Dream Home

It really was a beautiful house. Made of rough stone, with ivy creeping up the side, a heavy wooden door, and even a cobblestone walkway through the garden. It really was perfect. It had met all of her requirements, and for that reason she was pretty sad to leave it. But the world is full of adventures and she knew eventually she'd come back.

At first she missed the house a lot, she was reminded of it often and remembered it fondly. But as time passed and months turned into years, the memory of the house gathered cobwebs in her mind that she would have to mentally dust off every so often when she reminisced.

Finally the time came for her to return from her travels. As the date drew nearer and people reminded her of her imminent departure, she realized how excited she was to reunite with the house. It once again occupied many frequent thoughts. She wondered if it had changed much, if the ivy had been cut back or left to grow wild. She wondered if the dent in the front door was still there or if it had been fixed...

Upon her arrival her excitement was hard to contain, and as she walked up to the gate, she paused to take it all in. It was just as she imagined it, just as she remembered it. Maybe even more beautiful. Just as she was about to open the gate, as if in synchronization the front door also began to open. From behind her favourite wooden door, with the dent no longer visible, stepped another beautiful woman looking perfectly at home.

Suddenly everything shifts into focus. As the one woman walks down the cobblestone path, she doesn't even notice the other standing at the gate. She takes one step off the path to remove the "SOLD" sign from the lawn. The woman at the gate is at a loss...this isn't her house...it never was...it had always been for sale...she didn't even put an offer down before she left...and now it was occupied, though only recently, and the opportunity was lost.

There is no happy ending to this story. The woman was left standing there, unable to go any closer than the white picket fence to which she clung, and her breath caught in her throat. She exhaled a unsteady sigh of loss and regret. Then she turned and walked away, hoping that soon, very soon, the cobwebs would return and cover any images left of the house in a thick grey haze that could not be swept away.

Someone

Someone who can read me
Someone who can hug me and make me feel safe
Someone who makes me laugh
Someone who isn't afraid to argue and make me cry
Someone who reads
Someone who knows that asking for help is a big deal and will drop anything on the few occasions when I do
Someone who can surprise me
Someone on time
Someone who will once or twice a year hold me while I have a really good cry
Someone who knows I'm strong, but will still do the heavy lifting
Someone who doesn't tuck the sheets in
Someone who takes risks
Someone who can handle silence
Someone who will kill all the spiders
Someone who leads

Someone like that is the someone I want :)

Philos

We all seem to run into this dilemma at some point in our lives where we all wish we could hear and say "I love you" more often, and yet we also don't want to diminish the meaning of love. I count myself among this frustrated number, and therefore find it helpful to distinguish between certain kinds of love. Love and "I love you" can mean countless things to different people, spark a range of emotions and cause people to act in a variety of ways. But just in regards to me personally, I think in its most basic sense, saying I love you means this: I care about you. I love many many things about you, and I unconditionally accept everything else. It means loyalty and respect and sometimes sacrifice. And I think this most basic, yet still powerful definition of love can be considered the love found in friendships. And then it is good to be reminded that 1 Corinthians 13 still applies even in the love found in friendships, that love is still real. So while I hope I do not use "I love you" flippantly, there are my closest friends who I really do love by this definition, and I feel no qualms about telling them so. I see no benefit in not telling people you love them when you do.

However, I can appreciate how things can sometimes get a bit hazy when friendship love crosses gender lines. And for that reason, I have found it helpful to define what I believe to be romantic love, by defining what friendship love is not....

Friendship "I love you" is not "I am in love with you"
Friendship "I love you" is not "I want to share the rest of my life with you, my home, my finances, everything"
Friendship "I love you" is not "I want to have a family with you"......and just for the record...
Friendship "I love you" is not "I want to have sex with you"
Friendship "I love you" is not "You past is my past, and I will carry your baggage as my own"
Friendship "I love you" is not "I am willing to put some of my dreams and goals on hold in order to pursue yours"

Now...if you and your friend feel any of the things on the above list about each other, then you have crossed the threshold into feelings of romantic love. On the one hand, congratulations for breaking out of the friend zone. I truly believe some of the best relationships begin as friendships, and I wish you all the best. On the other hand, if that's not what you're looking for with this friend, then I suggest you take caution, or, to quote Russell Peters: somebody a gonna get hurta reeeeal bad.

Lastly, the incredibly inexperienced love guru within me would like to draw your attention to one final point. Notice how the majority of things I mentioned pertaining to love are action words...acceptance, loyalty, sacrifice, patience, kindness etc. Furthermore, these are all choices, these are traits one chooses to emit. Which leads me to my strongest belief regarding love, and I've said this before. I do not believe love to be a feeling. Feelings are fleeting, feelings can fade, and feelings are sometimes out of our control. I believe love to be a choice, and that my good sirs is what gives the words "I love you" their weight.

Quotes from 2012

"Well its not like you were born in the Bronx, but...."
- Julia to Krista

Janelle: "Squares don't go bad do they? These have been in the fridge a long time"
Krista: "No they're fine"
Julia: "Wait!! Are they meat squares?!"

"I don't care, I'll spread em for whatever"
-Janelle

"She's tofu!! She adds nothing to any dish, she's got no taste. She's not even a bump on a log, she's a log without a a single bump!" - Andrea

"Wow, I'm a little bit offended. You don't even want to see my junk out of your peripheral?!" - Brendan

Julia: "Krista, do we have any spare lightbulbs in the house?"
Krista: "Yeah, in the storage room"
Julia: "Oh good!!......Krista, have you ever changed a lightbulb before?"

Laurel: "We need to think of a sexier nickname for Krista to replace Mom"
Julia: "How about milf?"

Jer: "Yeah, I like these gummy bears almost to the point where is my wife cheated on me and bought my 3 packs of these, it might be all good."
Krista: "Wow Jer"
Jer: "Okay, maybe 4 packs"

Janelle: "I feel like all the cool people do yoga, but I just can't find my inner self!"
Laurel: "One of my yoga teachers was super prego"
Janelle: "Oh my God!! I'd be so worried to sweat my baby out!"

"I'll have an extra drowned moose, like medium rare, just a quick dip" - Jon

"If someone wrote Iran in the place of Australia, I'd be confused" - Lindsay

"Well I'm not putting my pants back on" - Emily

"They're obviously fornicating" - Kenny

"Like snowballs, those aren't snow testicles" - Jon

"Wait, ALL CORN COMES FROM THE COB?!?" - Hannah

"Moon me!" - Emily

"He's a big black guy! Just have sex with him!" - Lindsay

Josh: "So what you're saying is that for an adult or child the point of the pocket mask is to go over their mouth and nose, and when its an infant the pocket mask goes on me?"
Krista: "No Josh haha, that is not at all what I'm saying"\

Hannah: Douche means shower!!
All: No Hannah no! (explains actual meaning)
Hannah: Oh no! I call people that all the time!!.........Shoot, what does tool mean?!

Kenny: "Luke, lick my wenis, apparently I shouldn't be able to feel it"
Kenny:"I definitely felt that"
Luke: "That's the first time I've ever licked a wenis"

Stef: " I feel closest to God when I'm nude" *Andrew walks in*
Andrew: " When you feel close enough to God, come join us in the loft"

"80 years, I think that's enough life" - Lindsay

Le fermier et la vache

Once upon a time there was a cow that lived wild and free in a meadow. Nobody owned her and she didn't owe anybody anything. Sometime though, the cow was lonely and this state was made ever more unfortunate by the fact that she was full to bursting with the most wonderful gift of milk that she longed to share.

Only a short distance away was this farm, I'm not sure what kind of a farm it was, only that it wasn't a dairy farm. On the farm, naturally, there lived a farmer, and wouldn't you know it, one day the farmer and the cow crossed paths.

Initially the cow was pretty stand-off-ish, and the farmer let her be, but continued to visit the cow from time to time in her meadow. He even made it possible for the cow to graze on his farmland whenever she wanted. Now the cow recognized quite a lot of goodness in the farmer and began to view him as a friend. He wasn't the same as a cow-friend, and he couldn't possibly ever know all their was to know about being a cow. He was a different kind of friend, but a friend nonetheless.

Gradually over time the cow began giving the farmer some milk. He never asked for it, but it just seemed like the natural thing to do, and the farmer always seemed very appreciative. Every so often the farmer would reciprocate the friendly kindness, in the form of an apple or other treat, or in the form of a heartfelt word. These occasions were much rarer than the milk-giving reverse, but each time they came to pass they would reassure the cow that there was a mutually beneficial relationship and that she wasn't being manipulated or taken advantage of for her milk. The cow often felt relieved in these instances, because truth be told she didn't want to stop giving away her milk. But she also didn't want anyone to accuse her of no longer being a wild and free cow.

She was still free. The farmer didn't own her now anymore than he did before. However, the cow knew that a change had taken place. She would miss the farmer is he moved away to another farm, or she to another field. And she would miss that fleeting feeling that occurred every so often when she grazed on the farm land. The feeling of belonging to someone besides herself. In a contrary fashion, (because she was a very contrary cow), she also hated these fleeting moments because they exposed her own vulnerability. A most confusing, terrifying and detestable state to be in.

Upon reflection the cow realized 2 things. Firstly, that over time she had come to depend on the farmer in a way, just for his very presence in her world. Secondly, she realized that over time she had given quite an awful lot of milk. Now, of this second point the cow felt no regret. After all, milk would do the cow no good just to keep it all bottled up inside. The point had always been to share that milk with others. But on that first point the cow sometimes fretted. Did the farmer feel any level of dependence on her and her presence in his life, or was there some inequality in that part of their friendship? The cow sometimes wondered why it seemed she was always the one giving and the farmer didn't seem to do a very equal job of returning the kindness. She wondered whether he had nothing to return, or whether he did and hadn't thought of it, or whether he did, and had thought of it, and decided against reciprocation. And then she wondered why she wondered all of this. She wondered why any of it mattered. She wondered whether she would or should have done anything differently to prevent the possibility of an imbalance.

Then she wondered something else, something altogether unlike her. She wondered if the farmer was receiving milk from any other cows. Her logical conclusion was that certainly yes he was, and this irked her for some unknown reason. Shouldn't couldn't figure out if it bothered her because she was therefore not an essential part of the farmer's world, or whether it was because there was the possibility other cow's milk might be preferred to her own. Or maybe she worried that she in fact just been a very naive and inexperienced business cow who had given her milk away for free while all the other cows were charging, or expecting something in return. She hadn't even considered that as an option. Why would she change for her milk? Wasn't free milk the best kind? And what if the farmer wasn't willing to pay anything for her milk? Well wouldn't that put a damper on things. And isn't that every cow's greatest anxiety? That no farmer would ever be willing to pay for milk?

And so what? She had a limitless field to graze in. She could go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. She could give her milk to whoever she wanted.

So why not free, to this farmer, for however long they remained in this friendship. And why not push aside all these confusing feelings and wonderings, they just get in the way, and to really delve into them could be dangerous or disappointing. Why go through that? Especially when no one's asking you to. Surely that would be stupid, and if there's one thing she was not, she was not a stupid cow.

Your Apathy is Killing Me

Your apathy is killing me and that isn't killing you
You see no difference in your indifference
And it doesn't make a difference if I do

I haven't changed, but I wish I had
So your change would be due
This whole thing is changing me and I wish that would change you

Why don't you explain yourself
I offer you every excuse I can think of
But I'm not worth the effort of a good lie

Your half-hearted attempts hurt more than rejection

I'm digging out the mask you helped me bury

Now in exchange for all my smiles
You help me paint a line on this face of "perfection"
An illusion you will compliment in your ignorance
You are blind, and I unbreakable

But you came to close
I was too close
We were so close
And now its closed

As the Wind Changes

I'm trying to hold onto things more loosely, to not clutch everything so tightly to my chest. Still I'm terrified at any moment all of this will disappear. I've never been scared to start a new chapter of my life. Anxious-excited: yes, but not this gnawing dread. I fear that God's breath is just going to whisk away all of these plans, all of these people that I'm desperately trying not to become too possessive of.

A part of me knows that some of these people were only ever meant to be in my life for a season, to walk a leg of the journey with me, and that God will bring new people into my path as the wind changes.

I have to change my reaction from clenching my fists, to turning empty palms open, placing myself in a vulnerable position, waiting to see what's next.