The Lake House

A shift in the weather from the super heat of summer to some cooler pre-fall temps seems to have ignited a bit of a shift in my emotional world as well.  Its coming up on a year (what?)  that my entire world changed…first for the better to be with the love of my life, THEN for the worse when I had to file personal bankruptcy and say goodbye to my home, life & puppy , then back to better as I journeyed East towards the Rocky Mountains and a  new, exciting life of opportunity and love, and FINALLY to a rapid descent into WORST when after only 3 weeks I was ceremoniously dismissed as girlfriend, best friend and 40-year plan.  No home…no furniture…no income.

Whew ~ that sounded really tiring.  I’m exhausted.

Hovering around worst for about 7 months, things started moving back up the charts towards better where they have manged to stay even or show slight glimmers of improvement.

THEN…

...just when you think its safe to tread the waters of the heart again, even a little, you find that bastard (we shall call him “Reality” )slaps you back down and says “no happiness is not for you – at least not yet”.  This confrontation with blasted Reality came after I had to say goodbye to my puppy Kozmo this past Monday.  He spent nine days here with me which seemed to fly by so fast, and as I was packing his things for his trip home with a friend (my friend Naomi, not one of his friends – dogs can’t drive; unfortunate) I found myself in the midst of a bawl-fest that I had not encountered in a few months.  On the floor, full-out sobbing like my world had just ended all over again.  When I was given the opportunity to re-connect with him again, I jumped in with both feet and whole heart – completely oblivious to that other asshole (known as “Heartbreak”) who was waiting for me at the end of the road.

The upside to this is that my heart (much like my other muscles) is on a 24-hour recovery timeframe which means I can rebound and actually function like a normal human being much faster than in previous months.  Since there is no protein shake for the heart, using my brain during the day was a distraction until Heartbreak (that fu**er) Nija’d me  & stabbed me right in the heart when I walked through the door to an empty house.

The lesson?  While I want nothing more than true love & happiness in my life, I’ve realized there are still small emotional sacrifices to be made & setbacks that will be encountered along the way.

I always seem to go off the beaten path to each destination.  Sure would be nice for the road to be paved for once.

During my time living in Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, I had the opportunity to hike the West Coast Trail.

Not once, but three times.

This most definitely remains the most difficult physical and emotional challenge that I have ever experienced.  The trail runs southeast along the west coast of Vancouver Island on a portion of what is known as The Graveyard of the Pacific which has claimed many ships and lives over the years due to the very unpredictable weather and rugged coastline.  My two eyes have seen some of the most beautiful beaches, forests, and scenery in British Columbia and the only way you can see this amazing place is on your own two feet, packing absolutely everything you will need to survive for an entire week or so.

No cars…no kids…no party animals with coolers, booze and boom boxes.

I have been hell bent on doing this trip one last time and had hoped to do that last year until my potential hiking buddy used his torn ACL as some lame excuse not to go   Then I thought I would give it a go in this Olympic year of 2010.  On my previous journeys (the last of which was 8 years ago), I had a very experienced and able-bodied partner/boyfriend/sidekick so it was all good.  I had a new sidekick lined up for this last trip, but apparently he had to have his holidays booked back in the year 1812 for the rest of this year, so he’s not able to experience the glory and torture with me – at least not yet.  This leads me to ask if this is something I should attempt to do on my own.  Let’s be clear about two things here – 1.  I have nothing to prove, and 2.  I am a bit chicken to try it all on my own. There’s that whole “I am woman, hear me roar” stuff, but I also like to think I am not a complete idiot (past choices in men not applicable here).  Call it an aversion to somehow falling to my death, getting sucked into the ocean never to be seen again (you remember Wilson, right?), or breaking a leg and being left to fend off the cougars, bears and wolves while I cling to consciousness and call out for my Mommy.  I would probably  just slather myself in peanut butter and hope that the meal is a quick one.   I have hiked this thing THREE TIMES and it is no longer about whether or not I CAN do it, but if I WANT to do it and relive the amazing, torturous, wondrous, life-altering experience that seems to keep drawing me back.  My preference would be to do it with a partner so that should I meet an untimely demise, someone is left to give me a proper burial at sea (okay, at the very least someone to share the experience with and drink with me at night by the campfire).

I shit you not – this is what it can do to a person.  Don’t believe me?  Watch the CBC documentary (posted below), keep reading and then see what you think smart-ass.

When I watch this video, I have to ask myself “why the fuck would I want to do this again”?  At about 5:30 in, you will see why.  It is a sordid, love-hate relationship with this trail and the places along its path.  If you really want to get to know someone,  especially a potential mate to spend eternity with, do this hike together.  This could possibly be the best pre-marital counseling you could ever ask for.  You have no choice but to really get to know what someone is truly made of.  You cannot hide anything on this trail.  Its probably also referred to as The Graveyard of the Pacific because this is where many relationships have met their demise.  Beaten against the rugged coastline and left to rot on the beach.  I can totally see it.

(BTW, the cable car across the river shown in this video is not all its cracked up to be. We ended up strapping on our all-terrain sandals and wading across after realizing we just didn’t want to do it again. Water was damn cold, but that cable car was a pain in the ass.  You will also note that the “fit” people on the trail had a hard time as well.  Totally different world when you strap on a huge pack and have to maneuver different terrain.)

This documentary looks as though it was done back in 2008, and the poor journalist guy has no idea what’s in store for him.  He is ready to pack it in after the first day, and believe me, I know where he’s coming from.  The only difference here is that we started on the HARD end first which is the Gordon River trailhead and worked our way back to Pachena Bay on the Bamfield end.  When you have never done this hike before, you have no idea what to expect, but thank God Danny did and made the suggestion to get the worst of it over with and end on a note of enjoyment.  It is the toughest thing I have done and makes doing something like the Grouse Grind seem like a stroll in the park.  The second time around, we did the same thing and believe me,  knowing what was in store was far worse than the initial unknown.  I like to equate it to knowing you are going to get ploughed into by a speeding train and there is not a damn thing you can do to get out of the way.  The third and final time, we figured we had conquered the trail in blazing fashion and had our harrowing tales of struggle and strife safely under our belts, so we decided to start out closer to home in Bamfield via a leisurely cruise down the Alberni Inlet on the MV Lady Rose.  After our traditional “last supper” at the local pub and the last comfortable bed for the next 10 days, we strapped on our gear and  hiked in about 55km of the 77km trail so we could strictly enjoy the beaches and spend a couple of nights along the way in our favourite spots.  Then we turned around and went back.  This made the trip 110km in total, but it is probably the way I would want do it again (or something along those lines – maybe even a bit shorter with more time to hang out and take pictures).  Quite frankly, I don’t care if I ever see the other end of that trail again.  Ever.  Mean it.

That being said, however, I would not trade having seen it for anything in this world.  Told ya it was a sordid relationship.

So, like Gerry McGuire once said:

who’s comin’ with me?

Have you ever had one of those truly epiphanic moments in your life where there is no question you are most definitely in the right place at the right time?  Well, I had one of those moments yesterday and it has lit a fire within. A few weeks ago, me and Ryan (my boss at Creative Roots Landscaping) paid a visit to the Arion Therapeutic Farm.

In short, the philosophy of the Farm is to create a safe and caring environment for special needs individuals that supports the development of new skills, increased independence, explores new opportunities and creates new abilities through recreation.  Therapeutic Farm activities include interaction with horses, Therapeutic Riding, interacting with small farm animals (Farm Discovery), Habitat Explorations, Nature Encounters, and opportunities for Groups and Birthday Celebrations.

Our company will be spending time at the farm helping with whatever landscaping, irrigation and construction jobs we can help with, and I will be volunteering my own time as a horse leader and side-walker among website, admin, and fundraising duties wherever I can help.  This is the shit that gets me excited in life, and the opportunity to work with the kids and horses couldn’t make me happier.

So, be prepared.  If I know you and know how to find you, I will be asking for help.  The farm is so new and the community awareness just isn’t there, so that is where I truly hope to help.  If you are a business owner and I know you, you can bet I will be asking for sponsorship of a horse for the year and anything else I can ask for.

If you don’t ask for things, how do you expect to get them, right?  All you have to do is ASK!

This is one of the most amazing and unique places I have had the pleasure of visiting, and the potential to help here is limitless.  Now all I have to do is find a really kick-ass allergy medication (did I not mention that I’m allergic to horses?) and I will be set.

Well, its Hump Day and I am still thinking about the amazing weekend I had.  Me and my BFF had a very relaxing time lounging by her pool on Saturday while we hydrated with pitchers of Mojitos and capped it off with an incredible steak dinner.  Definitely expanded my “cheat meal” into a “cheat day” but it was well worth it!  I can’t remember the last time the two of us hung out and did nothing but sun tan, drink, talk about boys and everything else under the sun, and simply RELAXED.  Both of our lives are so hectic during the week and with her hubby out of town watching the drag races, we capitalized on the opportunity to have some girl time.  Sunday involved a bit of family visiting and then we were back by the pool (sans the alcohol this time) where we both felt like we should be doing something more useful with our time.  That silly thought lasted about 5 seconds and we were back in hang-out mode until about 6 pm where the reality of making dinner and getting ready for the work week slapped us in the face.

This weekend is shaping up to be one of too many choices.

I have an opportunity for a quick road trip to Calgary for the last of Stampede as well as a chance to hook up with “K” when he lands here at the airport on Sunday night before heading home.  There is also the fact that the weather has sucked here the last couple of days and summer is back in full swing for the next 5 days.  This means more pool time.  I am trying to figure out a way to do everything (as usual) so we shall see what happens.  I bought some new workout toys yesterday and am kicking my fitness routine into high gear in preparation for a weekend of debauchery in Kamloops in a couple of weeks (during which I may not see the inside of a gym), so I have to weigh the trip to Calgary heavily.  The chance of hooking up with my most amazing trainer are slim as he typically does not work during Stampede, but I will ask nicely and see what he says.  I also have to ask myself if I am ready to go back to Calgary and that answer still is not clear to me.

No matter how I slice it, the weekend will be very interesting to say the least.

I had a week of sideways-ness that I would like to call The 4 S’s of Sideways (I missed one of these on my most recent Tweet -)

sheriffs…steamed mussels…a strip club…and sports

My week has been a bit of a Muppet Show to say the least.  It has definitely reminded me why I tend to not go out during the week with crazy friends and stay out past my bedtime.  It makes you very tired for work and we are grown ups with responsibilities dammit!

Oh yeah…I was also reminded why wine should be consumed moderately when you are not used to drinking and that you shouldn’t add Southern Comfort to the mix.  Anyone who knows me knows that the mention of Tequila or Southern Comfort on my part is a great indication the night is going sideways and I am to be rounded up and sent home immediately.

Back to the story.

A very good friend of mine – (we shall call him K to protect his identity as he happens to be a sheriff) was in town all week with a couple of his equally crazy sheriff counterparts.  Seems we don’t have enough law enforcement in this town so we have to import them from other cities.  Tuesday night, we hooked up at McCulloch Station Pub which is minutes away from my office to have some food and drinks.  I enjoyed the steamed mussels which I highly recommend to anyone – delicious.  While we were there, we had the displeasure of watching the Celtics get spanked by LA in game 6 of the NBA final.  I don’t follow b-ball much, but I despise Kobe Bryant so was rooting for the Celtics.  He ranks up there with my extreme distaste for Roger Federer and Alexander Ovechkin.  After the pub, we decided to go seek out some action on a Tuesday night.  Something must be going on, right?

Wrong.

After checking out a couple of other fine drinking establishments only to find that there really was nothing going on, we traveled all the way down the debauchery food chain into the strip club.  How this part of the evening happened  is somewhat unclear to me at this point.

What a dead zone.

So dead in fact that I almost took it upon myself to provide some entertainment.  I decided this would not be the best use of my time nor earn me much money since there were like 6 people there including us.  Apparently things don’t get rolling until later, so we stayed for a drink and the guys got restless so we left and ended our night at the Cactus Club. It was located within stumbling distance for the guys back to their hotel, so seemed like a good place to finish off the evening and there were actual living, breathing people in there.

Since it was a very long day for me already, I decided to make it longer by staying out until about 1 am.  Not a fantastic idea when you have to be at work early the next day and then go train a client.  Thank God for the workout as it helped breath life into my weary body and mind.

Fast forward to Thursday night which was this month’s designated Girls’ Night Out at Original Joe’s.  At least once a month I get together with my BFF and our other friend (we’ll call her L to protect her already sullied reputation ;-0…she knows I am joking!) at OJ’s since its half price bottles of wine.

Hello…McFly??  Need I say more?

Anyway, we go there to eat salad, share a bottle of vino and dish about everything under the sun.  It also happened to be K’s last night in town, so after we ladies packed it in at the late hour of 7:30 pm, I headed back to say adios to the boys.  They were, of course, at the Cactus Club.

This is starting to feel like Groundhog Day.

Place was packed as we all glued ourselves to the unfolding drama of a very close game 7 of the NBA final.  Much to my chagrin, LA won and Boston needs to go home and learn how to not take fouls and actually put the ball in net.  Not that I care much, but its hard not to get caught up in a sporting event that is so close until the final buzzer goes off.

My time getting home was a much more respectable 10:30 pm whereby I managed to crawl into bed around 11:30 or so.  Friday’s are also an early day at work for me but my wine consumption was minimal which helped when the alarm went off at 5:30 am.

All-in-all the week was tons of fun, and it only went slightly sideways.  Had it not been for being a work night and the fact we were all tired, I suspect it could have been much, much worse.  It was nice to get out and hang out with some friends, make some new ones, and be around hot sheriff guys while enjoying some harmless flirting and tons of laughs.  Next get together will be on their home turf where I have been invited to spend a weekend and party with a whole bunch of sheriff’s.  I agreed to this little outing on the condition that it does not become some lame attempt to set me up with someone.  Relationships are off my To Do list for now.

I will let that sit in for a minute while your brain tries to process.  I bet I can guess with Kreskin-style accuracy what almost all of you are thinking.

Not out of the realm of possibility is that it is what you are thinking, but for the purpose of this post, its something different.

For those of you that are close to me, you know that I just spent the last nine months dealing with a very difficult decision that I made in the Fall.  I paid my dues, was a good little girl, and now I am free from that burden.  I don’t need to share specifics for any of us to grasp that whenever you go through a challenge in your life that consumes so much of your thoughts, emotions, and time and you finally come back into yourself – its really like a rebirth.

Nine months.

I wonder what the next Nine Months has in store for me.

There is an old song from the 80’s by a band called Straight Lines called Letting Go.mp3.  I heard it on the radio recently and found myself waking up this morning with that song playing over and over in my head.  For those of you that are not familiar with the song, its basically about learning to let go of that great love in your life that is so easy to have around.  In this case, its about a person, but great love comes in many forms.

It could be a person, stuff, a beloved pet, your youth…take your pick.

I would like to believe that everyone at some point encounters their one, true “epic love”.  You know what I mean – the kind of love that gets so far into the depths of your heart and soul that you truly believe it could even transcend death itself.  Yes, I am still a hopeless romantic even after all that I have been through.

This could be a temporary lapse in emotional judgment, so just go with it for now.

What I have yet to mention is that this can go either way.  You can find your “epic love” and have true happiness in your life, or you can lose your epic love through no choice of your own and end up with a broken heart and a broken soul.  I would suggest that the latter of these two is the least recommended route to take if one can help it.

Whatever the journey you travel towards Letting Go, make sure it is a journey that is not just comprised of wallowing and self-doubt.  It should be a journey of self-discovery, lessons learned, and somewhere buried beneath it all, a renewed hope for what the future may hold.

I can hardly believe it is already May 13th and the end of the second round of Boot Camp before a much-deserved week off.  My plan for today (aside from the fitness test) is evil to say the least, but the workout is killer and they will thank me for it…one day.

So this leads me to ask the question, how do you want to live your life?  Do you want to be fit, or are you content to be fat?  I have had my own battles over the years, I’ll admit, but I cannot explain to you the difference when you make the commitment to YOURSELF to live an active, healthy lifestyle.  My body has changed so much in that I can no longer eat foods that I used to “enjoy” back in the day.  Let me narrow it down for you in a few short words:  processed, greasy, or fatty no longer agrees with me.  All I can say is…

Hell Yeah!

Through no particular plan of action, I noticed that I have completely eliminated bread from my diet with the exception of the odd occasion when I am dining out.  I did not consciously set out to do this, but I suppose since the five-day nutrition plan I follow does not have any bread/rice/pasta it just seemed to phase itself out of my eating.  Now, if you put an awesome sandwich in front of me, I will eat it (providing it is not on white bread), but I have no desire to make and eat a sandwich.  What the hell has happened to me?  I used to LOVE sandwiches.

My life goal is to be fit; more fit and awesome than I have ever been in my life at the age of 41 and I love the challenge I have given myself.  That being said, there is no room in my life for a partner that does not subscribe to the same philosophy.  Not pay lip service to it, but actually SUBSCRIBE to and live the philosophy of fitness.

Fakers and posers not welcome.

Let me clarify, I am not in the market for a partner (men totally suck BTW – well, one for sure), but I am just saying this in case a really cute guy happens to stumble across this article – in which case I may have to retract my “men totally suck” comment.  With the amazing weather now upon us, you really can’t justify staying indoors all the time to watch the boob tube (except for the hockey playoffs, but that’s it!).  I am going to use my week off from Boot Camp to hit the books and start Insanity as well as plan the workouts for our next session.

I may try a few new Clean Eating recipes too that I have been dying to do but just have not had the time.  I will let you know how it turns out.

So, yesterday after many, MANY attempts at a hook-up, I finally met up with my cyber-turned-real-life-new-friend Gillian (actually, we have met on one or two other occasions when we were both living in Vancouver) at a nifty Dim Sum place in Kelowna.  Now, it is nothing like how they rock the DS in Vancouver, but not all bad for K-Town I have to admit.  Maybe if we get all the transplants together we can force change in the Chinese food world out here.  It was my first time doing Dim Sum without the carts – just off a menu.  The company was great and so was the food.

After the food I decided that even though it was my “day off” from working out, I needed to punish myself for the “cheat meal” and met my brother and nieces for a great hike at Bear Creek.  We did a nice hike and then after they left I walked home the long way and it was awesome.  So hot and sweaty when I got home since it was like July here yesterday, but I felt awesome and had a nice shower and finished the chores that I have been neglecting for so long.  There is nothing more awesome than the outdoors on a great day, but that hike definitely needs to be done early in the day – like 7:00 am!

We are almost 3 official days into Spring and a week and a half into my Boot Camp.  The weather has been absolutely amazing and my muscles are feeling the burn of some hard-core workouts in the great outdoors.  This past weekend also marked the beginning of a 3-week visit from my dog Kozmo.  The emotional hibernation is officially over as its really difficult to feel blue when everything around you is experiencing a rebirth.  So, it only seems fitting that I join the proverbial club and get with the program.  I live on the lake, have a new job that I really enjoy, and am getting more work than I know what to do with.  The best part of all of this is the fact I am getting paid to exercise and help others reach their fitness goals 3 days every week.  Dont’ get me wrong – the new schedule is taking a bit of getting used to – but I would rather have way too much to do than too little.

I still reflect, sometimes wallow a bit for things in my life that I have lost, but I also am gaining a new perspective and attitude about things and life in general.  Out of the darkness always comes light, and the resilience of the human soul never ceases to amaze me.  Life can definitely kick your ass and the bruises never completely go away, but once you find acceptance and the ability to let go of the things that aren’t worth sacrificing your heart and soul for, those bruises don’t seem so bad any longer.