Lately

The past several weeks have been a giant blur. Can I use that as an excuse for why I haven’t been blogging, like, at all? It’s because it’s all felt like only a couple of days. It’s also because of my crazy brain and my apartment chaos and because I’ve been having a whole boatload of teary goodbyes.

But now, I can breathe a little bit. When I decided to come home for a couple weeks before I leave for my big trip, it was mainly because my best friend needed to be in the city this weekend, and I had no real other obligations, so I decided why not? Now that I’m here, though, I am so grateful that I have this little pocket of time at home, to calm down a little and prep for the next big thing.

So how have I been filling my time? Photo essay time!

Okay, so as soon as school ended, I began packing up my apartment and selling or throwing out as much as possible. At the worst, it looked something like this:

Dear me. That was bad. But day in and day out (anytime I wasn’t working, or doing the requisite amount of socializing with my friends in the beautiful city) I purged and sorted and packed and it was great! By the time my family came up for my convocation ceremony, I had a pile of stuff for them to take and not *too* much left to deal with. Check out a highly accurate photo of how I was feeling about graduation/moving out of my apartment:

Note the happy/sad, bemused/terrified, bittersweet facial expression I have going on up in there. Complexity, bam.

I enjoyed my ceremony. It wasn’t overly long, I didn’t trip on anything, and as usual at things like this I teared up a little during some of the speeches. My whole life is opening up in front of me, and such! Afterwards, I took some photos with my beautiful family and rounded up some buddypals to participate. It was fun.

The fam drove home, and left me to my own devices for a couple weeks more. I spent it selling furniture, packing, attending Beer Fest, hanging out on my friend’s balcony watching a thunderstorm, relaxing in parks, and generally just saying goodbye to my beautiful neighbourhood.

I had my last shift at my job of two years. I hugged my coworkers goodbye and cried. I had my last happy hour at my favourite bar. I packed all my stuff. I sold my bed. I cleaned my apartment very thoroughly. In the end, there I was:

It was kind of a strange time. I spent my last night in Montreal (for now) sleeplessly, on my best friends’ couch, doing not so much sleeping and a lot of staring (blindly, sans glasses) out at the sparkly city (they have an incredible view). In the morning, we picked up the rental car, packed it up, and I handed in my keys to my apartment of 2 years and drove out of the city.

And with that, I am home. In two weeks, I have my flight out to Croatia. In case you’re wondering, I am still super nervous for my trip. But one of the things I’ve been doing since I’ve been home is sorting through all my old junk I’ve had stored in my childhood room. And today I found a note I wrote myself about my decision to go to McGill: at the time, it was a big, scary decision for me. In it I wrote that I needed to “have courage, my love” and that “I am doing this because I want to scare myself”. And that’s exactly why I’m taking this trip too. If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough, right?

I’m gearing up for my Great Safe Adventure. But I’m also trying to relax and spend time with my family and enjoy my summer days here in my hometown. Hope you’re all having lovely summers so far! xo.

Excited about some mini-adventures coming up in the next month. I’m going to Ottawa with friends for Winterlude, which promises to be cozy and homey and lovely. And then a few weeks later, one of my best friends from home is going to come visit me!

Reading Flannery O’Connor’s short story collection “A Good Man is Hard to Find”. I’m enjoying these slightly dark, well-written stories, and having fun Googling their analysis after I read each of them to see if I can gain more from each one.

Watching Django Unchained – I’m halfway through as we speak! It’s very Tarantino, but considering that I love his movies, that’s not an issue for me. I am really enjoying it so far, I think it’s disturbing but at times funny and very clever. We’ll see how I feel about it when I get to the end and read a few articles of different perspectives on it.

Thrilled that I learned how to manually set my white balance, and thrilled about how my photos are coming out a million times better with just this one simple trick.

Planning my trip to Europe, one small little piece at a time.

Proud that I’ve been keeping to a sleep schedule for the past week or so and that because of it, I’m getting more time in the mornings.

Trying to enjoy wintery details, like being cozy inside with a prime view of beautiful snowstorm flurries, or the crystalline frost pattern on one of my windows every morning.

Journalling to stay grateful and in the present moment instead of pining for the past or trying to control the future.

Texting my best friends at all hours of the day and night has been such a lifeline.

Considering baking this caramel date loaf with the leftover dates I have from those Larabars.

Obsessed with Olivia’s and Max’s photography.

Making lists on lists on lists to tame my crazy brain (works every time).

Pondering what my next creative endeavour will be – knitting has temporarily worn me out.

Happy that it’s sunny today, that I am loved, that I have so many people to love.

Feeling tired, but happy.

Experimenting with the perfect smoothie formula (to great success so far).

Reading Ghostwritten and Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism and loving both for different reasons.

Shooting only in Aperture Priority mode as much as possible.

Giddy about seeing my family + cats later today.

Perfecting my morning run routine.

Writing lists upon lists upon lists in my new favourite notebook.

Brainstorming vegetarian Thanksgiving dishes (with help from Pinterest!).

Drinking a lot of chai tea.

Having really bizarre dreams (as usual, for me).

Scoring free brownies at work!

Enjoying the non-cracked screen on my replacement iPhone.

Proud of all the great content my section is publishing lately on Leacock’s.

Needing a mini-vacation, cat cuddles, some pumpkin pie.

Improving at my job waitressing (and that makes me happy).

Grateful for my small pseudo-family of great friends that help me make this place a home away from home.

Feeling like the days are blurring together.

Excited that I got out of bed early (for me) this morning.

Loving my (expensive but worth it) new Under Armour sports bra.

Looking forward to reading the next book club book.

Smiling.