend. Not just any friend, but a friend who I was always completely candid with, who knew all of my likes and dislikes, who had heard me cry over guys and seen me frustrated when things weren’t what I wanted. It was a mistake for several reasons, one that I figured since he knew so much about me he was accepting of all of those things, and also because it made him expect more from me then I think he would of a new girl he had only started to date.

“There’s always some baggage you’ve got to check
I’m trying
Hope that you’d understand
I’m sorry, boy
I’m not cut for this no more”

It started off amazing, we had lots of fun, great chemistry and could talk for hours. Then I got sick with a cold. I’m weird when I’m sick, I just want to avoid people until I am better, but I still went and saw him but wasn’t up to kissing of making out, sick kind of robs me of that. I went home for Christmas, and while I missed him a lot, and we texted back and forth dozens of times a day, I was working and visiting family, and he was at home alone. He says he pined for me for a week, and because I am tentative about giving too much in the beginning, he assumed that I was just another girl playing hot and cold with him. Add to that my disastrous return when still sick and frustrated from flight issues and disappointed by not seeing him right away, it was less than the excited greeting he hoped for.

It seems so trivial and silly that both a friendship and a potential relationship could be tossed aside so easily. Everyone has baggage, and while I was accepting of his, and gave him room for it, he was never accepting of mine. I asked for him to give me a chance, he said he would. That lasted two whole days before I got a Facebook message ending things and giving the reason of him not liking something that I had dabbled in. No asking me how I felt about it, if it was still important to me, just reading old notes on my profile and making his own mind up. It was obvious that he was just looking for an excuse to cut and run. I was a mess all day at work, the benefits of getting a Facebook break up at 9am is that you get to spend the rest of your work day trying to pull it together. The extra bit of salt in the wound was the “I value your friendship”. Hard to swallow, because what I value in my friends is understanding, and chances.

“You came in
Yeah, you happened to me
So I waited and nothing else has since
I’m sorry, boy
But I’m no good for you no more”

So where do you go from here? Tonight I have felt just this huge empty hole. It’s the first time in months that I have had a night off and no one home, and no one to talk to. The silence only makes the black hole bigger. How do you get over a friend and someone who was pretty much everything you wanted at the same time? Usually he was the one I would talk to about disappointing relationships, but now what? It’s strange, when I broke off an engagement and ended things with someone I had been with for more than three years, I don’t remember feeling so numb. It makes me want to do something stupid, something crazy, something dangerous, anything just to feel.

So I’ll instead sit here and listen to music, cuddle the pillow pet that I bought for him as a joke to cheer him up, not realizing that he didn’t need cheering up, he was just avoiding me until he decided how best to shatter me apart. Tomorrow I plan to throw it in a dumpster somewhere, I don’t need that kind of reminding. Maybe I will wake up in the morning and realize I was being all melodramatic, but part of me is very doubtful of this. It’s two weeks before my birthday, and the one person who I was so excited to have celebrating with me, is no longer even a Facebook friend.

“If it’s your name in lights
And if the time is yours,
You’d be on your back
You’d be on the floor
It’s the kind of night that I’d always hoped
And he’s the kind of guy worth waiting for”

Jimmy Eat World is an American alternative rock band from Mesa, Arizona, composed of lead vocalist and guitarist Jim Adkins, guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind. The group has released seven studio albums and have had their songs appear on TV shows like One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl and movies like Never Been Kissed and Butterfly Effect.

“Cut” is from their seventh study album Invented. Released in 2010, the album was based on Cindy Sherman’s Completely Untitled Film Still series, and Hannah Starkey’s Photographs 1997-2007.

Cut – Jimmy Eat World

The Cave – Mumford & Sons

“It’s empty in the valley of your heart
The sun, it rises slowly as you walk
Away from all the fears
And all the faults you’ve left behind”

There is a famous quote from a movie I’ve never seen called Vanilla Sky “Every passing minutes is another chance to turn it all around.” I feel like it could be the mantra of my life some days. I am a firm believer in the scorched earth approach to the end of relationships. Give back all their stuff, get back all of yours, and then cease all forms of communication, stop following them on Twitter, delete them off of bbm and unfriend them on Facebook. Scorched earth can often create the most fertile ground to start a new relationship, both with someone new, and with the person you left behind. It wipes away all the mistakes, the pettiness, the hurt and lets you start again. The trick though is sticking to it.

I’m infamous for my breakups. It’s fairly easy to tell when I have ended a relationship, regardless of how long or short it was, whether it was just with a friend or with a lover. It used to be that I would make some dramatic hair change, like chop it off or dye it, but these days it just means a huge purge of material items and friend’s lists. I tried to explain my theory the other day to someone who is going through a situation where some scorched earth could stop breakup 2.0, since I am currently scorching the earth with a friend and playmate, I was trying to show the why and the how. He was very concerned that the other party didn’t know that I was engaging in some earth scorching, but as I explained that is often the reason it works in the first place.

“But I will hold on hope
And I won’t let you choke
On the noose around your neck
And I’ll find strength in pain
And I will change my ways
I’ll know my name as it’s called again”

I try to see each failed relationship as a learning experience, why did it go wrong, how can I fix it for next time and what am I really looking for in the person that I will end up staying with. A friend told me that to see if my ideals were realistic I should use an in credibly complicated mathematical equation that would look at the percentage of the population that had the personality traits I was looking for, the percentage chance that all of those traits would be in one person and apply that to the percentage of men within my age range living at a suitable distance from my location. Then I needed to consider the percentage chance that I would also be what they were looking for and that they would want to be with me. Needless to say when you look at it that way it is beyond depressing to see what your chance at “love” is.

Lately I have excelled at seeing why things won’t work, instead of trying to figure out how they will. In the past I have always been too forgiving and fall too hard without seeing the negatives. Now I am too far the other way, not letting myself just be in the moment without trying to find the reasons why it may end or how he might break my heart. This one is still in school, it will never work we have totally different schedules. This one never went to school, it will not work we have different life goals. This one has a kid, and I don’t want kids. This one wants to have three kids, and I don’t like kids. The list goes on. But is that really so bad? Is it better to fall blindly in love and then be wretchedly heartbroken when you find out you actually don’t have the important things in common? Or should you go into everything eyes wide open, and as a result, have a pretty big wall up?

“So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the maker’s hand”

I find that often the times I am most reflective about my relationship status, or lack thereof, is when I have no prospects. Even if I am just interested in someone, but haven’t take it any further than that, I find I don’t think about it as much. When I’m not even interested in anyone it’s all I can think about. There is a constant desire to go somewhere, anywhere but here, to see if it’s the city that is bringing me down. I don’t recall every having such a problem finding people I had things in common with back home, but this city is so conservative it’s frightening. To alleviate my boredom, I have taken to exploring the world of fetish. Bondage, shibari, D/s, wax play, violet wands, all fun things that I have discovered a taste for. But alas, the Calgary conservativism rears it’s ugly head even in the kink community. At events the majority of people are couples, either married or poly, and there isn’t as much room for new and single people It definitely is not a place to find someone you could date as well as play with. On the other hand, there are a lot of cool events and photographers which means I get to play in front of the camera again, which is always a big plus.

One thing exploring this community has made me realize, is that I really don’t seem able to fit into any mold at all. I’m not vanilla enough to be vanilla, but my longing for a long term relationship and some of the more traditional aspects of it don’t make me a perfect fit in the kink community either. I want a man who will tie me up and spank me, but I also want a man who will want to put a ring on my finger, not a collar on my neck, and live happily/kinkily ever after. According to one person in the community, my problem is that I keep falling for boys who think they are men, instead of the men that know they are and have nothing to prove. A man would let me be busy, and et me be independent. A boy just worries that I won’t come back to him.

“So make your siren’s call
And sing all you want
I will not hear what you have to say
Cause I need freedom now
And I need to know how
To live my life as it’s meant to be”

As of right now the plan is still to move. By the time 2013 rolls around I want to be somewhere other than here. Whether that is out in Vancouver, or back to Toronto, remains to be seen. But I need to travel again, need to find someplace new with a more liberal viewpoint.

The Cave is the second single off of Mumford & Sons album Sigh No More. The British band formed just outside of London in 2007 but didn’t record a full album until 2009 when they released Sigh No More. The band comprised of Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, Winston Marshall, and Ted Dwane, took their name from lead singer Marcus Mumford because he was the most recognizable at the time that they started since he was the one running around and organizing shows and venues for the group. The first single off of the album Little Lion Man was a huge hit, landing them appearances on the Craig Ferguson show and the Late Show with David Letterman. The band is now back in the studio to record their second album to be released in February 2012.

Miserable at Best – Mayday Parade

“Katie, don’t cry, I know
You’re trying your hardest
And the hardest part is letting go
Of the nights we shared
Ocala is calling and you know it’s haunting
But compared to your eyes, nothing shines quite as bright
And when we look to the sky, its not mine, but I want it so.”

It seems that the one thing that will always haunt me is timing. It’s hard to let go of the hope and potential for something great with someone who you just can’t seem to connect with because of timing. It’s no secret to long time readers of this blog that there are two such individuals in my life who I just can’t seem to get the right timing with. One in Ottawa, one in Vancouver.

Recently I started talking to a friend of a guy I dated while I was in university. When I say friend, I actually mean fraternity brother. I forgot how interesting I found him until we started talking regularly again. He is funny, sarcastic and just as terrible as I am when it comes to knowing exactly what we want and doing what it takes to get it. Frighteningly intelligent, funny and good looking. You can imagine what happens next, I develop yet another crush for someone who lives nowhere near me. Oh and surprise, surprise, he also has a girlfriend, albeit a long distance one.

Harmless flirting turned into a phone call and endless texts back and forth. He encouraged me to check out a Facebook-like site that he frequents to explore and experiment. The phone call was three hours long and involved heavy breathing… enough said. The next day after many texts back and forth we both admitted that this was bad. Crushes that could not be followed through on had no business in our lives, and he respected his girlfriend too much to cheat, at least physically.

“You’re all that I hoped I’d find
In every single way
And everything I could give
Is everything you couldn’t take
Cause nothing feels like home, you’re a thousand miles away
And the hardest part of living
Is just taking breaths to stay
Because I know I’m good for something
I just haven’t found it yet
But I need it.”

The texts continued, discussion of how we first met in university, why we never hooked up (because I was dating his frat brother and he was dating someone as well), how when he was finally single he would come to my work only to talk to me, but I wasn’t single at the time and was oblivious to his interest. Then a text in the middle of the night “I think I should break up with my girlfriend.”

It’s hard to explain how I felt when I read that. Hope and horror blended together, especially when the next text arrived: “I got off the phone with her unsatisfied with our conversation and all I could think about was calling you.” I don’t think I’ve bluntly said it before in other blog posts, but I have in fact been down this path before, I am what you would call a homewrecker… but never intentionally. Imagine my horror at realizing that somehow this may have happened again, but this time the guy lives on the other side of the country.

Part of me was thrilled, beyond thrilled. A small corner of my brain started to plot out the possibility of going to visit Ottawa as soon as possible, of looking for a job there. That was dismissed equally as quickly, although a tiny section still held the hope close. Then the reality sunk in. I had done it again, fallen for someone I couldn’t have, both for geographic and moral reasons. I talked him through deciding what to do about his girlfriend and went to bed. Vowing to be less eager to answer text messages from him, to cool it off and try and find someone in the same province at the very least.

“And this will be the first time in a week
That I’ll talk to you
And I can’t speak
It’s been three whole days since I’ve had sleep
Because I dream of his lips on your cheek
And I got the point that I should leave you alone
But we both know that I’m not that strong
And I miss the lips that made me fly.”

They say the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. I didn’t need to get over him, but I was interested in trying out new things anyways, and he had encouraged me to join the site so I decided to look around and see if anything or anyone interested me. Something caught my eye, and before I could stop myself I was texting him, filling him in on what I had seen on the site and asking his opinion. As I  knew he would be, he was excited for me and encouraging, asking that I promise to call him when I got home.

When I got home the next night I had three texts, all trying to make sure that I was ok and that nothing bad had happened. Also jokingly asking for details. I replied, but he was already in bed. Over the next couple of days we seemed to play hot and cold. He would go from texting me every couple of minutes, to hardly at all. I withdrew more into the present and what was going on here in Calgary and on the website.

In my typical self-destructive fashion I threw everything I had into the exploration, snubbing him a bit and not being as quick to respond to texts. Not sure what I was trying to prove, I knew he wouldn’t be jealous, after all he encouraged me doing it and wanted to hear all about it, but a small part of me hoped it would bring him back to texting me all day every day and calling me again at night. It didn’t.

Throw in the other person, the one who was supposed to teach me things and help me explore, and the situation got even more complicated. On one hand I still reached for my phone hoping it would be my friend again, on the other hand the attention from someone new was very needed and appreciated. It was a tenuous balance at best to balance two different sets of feelings for two very different people. Can you live without someone who just gets you? Can you date someone who isn’t in the same city or province? I personally don’t think so, but that doesn’t mean that a small part of me doesn’t hold up everyone new I meet to his standard. He’s another one that got away, add him to the collection.

“Because these words were never easier for me to say
Or her to second guess
But I guess
That I can live without you but
Without you I’ll be miserable at best”

Mayday Parade is an American rock band that was formed in 2006 and has since released two albums with a third on the way this summer. “Miserable at Best” is from their debut album “A Lesson in Romantics”. The band has been a part of the Vans Warped tour and several Punk albums such as “Punk Goes Acoustic” “Punk Goes Pop 3″ and “Punk Goes Classic Rock”. In 2010, Mayday Parade had 194 bookings and 74,000 miles logged on tour.

Down – Jason Walker

“I don’t know where I’m at
I’m standing at the back
And I’m tired of waiting
Waiting here in line, hoping that I’ll find what I’ve been chasing.”

My family accuses me of being a hopeless optimist, not in the sense that I always see the best in every situation, but more that I tend to get too excited about things to the point where I am almost always disappointed and heartbroken. I have always maintained that if you shoot for the moon, you will always end up among the stars at the very least, but sometimes it’s hard to remember that it is the journey that matters and not necessarily the end goal. Even harder when my new part time job focuses so much on goal setting and how if you aren’t achieving your goals you are basically doing it all wrong.

I have so many goals for myself these days; to find someone who makes me happy, even doing the mundane things like sitting in the same room and doing our own thing, to find a job that I can wake up to every morning and be excited to do and that uses me to my full potential (why is this so hard?!) to be debt free and to buy a new car. Realistically the car one is the easiest, but not the one my heart is set on making happen right now. A car, in the grand scheme of things, seems so trivial compared to love, career and money.

“Not ready to let go
Cause then I’d never know
What I could be missing
But I’m missing way too much
So when do I give up what I’ve been wishing for.”

I laughingly told someone that people should just say yes to me the first time I ask, because if I really want something I will probably be an annoying pest until I get it. It’s not completely true, I usually have a three strike rule. I will try something three times, but if the outcome doesn’t change then it’s time to move on. After all they say that the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. I don’t think I’m insane… at least not yet. For example, if I ask someone out and they say no, for whatever reason even if it is legitimate, I will only try to make it happen two more times before I give up. I like to think of it as managing my expectations, or guarding my heart. It doesn’t always work though, sometimes the hopefulness, the wishing is just too big to be contained. The higher we climb, the harder the fall.

The best way to recover from a fall? Immersing yourself in books, movies and great music. Best to let it all out, have the big ugly cry and move on. I excel at this, I have getting over things down to an art form, depending on the type of thing it is. Inevitably getting over a broken heart caused by a guy is so much easier than the heartbreak of not fulfilling a dream you’ve been holding tightly too, whether or not you’ve realized.

“I shot for the sky
I’m stuck on the ground
So why do I try, I know I’m gonna to fall down
I thought I could fly, so why did I drown?
Never know why it’s coming down, down, down.”

After any heartbreak comes the rebuilding, the where to from here and what next, and finally the picking up of the pieces.

“Can’t find another way around
And I don’t want to hear the sound, of losing what I never found.”

Jason Walker is a relatively low profile musician from Nashville. He has gained the attention of the CW network. His song “Down” has been featured in two of their shows, “One Tree Hill” and “Vampire Diaries”.

Running Up That Hill – Placebo

“It doesn’t hurt me.
You wanna feel how it feels?
You wanna know, know that it doesn’t hurt me?
You wanna hear about the deal I’m making?”

Isn’t it strange that when people ask us how they feel, they don’t actually want to hear the truth? Why as humans do we so often feel the need to ask the questions we really don’t want answered, especially when it comes to the feelings of those around us. Maybe I’m cynical, jaded, or maybe it’s that I’m actually incredibly naive, but I just don’t see the purpose of asking a question when the answer you want requires the other person to lie so that you don’t “feel bad”.

A couple of weeks ago I had a pretty intense conversation via BBM with a long time…. friend… for lack of a better word. I had been avoiding him as of late, and he knew why, but still he pushed me to tell him exactly why. Immediately getting hurt, upset and defensive about my answer. They say there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers, but in this case do they really mean it?

“You don’t wanna hurt me,
But see how deep the bullet lies.
Unaware that I’m tearing you asunder.
There’s a thunder in our hearts, baby.
So much hate for the ones we love?
Tell me, we both matter, don’t we?”

While I adore him as a friend, and have known him for far too long, a couple of years ago we may have pushed some boundaries that we shouldn’t have. Where in the past we made many jests and jokes, had long innuendo filled conversations, suddenly there was also the sense that we could follow through at any time. It has become a weird push and pull ever since. The push for it to happen again, with the pull that not only might we be hurting each other in doing so, but affecting other people in our daily lives if they ever found out.

Somewhere along the way another wrench was thrown into the plan in that I started thinking about how much I wished it was all for real. That our games were foreplay to a real relationship we had and not just a friendship. Perhaps it was a case of the grass being greener elsewhere, since I knew then as I still do now that it is more than distance and other people that will always come between us. We tell ourselves, and each other, pretty lies to make it seem ok, to take some small comfort in the knowledge that we still have the potential of each other.

“And if I only could,
Make a deal with God,
And get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.”

Our last conversation I told him that I thought we should stop, grow up and realize that we couldn’t always play these games, that eventually someone would find out and that we both had so much to lose. On paper it seems like he is the one with the most to lose, it would affect his job, his plans for the future, every goal he’s ever shared with me. In reality I’m the one with the most at stake. It may be his future on the line, but it’s only his career future, for me it’s more like the chance of ever seriously falling for someone whose not him. He’s my security blanket, someone I can always count on to boost my self esteem no matter where in the world he is at that moment. Here’s the thing about security blankets though, if you never try sleeping without one you never discover all the other great things there are to be had in the world.

“C’mon, baby, c’mon, c’mon, darling,
Let me steal this moment from you now.
C’mon, angel, c’mon, c’mon, darling,
Let’s exchange the experience, oh…”

Placebo is a British alternative group that first formed in 1994. They gained worldwide success with songs like “Every Me and Every You” and “Pure Morning” which were featured heavily in many TV shows and movies. The group has released six studio albums and six EPs to date. The band is known for use of drug references throughout their song as lead singer Brian Molko has been extremely open about his recreational drug use.

Running Up That Hill was originally released in 1985 by singer/songwriter Kate Bush. Placebo covered the track and released it as a bonus track on the album “Sleeping with Ghosts” in 2003. Four years later it was re-released on “Covers” and the US version of “Meds”. The song has been played on many TV shows including The Vampire Diaries, CSI, Bones, The O.C. and NCIS: Los Angeles. It was also featured in the trailer for the movie Daybreakers.

Such Great Heights – The Postal Service

“I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles
In our eyes are mirror images and when
We kiss they’re perfectly aligned.“

Do you believe in fate? In signs from the universe? in a God or gods? I’m not sure what I believe in, but I’m fairly sure that I don’t agree with organized religion. Fate, well that one is a little harder to ignore. 

Maybe I should blame my parents for naming me Brooke. A brook is a small stream, a body of water that is perpetually in motion, but it takes its own time and its own way through things. It’s not as fast as a river, but it’s not as gentle as pond. Like the water for which I’m named sometimes it take me a little while to make up my mind where my wanderings will take me. Moving to Calgary was big and sudden, and since then I’ve been meandering through my career, never loving it but never hating it either. You might say I’ve stagnated. 

“True, it may seem like a stretch, but
Its thoughts like this that catch my troubled
Head when you’re away when I am missing you to death.”

It’s strange how everything can suddenly be thrown into such perspective when something unexpected happens. At 27 people rarely ask me what I want to be when I grow up. Yesterday, someone did. What do I want to be when I grow up? I thought I had it figured out, but I’ve thought that a dozen times throughout my life, only to change my mind later. I know who I want to be, but not what.

I want to be the centre of attention, a friend, a confident, a devil’s advocate. Someone who listens, someone who offers advice, someone who can brighten a morning, create a laugh and generally just be a reason to smile. I don’t get to be any of those things in my current job. Not even close.

“They will see us waving from such great
Heights, ‘come down now,’ they’ll say
But everything looks perfect from far away,
‘come down now,’ but we’ll stay…”

I went to university and got my Bachelor of Journalism because I thought that it was in journalism that I could be all of those things. I was wrong. The world of hard news, of chasing stories, of stabbing others in the back for scoops and of having to act like sad and bad things didn’t affect you was not the world for me. I moved on to public relations and never really looked back. Lately I’ve been looking back more and more. I got a part time job, just in case I felt the need to make a big change, a sudden change, and needed something to fall back on.

Imagine my surprise when an opportunity dropped into my lap. An opportunity that the more I think about it, the more I can’t imagine not doing it. Have I ever felt like this about a job before? I don’t think so, I don’t even think I’ve ever felt this way about a man before. It’s terrifying, exhilarating and maybe a sign that fate has a plan for me after all. Every small stream eventually runs into a river, which runs into a sea or an ocean. Maybe it’s time this little stream threw caution to the wind and got bigger.

Nothing can hold back the force of water. Cross your fingers for me.

“I tried my best to leave this all on your
Machine but the persistent beat it sounded
Thin upon listening
That frankly will not fly. you will hear
The shrillest highs and lowest lows with
The windows down when this is guiding you home”

The Postal Service is an American Indie-electronic band that borrowed vocalist Ben Gibbard from Death Cab for Cutie after he contributed vocals for Dntel and producer Jimmy Tamborello took an interest in his sound. The band name came from the way they made music, with Tamborello writing and performing a song, mailing it to Gibbard who would add editing and vocals, and mail it back.

In 2003 they released their first album  which featured the song Such Great Heights. The song went on to be covered by Iron & Wine and to be featured in the soundtrack for Garden State.The group enjoyed other successes with We Will Become Silhouettesfeatured in the trailer for the movie Funny People, and the song The District Sleeps Alone Tonight was featured in the soundtrack for the film D.E.B.S. As of yet the duo have been too busy with their main projects, Dntel and Deathcab for Cutie, to work on the release of a second album.

Playing Favorites – The Starting Line

“Here’s another song for you,
So this one this one makes two.
Still don’t know where to begin,
I’ll just leave it at this.”

People often think that women and men can’t be friends without it eventually being ruined by one or other of the party falling in love with the other, or both of them screwing it up after a drunken night together. While I can definitely see that being a possibility, some of my dearest friendships are with men. One friend in particular I cherish. We don’t often get to see each other because he lives in a different province, but through Facebook, texts and emails we manage to talk several times a week.

I can’t speak for him, but there have been many times when I have wished so much that he could live closer. Sometimes it’s because I need a shoulder to cry on, sometimes because I need a wingman at the bar, and sometimes because I know that no matter how shitty my life has been lately, that if I could only give him a hug I would feel so much better. I think, and hope, that he thinks the same of me. I know that I am one of the few people he stays in contact with no matter what.

“Wait for me to move out west.
It’s ok if you don’t.
I hope you know,
You’re my favorite thing,
About the west coast.
I wish I stayed,
I hope you wait.”

I was in his city to visit him recently, and whether it was my recent long streak without any guy who interested me, or just genuine feelings finally bubbling to the service, we ended up kissing. Kissing turned into rolling around on a bed until he put a stop to it, explaining how much he cared about me and thought I was amazing. He was worried about ruining our friendship for the sake of something we both knew wouldn’t work when we lived in different cities. I was taken aback.

We are friends, we talk about literally everything, I was hurt that he thought I would let things get awkward or weird, or trust him any less. I convinced him to forget about it and just stay the night anyways. He was a great big spoon, we cuddled, we slept, we made fun of each other and talked like normal. Sure there were brief awkward moments, but they were quickly resolved. If it was that easy after the awkwardness of having to stop and explain why, would it really have been that different if we had just given in?

“I’ll say it but I’m sure you knew,
You’re what I look most forward to.
Coming back to where I’ve been,
I’ll just leave it at this.”

Since I’ve returned home we’ve spoken once or twice on Facebook, and it seems to be mostly like it was before. I really hope that it will continue to be. I won’t lie and say a part of me doesn’t wish we lived in the same city. I could really use a friend, and I also am so tired of being single, of sleeping alone. Maybe he would be a perfect solution to both of those problems. We obviously have chemistry, we have been friends for years and know a lot about each other already…

Then again, the chances of us ever living in the same city are fairly slim. Being happy with what we have, a strong friendship, is probably the best plan of action.

“I’m sure you always feel my eyes on you
but I hope that you will never feel unwanted.”

I became a fan of The Starting Line in first year of university, “Playing Favorites” is an old song, but a good one. The band started out when the members were just teenagers, like most great punk bands. Voclaist Kenny Vasoli was only 15 when the band, then known as Sunday Drive, started touring. After signing with Drive-Thru Records in 2001 they changed their name to The Starting Line since Sunday Drive was already taken by a Christian rock band.

Three albums and two EPs later, the band has seen much success from headlining Vans Warped Tour, to having their music featured in movies like “She’s the Man”. The band now records on the Virgin record label, and has returned to touring after a brief hiatus.

Broken – Lifehouse

“The broken clock is a comfort, it help me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow, from stealing all my time.
I am here still waiting, though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you’ve already figured out.”

Have you ever noticed, that the people who are the most broken, are the ones who are more likely to act like they have it all together? As if by admitting that they were hurt, scared, or damaged in some way it would suddenly become so much harder to bear. The girls that get sneered at for wanting the attention of too many guys, the boys who are labeled “players”, the people who are content to move to a different city or job every other month because they hate being tied down. We all have our walls around us, but sometimes the worst walls are the ones we try to pretend aren’t there.

I met a guy whom I thought would be perfect for my current frame of mind regarding relationships. He wanted no strings, no romantic entanglements just someone to have fun with, to have intelligent conversation with and to scratch an itch so to speak. It seemed perfect, but of course there is no such thing right? We were seen talking and immediately I was flooded with comments about what a player he was, how he would break my heart and general warnings to avoid him and run as fast as I could. I chose to ignore them, I wasn’t interested in dating him anyways so why did any of that matter?

“The broken locks were a warning, you got inside my head
I tried my best to guarded, I’m an open book instead.
I still see your reflection, inside of my eyes
That are looking for purpose, they’re still looking for life.”

A few late night conversations later and I had a bad feeling. I had joked about being the one that might break his heart and not the other way around, but now I worried that it might actually be true. Things came to light, a series of bad relationships, some self doubt and an equal dose of guilt and shame for past behaviour. Little comments made here and there that made me realize that the player image was a very big act. I tried to call him on it, and although he was embarassed by the things he had told me while he had been drinking or half asleep, he refused to admit that they played any factor.

Christmas break came. I didn’t speak to him for several days as we were both home visiting our families. When he did start messaging me again on Christmas Eve there were many jokes about how I probably missed him, and that his mother had asked if I was a nice girl. Immediate panic set in, he had told his mother about me?! What was going on? I played along and pretended like I knew we were both still joking but part of me had a sinking feeling that I was about to lose my playmate. He got weird, I got weird in return and after several conversations with friends I decided that I didn’t have the time to someone’s mother. That his issues needed to be dealt with before he could even be a friend, let along anything else.

“The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone
I may have lost my way now, haven’t forgotten my way home.”

We’ve spoken a couple of times since, we are thrown into situations sometimes where we can’t avoid each other. I have no dislike of him, but I feel sorry for him and a little mad that he hides behind a wall and won’t even admit to it. I think I used to be like him, hurt so much and broken to the point where I went out of my way to appear like I wasn’t. I wish him luck, I think underneath it all he is probably a really great guy… he just needs some time.

The song Broken was featured in the recent movie “Time Traveller’s Wife”. Recorded by the Christian-rock group Lifehouse, there is lots of debate about whether or not the song is about god or simply about losing someone you love. I prefer to think the latter but I understand that everyone will see in it what they will. No matter the way you view it, it is an amazing song.

Lifehouse is from Los Angeles. Their first hit was in 2001 “Hanging by a Moment” from their debut studio album, No Name Face. In 2002, they released their follow up album Stanley Climbfall. They have released three more albums: the self-titled Lifehouse in 2005, Who We Are on June 19, 2007 and Smoke and Mirrors on March 2, 2010

Pretend – Lights

“Once in a while I act like a child to feel like a kid again
It gets like a prison in the body I’m living in
Cause everyone’s watching and quick to start talking, I’m losing my innocence
Wish I were a little girl without the weight of the world.”

Sometimes it seems like two people are ships passing in the night. Missed connections, misunderstandings and general bad timing have stopped more relationships before they have even got started. Sometimes we shoot ourselves in the foot, often making bad decisions based on our own insecurities and fear, or giving in to peer pressure when it comes to deciding how we feel about someone. If you think about it, how many times have your friends or family affected how you see someone and whether or not a relationship is pursued?

With our increasingly small world, in a large part thanks to the internet and social media, we meet people outside of our circle more often. This double edged sword also insures that we also learn much more about a person in a short time than we normally would. You can fall in like/lust/love with someone online before you’ve ever seen if that chemistry translates in person. In some ways I miss highschool where you only had to contend with the hall and locker room gossip.

It should come as no surprise that I fell victim to a case of serious twit-crush, and just as awkwardly, massive falling out of said crush due to the same social medium.

“Remember the times we had soda for wine,
and we got by on gratitude?
The worst they could do to you was check your attitude
Yeah when fights were for fun, we had water in guns,
and a place we could call our own
How we lost hold of home I guess I’ll never know.”

He was one of those guys that I would never have gone for in a million years. Short, indie, a smoker and dozens of other things that I usually find unattractive. However it’s a funny and heady thing when you have the popularity contest that is Twitter some days. Someone gets built up for generally just being an engaging and nice person online, and we think that they must be the same way offline.

After seeing him “around” the social media hallway for awhile and interacting enough to find out we had many shared interests and several shared friends I began to give in to the fact that he might be a cool guy. We went on a date in the fall, and it went well. He was more interested than I was at the time, partly because I had met someone else the same week that was more my regular type. I told a mutual friend that, and she pushed me to give him more of a chance, that he was a great guy etc etc. After months of hearing his cheer team encourage me, and harmless online flirting I ended up developing a crush for him. It all came to a head on my birthday, there was some making out and some sleeping over but nothing crazy. Lots of words were said about making promises to live the life you deserved, going out on a limb and following some dreams that had been put aside for awhile and general comments about how I was “kinda perfect” for him.

Maybe it was the alcohol or the simple need to feel wanted on an important birthday, but I fell for it. I’m never the girl that buys in to that so it took me by surprise. Then I got blown off… a lot. Finally I broke down and sent an email to the tune of “I had fun, thought you did too what’s up?” and got a reply that at least gave closure. “I’m not into dating right now”. Fine. Not a problem at all, but why the pursuing simply for the sake of doing so? Why make it complicated for no reason?

“It’s not going to be long before we’re all gone with nothing to show for them
Stop taking lives, come on let’s all grow up again.”

The best part of the whole situation was that I felt like I had lost a friend. The nail in the coffin was a DM that said “I’m sorry I let you down, but it doesn’t change our friendship.” But it did, it was precisely as a friend he let me down. Initially that’s all I saw him as, but between the people we had in common pushing for me to see how wonderful he was, and his own attempts to show me the same it irrevocably changed our friendship and it became as a friend that he let me down. That was the day I unfollowed him. The day that I withdraw from the #yyc meetups and vowed never to give in to the silly and casual flirting on social media.

At the end of the day maybe it’s best to keep your online friends simply that, or maybe we just have to suck up the disappointments and hope that next time things are better.

Pretend is a song off of Canadian singer Lights’ first full length album “The Listening” . Born in Timmins, Ontario, she calls her music intergalactic-electro music. She produces, writes and styles herself. She plays guitar and keyboard as well as being a fantastic artist. She describes her inspiration as a science fiction nerd. She even made an appearance on MTV’s “The City” where she wore a piece of clothing from Whitney Port’s fashion line Whitney Eve. Lights also has an amazing Acoustic EP that is worth listening to as well.