I've been told to relax. Several times, by differing people in differing circumstances, but said in the same way. Yet, I don't know how. I've seen too much and not even a pocket amount of what the actual reality is in this world. I just don't know how. How does one relax when so many people suffer and hurt and starve and die in this world. How does one shut their eyes and purse over and over to the pain which is living in the streets outside their door in one of the richest countries in the world, let alone to ones war torn and famished. I've learned to walk by pretending to not see, to wear an appearance of too busy to hear. It's overwhelming. I used to look to a higher power to trust that my sadness and prayers were being heard that faith would deliver the tools needed for the marginalized and impoverished to soar victorious over their addictions, and circumstances. I used to offer a listening ear, and arms to embrace the un-embraceable, I used to give my time to look into eyes and try to share pain and let them know that they were at least not alone in their journey.

Now I do so little. Now I've become cynical and hard and uncaring and unbelieving. There is no solace with my self-put blinders, no calm in my busy-ness to the mission of Paige, no joviality or even peace in the forced absence of thought of others less fortunate than myself. And therefor I cannot relax. I don't know how to not blow things out of apparent proportion, (according to those telling me), I don't know how to not feel that the responsibility of this world weighs in on me or the guilt which comes with my lack of doing, or lack of acknowledgement.

It's a trickle down effect in the world of Paige: world issues and things of justice and human rights. They silently weigh and build and effect and stress even when I'm trying so hard to not be concerned. They hide in every crevice and shadow and whisper to me at the most inappropriate times. I become a wet blanket in times of fun and carefree, I'm the cliche rain on the cliche parade. I'm sorry to those that this has affected. I know that it's unhealthy in theory, I suppose that there are under-lining issues and this is perhaps a mask to something else, even Jesus himself said there would always be the poor as he defended Mary breaking her jar of priceless oil over his feet. Or perhaps, just maybe, I should be affected and moved, and even allow myself to let others to be made uncomfortable too. But, I really don't know; and therefor, I can't yet relax.

There has been one constant this past year which hits me each day. I'm going the wrong way. Literally. I'm forever pushing through mobs of people heading in the direction I am leaving. My stubbornness out-weighs normal human practicality. Normal people don't live in the Old Port and work in NDG, normal people live in NDG and work in the Old Port, or so the traffic patterns of the metro seem to say. The same went with my French classes which were in Verdun, as each morning I was a fish swimming up stream through the masses heading to their work destination, and then having the same tide hit me on the way home. Public transportation has not been the only voice to sound out against my rebellion to norms, and definitely not the first. It is deeply rooted, this inherent need for me to stand out against the others. It's been with me since childhood, dressing me weird in most senses, yet consequently saving me from becoming a Shania Twain-listening, wrangler-wearing, rodeo-going cowgirl, the fate of one born and raised in small-town Alberta farmland during the 90's

I just want to lie limp for a little bit. An exhausted shell of a balloon, flabby and stretched too much from too much air forced into it. Oh God, I was that tight inflexible balloon unable to stretch more, unable to hold all that was being forced into me. I crashed down crazy-like and am just now finally "getting it" understanding what the hell just happened. How was I able to break, and not just break, but shatter like the glass I had only just touched at work the other day. The most flexible have breaking points; the most seasoned athlete suffers from over-use injuries. That glass at work, all I did was touch it and it exploded everywhere, embedding tiny shards of glass all over me and the restaurant. But how many times was that glass heated and iced before it came to that point where just a touch decimated it. Pressure's a crazy bitch.

I broke; I shattered. I committed hara-kiri publicly disemboweling myself for an end. There was no logic in the choices made, just as there is no rhyme or reason to the balloons hurl-y decent. But I am done with punishing myself. I am done with trying to raise the dead; I am done with explications and painting pictures in the rain with sidewalk chalk. I am done, and I am just going to lie limp for a little bit.