Dani, don't kill me.
I'm thinking of discontinuing this blog.
I've really been lax in my updates recently, and when I do update I never have anything to say that's very important any more.
I started this blog way back in 2004 as an exercise in colour commentary on my hockey obsession. Then it kind of became my diary replacement (I had kept a written diary since 1999 and stopped about a year after I started blogging), and now I find that I don't really have the compulsion to spill verbiage all over the page anymore. I just have too many other things to do that are much too mundane to make interesting reading for anyone else.
I have been thinking about this for a while, but it came to a head this weekend.
Why?
I painted my kitchen. It took me a long time, but I did it all by myself (Andy helped me move the furniture) and I did a really good job. I'm very pleased with it. But THIS is the most exciting thing that has happened to me recently - completing another task in a long line of domestic achievements.
I'm sorry folks, but I can't sport with your intelligence by making you read that drivel day in and day out.
I love writing. I really do. I love being able to get my thoughts out on paper in a way that never seems right when they come out of my mouth. Writing is a very soothing thing for me, and that's why I have kept it up for so long.
When I started this, I was in an uncertain time: fighting with depression, dealing with the death of a friend, lonely, unsure of my future . . . you name it, I was going through it. Now, six years later, things are different. I'm slowly and painfully working my way towards the career of my dreams, I'm married to the best friend I have ever had and things are looking good. I mean, it's a good thing when the highlight of your day is how well you deal with red paint, right? It's better than drama - and trust me, I've had my fair share.
What I'm saying is, essentially, I think I have outgrown this thing. It was a crutch of sorts that I have moved beyond.
I am still writing - it's part of what I do for school, and I hope to turn my writing skills into part of my career some day. But when I write now it's for different reasons. And I have new hobbies now.
I'm working on my photography, and that, if nothing else, is a more accurate record of my opinions and daily adventurings. I certainly update my photo website much more often than I update allythebell.net. If you want to keep track of me, follow me on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alio. You can see my kitchen there, too!
I don't know. I am still thinking about it. But we may be seeing the end. It was a good ride, thanks for being here.
We have ourselves a blizzard. It's also supposed to snow next weekend as well.
I'm not worried. I'm sure it will rain soon.
The modern conveniences of air travel, despite their many annoyances, have the overwhelming positive that they allow people to travel great distances in a short amount of time. I'm not being facile here. Remember it took me a full week to drive from Ottawa to St. John's. On a plane, I can get there in three hours. From the centre of the country to the edge of the world in three hours. That's pretty incredible, if you ask me.
The astonishing rapidity of this superhuman feat, however, while it is easy on the human body, kind of messes a bit with the human mind.
We left Ottawa on Sunday night, in the middle of a blizzard. We woke up Monday morning in a different province, a different bed, and to the sound of the pouring rain. There is absolutely no snow left in St. John's, so it doesn't look or feel like January in the least. In addition to traveling 3000km, I feel like we also managed to travel back in time to September, because that's what it really looks like here. It's a mite disorienting.
In addition to the sheer physicality of long-distance travel, which is enough to overwhelm anyone, there is the additional confundus of mental attachments to places, things, and people.
When we first arrived in Ottawa for our Christmas holiday, Andy and I experienced the sensation that we were in some place that was very familiar to us, but that was no longer a home for us. Over the course of two weeks, as we managed to settle into a routine, that impression changed. I think it changed more for me than it did for Andy, who doesn't know when he will be back in the city. I, on the other hand, am planning to move back to Ottawa temporarily in the fall, and I will live there for eight months. So I was already seeing the city as a potential living space. I already have 'stuff' in my parents' house in readiness for my arrival. Essentially, the place just started to feel like home again, and then we left.
We nearly didn't make it home, either, due to adverse weather conditions, but here we are. Everything was just as we'd left it and everything was where we wanted it to be, but I felt a strange sense of detachment about the place. Over the past few days that has changed somewhat, but it's still there to a certain extent. I think that part of it stems from a lack of sleep and also the absence of any real time for me to sit at home and resituate myself in my place, as I have been working these days to catch up from the holiday. So perhaps tomorrow it will be better.
But it is very strange, living in two places at once. Kind of like when I lived at my parents' house during the week and Andy's apartment on the weekends back when we were dating. But this time it's 3000km apart.