I don’t recognize myself anymore. The Paige before…I don’t know how the hell she did the things that she did. I am unable to make the simplest of decisions. I don’t have a shower curtain because I can’t commit to one I like. I flood my bathroom each morning, I’ve returned 2 and have lost hours searching bathroom stores for something so simple and necessary. I’m stressed over the smallest things. And people are noticing. I was told by a stranger that "yoga would do me good...to loosen me up a bit..." she wasn't referring to my flexibility.

I’m concerned: I’m broken; I’m outdated. I’m a typewriter missing pieces. Even if we can find salvaged pieces, is it really worth fixing? It’s a typewriter. Made obsolete by the computer, it’s not old or cool enough to be considered retro, and far from being a valued antique. Ya, I’m feelin' a little typewriterish lately, or a BetaMax, remember Beta? *chuckle*, insert moment of Hofer family pride here, The Hofers bought the VHS when so many others didn’t. Too bad soo sad Dafoe Family. (hehe)

Before last year…everything's vague. My life in Kamloops. Every now and then I’ll flashback or have waves of moments roll over me. It really is like waves, and the reaction of emotions are so strongly different, they collide, smash together, spray everything and then rush away carrying with them all little traces of footprints.

I wonder when this despicable feeling sorry for myself will end? It’s crippling. It grabs on you and pulls you down. You don’t even realize it has a hold on you until you find yourself fighting to climb back up and you realize then just how far you've slipped down.

I'm hungry. I'm Waiting for my friend to find me. I'm sitting on a trendy armless chair with circles in it's pattern in the Palais de Congres. It's a connecting place. Metro Place D'Armes is before me, and an escalator going up connecting to the Hall Vigor behind me. I'm only meters from my Apartment. We are going to eat Duck in Chinatown. I love Duck. They make me happy when alive and they taste so good when they're, well, not so alive. I know a terrible terrible terrible thing to say for a person who once was vegan.

to marathon or not to marathon, that is the question

So there's this guy who has been trying to get me to run a marathon for cancer. A marathon-42 kms and something that's been on my bucket list for several years. Forgive me for using that term, bucket list, I personally hate it since Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman made it pop culture vernacular and I have sworn to do whatever it takes to evade it from ever crossing my lips. It's not so much that it's a term made popular by a mediocre movie only good for passing time while in-flight when the only other option is Sex in the City 2; but that it's a term popular most notably among our North American Baby Boomers. It's one of those terms I feel you must be 50 plus to use and when used you say it with a twinkle in the eye because you feel you just said something especially witty. But you didn't say something especially witty. You just watched a movie-and not even a good movie. You can't even pass it off as your own creative term, the world has seen this movie-hell it's got Jack Nicholson in it.

Admittedly I have a particular angst and even vengeance towards the term, and have made my own personal conclusions that people who choose to use it are unoriginal, uncreative, and lack intelligence. Sorry for being blunt, I have no intentions of critically offending any bucket-list-term-users. In all honesty, the real reason is one person whose personality clashes with mine used it, and I can't get the image of that person and his twinkling baby-booming eye out of my head, ruining the term and it's users for life.

Anyways, I digress, back to marathon running for cancer. I was at work, I am a part-time waitress working only a few days a week. I had just finished and was talking with the other waitress, she was explaining to me how sore she was after having gone for a run for the first time in a long time. She figured it was 10K. A customer at a table behind us was apparently listening and asked her where she had ran. She proudly detailed her route to him and he countered with an, "oh that's only 7 K, I've run that same route". Haha! I thought that a particularly jerky thing to interject being an uninvited, eavesdropping stranger.

Despite our new-found listener, we continued talking the subject, I mentioned I always wanted to run a marathon, and for a while was disciplined to run at least 3 times a week, my run long run getting to 20km. Our (lonely) fellow-running-eavesdropper piped up again, this time ripping open his coat like superman to reveal one of those badly designed, poorly fitted, team shirts with something like "run for cancer" written and said with an unconstrained exuberance of how I should join their team to run for cancer in Rome, in March.

That excited me, the whole situation seemed somewhat "predestined", (shall I be so bold as to use such a christianese word borrowed from a time in my life when I once over-spiritualized everything?) I talked more with our high-on-endorphins super-hero-running-man and after gleaning a few more details from him, I gave him my email address and was determined that by March I'd be in Rome running 42km of some of the worlds most historic cobblestone. (Maybe by then, my conscience will have matured and I will feel compelled to return the pieces of marble belonging to various ancient ruins I had auspiciously stolen in 2007).

Even with all the signs that this is the opportunity I've been looking for-I'm free, in an almost cliche 'eat-pray-love' sort of way; there are people who speak English on the administrative level (a rarity with this city); it's a GREAT way to meet friends-something I don't have within a 100km radius; and it's raising money and awareness for cancer-my dearest and oldest friend just lost her new husband and father of her new baby to Cancer, it was tragic beyond words and tears and I was too far removed, unable to be of any support for her, this is extremely timely and relevant to me, an opportunity to LIVE STRONG for her and her family on the other side of the country. There's really too many pluses and reasons to list, but I've still been struggling with whether or not I am able to do it, and it has nothing to do with the distance.

That guy, who I presume would end up being my mentor has been emailing me regularly, not letting me back down-it's making me almost somewhat suspicious that I'm perhaps involved in some sort of multi-level-charitable-organizational-marketing thing-is that even possible? I think I have to raise over $6000.00, which does seem daunting, especially since I don't know anyone in this city to pander to. I'll have to be creative and professional about the fund-raising tactics, penny and bottle drives probably won't cut it. Then of course there's the time investment. I need to invest time to train as well as time to fund-raise. I begin full-time French courses tomorrow and work 3-4 nights a week, and although I may not know many people here, I do have one relationship I value and this would be tough to juggle it all.

It's been about 4 days since I started to write my thoughts down about this opportunity. I was really torn and my head was having a hard time wrapping itself around the idea of being a part of an organization which raises funds and awareness for cancer through running marathons in different areas of the world. Ive spent far too many years in a world where fat pastors and Gods greedy "anointed" ask for remuneration for "God's" work while said work involves flying around the world being a Jesus superstar, regurgitating scripted preaches with lights low and music mooded right for the thousands of paying seekers of truth to get emotional goosebumps. (note: I don't believe this applies to all pastors and ministers, I have so many dear friends truly being lead with a heart of gold broken for the broken willing to lay their lives down for people they consider lost, however, I have also seen men and worked alongside men, whose hearts are lead by ambition and through charisma and rhetoric climb the ladder of peoples trust and make themselves national and international names spreading their agenda of worship-me belief system. oops..too harsh? I think not. But I guess that's for another entry).

So digressing again, I have decided to start at least with the introduction meeting, it's tonight just down the street from me. It really isn't every day one gets the opportunity of having a team of endorphin-filled, friendly english speakers backing you in a city of millions, encouraging you, not letting you quit before crossing that important something from your list of things to do before kicking the bucket. Or as Jack Nicholson famously termed-The Bucket List.

My moods are a fat kid on a trampoline. I don't know if I blame hormones, circumstances, or mental instability. 2 days ago I was giddy-giddy. I had excitement and happiness bubbling inside me. You could not bring me down. I wore a smile that stretched ear to ear. I'd realize I was smiling in places no one else smiled, like the bus and metro, and that would just make me laugh thinking how out of place my happiness was, which would only make me more out of place, a person smiling to herself is one thing, but a person laughing to herself, well that's just crazy. Montreal people don't smile, they look at you, they study you, but they don't smile. That day I worked, I was having a blast with myself, my tables loved me, I had people wanting to be my friend, I had people buying everything I suggested, from drinks to appys to desserts. My tip percentage was over 25.

The day previous I couldn't have been any lower. I had just moved into my new apartment in Old Montreal. It's beautiful really. A studio, so small, but the location can't be beat. I have stainless steel appliances, granite counters, a curvy shower curtain rod, and instead of a wall, I have windows.

But I was scared. I was discouraged. Even-though I was paying $300/month less than what it normally rents, I was still paying $600 more than my previous room-mate situation. Because it was a lease transfer, I had to deal with the fact that the previous tenant was allergic to cleaning and the Pepto-Bismal-coloured spill splashed all over the kitchen floor initially thought to be yogurt refused to be wiped up. (Only after hours of chiseling away at it with my only knife has my floor returned to the beige (now somewhat scratched) ceramic tile it is meant to be-still can't figure out how something so pink could be so ridiculously hard to remove).

I was having a temper tantrum. My cabinets and wood floors are cherry-wood coloured, vs the more chic and preferred espresso-(I would have also taken white. Those that know me know my love for insane-asylum all-over white colour schemes). My stainless-steel appliances are mis-matched-a Frigidaire fridge and stove, but GE microwave and dishwasher; my kitchen faucet-boring; my light fixture missing it's cover; closet space-non-existent. My wall of windows, instead of looking out into Montreal's gorgeous skyline from the 17th floor, I look into a disheveled court-yard of 2-year-old construction paraphernalia and neighboring 17th floor apartments and offices.

I sound like a spoiled rotten brat, and perhaps I am, but here's my justification: I gave my life, every thought, every dollar into my houses. I own houses. I own nice things-in BC. I lost my 20's to hard work and shoulder breaking responsibility better matched for a 40 year old. I owned businesses, I made a fool of myself in-front of bankers and realtors not taking no for an answer. I moon-lighted as a waitress, I worked 7 days a week for years straight. Pushing forward my husbands dream of being a real-estate mogul, and rich. My part of the deal, my share in this was the buying power. I had no buying power outside of the houses, no freedom for a specialty coffee, or new shoes. But I was able to make somewhat convincing arguments on my apron-front fire-clay sink, my industrial kitchen faucet, my vintage light fixtures purchased from flea markets. And now here I am in my executive studio apartment only 2 years old on the 17th floor above the Hilton in the Old Port of Old Montreal, powerless again. I have no control over this unexciting floor plan, the cheap expensive-looking appliances, the cabinet colour which was out-dated at-least 7 years ago. I can't even sand down and repair the hardwood floor which seems to have been raped with scratches.

The worst of it all is that this stuff upsets me, that I'm bothered by such pettiness, that people live in the streets warmed by cardboard and I'm frustrated with the rust at the bottom of my fridge and dishwasher because the previous tenant didn't look after them, that my general "feelings" of happiness can be moved based on the style of my kitchen faucet.

I have so many reasons and excuses for why these superficial things bring me down. I blame my childhood home, a mere shack of 2 bedrooms for a family of 6, falling down and in constant disarray. I reason with my childhood, my adolescence and my young adulthood worth of summers lost due to the building of a house which would never see completion. My houses, my home, my style, I fought for my freedom to express through them. It took years to get to the place where I was willing to risk the consequences of spending my money, to exert my preferences, my opinion, to ask for what I wanted and to not quickly take it back with a mouthful of sorries to quiet a controlling and easily angered husband. Something so silly was so important. Something so silly represents everything though of who I am, and how I spent my life, the battles fought and lost and the few that were won. There's a sadness now as I stare at my naked windows, sitting on a borrowed air mattress-my only furniture, realizing that 6 provinces away in a storage room in a home I spent 5 years tearing out every nail every last piece of plaster and old electrical wire sits a decades worth of my things, dishes, furniture, curtains, my contribution to a marriage broken, to a partnership severed. To hopes, to dreams, to goals incomplete.

That day that I was happy, I don't know if I chose to be happy, or if my brain just decided to see things differently. But I was happy because I felt in control again. I felt the world was once again in my hands and the options endless. That circumstances and partners, and bosses no longer had control of me, that I was making the choices, and the choices were endless. I was free. I may have lost so much, half of me may have died even, but there was half of me living and that half part of me which was dead I was no longer going to let drag me down.

Sitting in a Starbucks all by myself. Completely unsatisfied. Miserable even-perhaps. I am a wining crybaby. I am a certain friends mother when we moved her and she didn't know where she wanted the computer desk. We moved it to the Kitchen corner, "no not there, because of blah blah blah..." so we moved it to the living room, "no not there, because of blah blah blah...," so we moved it downstairs...same thing, we moved that stupid desk to every possible place it could fit, and she was never satisfied. She only knew where she didn't want it, she had no solutions to offer, only complaints, she was unhappy with every option, she was unpleasable. I am that woman lately. An eye keen to every problem, to every small nic in the paint. I can point out every problem in every situation. That is not who I am.

I am exaggerating-I hope. I'm too proud to admit that sort of weakness in me. It's one of my most hated characteristic in an individual-that which I just described. I am creative, happy, adventurous, I take extreme pride in my out-of-the-box problem solving skills. I am completely non-conventional and only see possibilities. So what happened? Why would I dare compare myself to the lady barking out no's to the people kind enough to move her desk from wall to corner to room from room? That I do not know. All I know is that here I sit, lack luster. Blah. I drank my coffee too fast and my gingerbread cookie which was chosen after an inappropriately long time, should have instead been the chocolate espresso brownie I had initially planned on ordering.