Pealing laughter,
Colour coming back into the world,
Plans for the future,
Late nights,
Early mornings,
Compliments,
Stolen moments,
Wishing,
Hoping,
Breathing,
Living;
Love.
.
.
.
-L
<3
Changing Seasons
The clouds come
Bleak as always.
The leaves drop,
The nights chill.
The coolness contagious,
Always calling to some part of me;
Begging me to join.
To exist in the cool, the grey, the bleak.
To forget the warmth of the sun
And the joy of living.
To drown in the changing seasons and to let them drag me under with them.
Will I let them?
Should I let them?
.
.
.
-L
I Wasn’t Ready
I woke up today,
Mad at the trees for knowing when to change their colours;
For allowing the seasons to change.
Gone is their warm green splendour
Turned a golden autumn hue.
Cool nights, cooler mornings.
Hellos, goodbyes.
New beginnings, farewells.
The sweetness of summer replaced with the crispness of fall.
The seasons don’t mind readiness, they’ll come and go without us.
I wasn’t ready.
.
.
.
-L
Anxiety
My mind spirals again,
Thoughts streaming around like smoke trying to find a crack.
A crack in the work I do daily to hold it all together.
But now the work seems as if mortar to bricks;
Fallible over time.
I’ve no leg to stand on.
Only one constant:
Anxiety.
.
.
.
-L
A Beginning Without You
The leaves start to fall,
It’s August.
The mornings are cool,
The winds are changing.
Blowing in fall crispness,
And another autumn in my heart.
Preparing for the end,
A beginning without you.
It feels impossible that the cool chill will come without the warmth of you in my life.
How did we get here?
Again.
Our own dreamland.
All good affairs must come to an end.
.
.
.
-L
I Don’t Want to Know
What would it be to live without you?
At this point I don’t want to know.
My life was dark before I met you
And you were the brilliant sun.
Why would I even want to consider going without those sunny days,
though now they are few and far between.
Infusing me with warmth still to this day,
I live for those sunny days.
Dreadful though the following cloudy days may seem,
the momentary gleam is worth any darkness.
One day, perhaps the darkness won’t be so suffocating;
perhaps you won’t be the only ever-present sun.
Until then,
I don’t want to know.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L.
Waiting
I can’t wait for you anymore.
Not in dreams,
In sleeping,
Not at midnight.
Yet still, I will.
For you, I’d wait an eternity,
For our inevitability- forever.
You’re that missing piece of my soul so how could any wait be too long?
How could I not wait when you keep coming back to me?
I’ll be there.
I’ll meet you at midnight.
I’ll keep waiting.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
You Again
Here you are again,
Meeting me in dreams.
Dreams that try to blur reality
But the harshness of daylight takes no prisoners.
Meeting you in dreams,
Again,
Feels like finally being able to breathe;
Feels like the missing piece of my soul has clicked back into place.
It’s better than any high a drug could offer me.
It’s because I’ve never loved anyone as much as I loved that boy, that you, that us.
Love that strong lingers and now spans decades.
Hopefully it reaches across dimensions and lifetimes to others where we stay together and the fates are kinder to us.
Dreaming you,
Again,
Is a sweet torture unlike any other.
Midnight texts from you feel similar.
Wishing, always wishing, that goodbye could have meant forever and that we wouldn’t have entered this limbo.
Wishing that reality wasn’t so harsh that my subconscious pulls you to me to soothe my ragged edges and give me comfort I find only in dreaming of you,
Again.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Thanks, December
I want to die again
Thanks, December.
The year weighing heavily on me;
The new one even heavier.
The sins of the past,
The mistakes of the future.
Digging myself out or digging myself under?
Time passing me by,
Life drifting on its way.
Here I stay,
No longer moving forward.
Always looking behind,
Stuck dreading ahead.
Trying to breathe through the fog I feel in my soul.
Maybe next December.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you are thinking of suicide there is help available. In Canada call 9-8-8.
How Much Longer/Killing Me
Is it killing me quickly or killing me slowly?
Killing me,
Regardless.
Squeezing the air from my lungs,
Dulling all colours to grey;
Killing me.
How long can I go without breathing full breaths?
How much longer without a good night’s rest?
My soul slowly being dragged down to the dirt as the last of my breath leaves me.
Leaving only this ache in my chest,
Killing me.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
There are resources available if you are thinking of suicide or self harm : https://findahelpline.com
Glass House
I feel like I’m living in a glass house; like everyone walking by me can see me falling apart, can see the hole in my chest, and can see how much of a wreck I am.
Because of you.
I can’t let people close to me, I can’t let them in.
They might take one look at my tired eyes and see right through me.
They might see all this pain,
This turmoil,
These crashing waves.
They might see it all.
The hopelessness of never seeing dawn again after this darkness.
The wishing, the waking, the wanting.
The waiting.
Waiting for this grief I live in to overwhelm me for good and to take me away,
Away from this glass house.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Panic Attack / Through Me
I can feel this anxiety crashing through me
Like a tumultuous storm.
Pushing, pulling, raging
Through me.
Energy looking for an exit.
I can taste it on the back of tongue,
Acrid and thick like thunder and lightning.
Looking for an exit,
Building until it breaks me.
The waves rushing through me;
Tears from my eyes,
vomit from my mouth,
sobs from my soul.
Taking my breath away, the weight sitting on my chest.
Anxiety turned to panic and back again,
As the waves recede.
The seas remain unsettled and the clouds hang thickly, waiting to build again and
Storm
Through me.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Homesick
Home to me was never a place,
Always a feeling.
I let you in and
Then
Home had a center again.
It had its own gravitational pull.
I wanted to be home all the time.
Without you in my life,
Except for one month out of the year,
Wanting to go home becomes excruciating.
I want to go home.
Since home became a person,
I’ve never truly had a home.
I still have yet to find one,
My mind and body still yearning for you;
For home.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Dragging/Carrying
Every September, here you come again.
Here to drag my heart around:
Down the roads we used to drive,
Through the fields we used to farm,
Over the couches we used to kiss on,
Around the sunlit days we used to fall in love.
Dragging.
Bruised and sore, but willing nonetheless.
Is it really dragging or
Perhaps pulling;
Carrying.
I’d follow you and memory lane anywhere.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
You Always Come Back to Me
I made my therapist cry today; explaining how this makes me feel, even all these years later.
Like grieving a best friend’s passing and missing them like missing a part of you. Until one day the wound heals and you don’t miss them quite as much.
Then suddenly you get the opportunity to talk to them, to hear they’re okay.
I’ve never been able to turn down the opportunity.
Neither have you.
I don’t miss you ever as much as I miss you every September.
You always come back to me in the fall.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Surrender
My raggedy heart beats against the shores of my chest,
Beaten by the waves of you.
Tide in; tide out.
Riding the waves,
Waving for surrender.
But you don’t see the white.
Worn, torn, tired.
Steady and relentless in all the best and worst ways.
Never taking it easy on my raggedy heart.
I’ll be ready when you are.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Tired of Dreaming
Even my tired brain stays awake to think of you.
With you.
Without you.
What my life has been and what it could have been.
Thinking of full moons and you.
Awake and sleeping- dreaming.
Always of you.
Always in the fall.
Wishing for and hating goodbye.
I’m tired of this life, of you, of life without you.
So tired of dreaming.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Dreaming You
A dream I have every so often is a reunion with you.
We’re both 18.
It feels like we’ve found a spot where the film between lifetimes and dimensions is so thin that we’ve slipped through.
I look across to the passenger seat of my old car and there you are.
It feels like yesterday; your hug feels like it’s today. The ache I feel is gone and the piece missing from my soul has clicked back into place. I can breathe again. Never has any hug felt so good and I can’t imagine another one ever will.
Waking without you is either the most searing pain or like the calm after the storm. I never know which it’ll be and still I’d dream this dream one thousand times.
Maybe I already have.
Until the next lifetime, I’ll be seeing you; dreaming you.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
A Bleeding Heart
The waves of missing you come steadily as ocean waves against the shore, every few heartbeats one belongs to you.
4,000 kilometres away and I still feel it.
“Happy birthday…”
And my heart bleeds again, always for you.
Crying between palm trees, turning thirty.
A decade apart and still we repeat the saga and maintain the tether.
Some part of us needs these waves.
I wish the ocean would keep its own salt water; it can take it off my face,
And that waves were only for water.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Exchange
I’d cut September out of the year like I’d cut this heart out of my chest and give it back to you.
I’m tired of aching.
Even one month is too long.
This missing and longing is nine years too late.
Waking,
Sleeping,
Dreaming,
Missing.
Take it away.
Take September, you can have it.
I’ve had plenty without you now but still my heart forgets this fact.
Let me have my heart back- it beats in your chest as this one does for you.
Let’s exchange hearts and you keep September.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Miss Me Less
You miss me. I can hear it in your voice.
Every time you wish me kisses for my birthday, are you wishing me yours?
Will this tether we have ever let us go?
I need to breathe in September.
Missing you while awake and while sleeping won’t let me.
I miss you too.
That’s the great divide.
September comes yearly and with it comes you.
Miss me less next year.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Thirty-something
I’m thirty now and soon you will be too.
I can’t help but be eager for these Septembers to change, for September to just be a month again.
I’ll be thirty-something when the melancholy and the memories fade.
I’ll hate it but I’ll need it.
Maybe one year soon we’ll skip a birthday. By we, I mean you, because you’ll have to miss mine first.
My thirty-something birthday can celebrate forgetting and forgiveness.
One less text message is all it takes.
So I’ll be here, waiting to turn thirty-something.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Writing Again
It’s a wonder; here I am again and so is September.
My heart beats for you and for melancholy even in my sleep.
I’m restless and homesick with memories of you.
You messaged again, consistency.
I can’t help but miss you and miss me too. I’ve lost who I am and who I was but you know me. Message some more and maybe you’ll bring me back to myself.
I can’t still my thoughts or my dreams except to drag this pen across paper and hope the words convey the nostalgia.
My heart feels bruised again.
I’ll probably be right here, with dreams and a pen, every September; writing again.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Dreams
I can’t control dreams,
But if I could,
I would steer them away from you.
I have no desire to dream of utopia but wake and live in reality.
Dreams bring me to you, to us; to our other dimension, as we used to say.
The dreams aren’t real but the feelings I awake with sure are.
If I can only have moments of you in dreams, perhaps I should stay asleep so I can keep dreaming.
Alas, I cannot control dreams.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If Memories Were Ink
I’ve been trying to write about myself but all that comes easily to paper is you.
That’s all I have left.
Maybe if I write enough, I can let go.
With each swoop and loop, may the ink take away the knowing and the missing, the feeling and the lingering.
Take the vividness and the longing.
May all the memories be the ink that comes to dry across pages instead of tears that streak across my cheeks.
I don’t really want to forget.
I can never really forget.
I’m certain that eventually all pens run out of ink.
Here’s to writing and to hoping.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Anything
It doesn’t matter.
I’d do anything for you.
These lines we’ve crossed,
The lines we will cross.
They do matter.
We put ourselves here.
And yet,
They don’t matter.
We wish we could believe ourselves
And our lies.
I’d cross an ocean for you
And every line we could dream of.
That’s what love is.
It follows us still.
Love has drawn the lines,
And love crosses them.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Starlit Nights
11:04pm
9:59pm
00:05am
10:27pm
Relegated to darkness; our connection never allowed to see the light of day.
Thank the guilt for that, perhaps circumstance.
We burned too brightly then, now, so much less deserving.
Still we linger, clinging to that promise of darkness.
Never chancing dusk; never daring morning.
I’ll take it.
I’ll take any time with you.
The stars we traded from sunlight will have to do.
I just wish us many more starlit nights and moonbeams, my love.
May the darkness hold us close and cherish our secrets as much as we do.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
September Melancholy
My pen bleeds onto paper ever September.
Melancholy is my muse.
To millions, this month is a beginning; to me, it’s always a goodbye.
The seasons change and drag us along with them. As the leaves turn from green to yellow, and then to brown, my mood begins the same change.
Perhaps I’ll always be sad in the fall; who wouldn’t be if they’d lived the same autumns that I have.
Missing, always. Madness too.
The leaves dry, as do my tears.
I wish to crumple up with them on the ground and let September pass me by while my pen bleeds me dry.
Hello, September.
Goodbye.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Consistency
Consistency from you is eternally painful, yet I wish, hope, dream, and pray for it anyways.
I hate that I need it but I love that even now, you never let me down.
Steadiness is your nature.
I wonder where I’d be without a dose of it every September.
You, still the only one who remembers my birthday year after year.
This one kindness sustains me and keep my confidence alive.
Patience is not something I possess but I never have to wait for you; you always show up for me.
I’ll be waiting for you next year; consistency.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
My Terracotta Heart
Here I am, hoping, with my terracotta heart.
Hoping, once again, that one fall will be too little to send shards of my heart flying through the air.
Too many times I’ve gathered the pieces together and swept the floor.
The only cleaning ritual that ends without satisfaction.
There is no relief at the sight of neat piles and clean floors, only the knowledge of the work that now looms overhead.
Reconstruction.
Reconfiguration.
Refortification.
All so I can sit and hope again.
This time maybe I’ll wish too, with my terracotta heart.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Indefinite
You asked me once how I healed from a breakup, and I told you it was time that took care of it. In a way, that’s true. That’s not what it feels like sometimes.
So what does it feel like sometimes?
At the halfway point between my home on the farm and my home in the city, alone in my car: that’s when I feel it the most.
It feels like I’m living without half of me. It feels like I’m always searching and waiting. It feels like I’m looking for something that I can’t quite put my finger on. It feels like my heart has been cleaved in two; or like it has gone missing from my chest- I can feel where it used to be. It’s excruciating. It’s indefinite.
I have lied to my heart and have told my soul a fairytale. I have convinced myself that I believe in soulmates and dimensions. I need to. I cling to my hope that in another dimension we’ve found our way back to each other; that our ragged edges have met and joined again. In another lifetime, perhaps, our paths have crossed with better timing and the fates have kinder plans for us.
A love like ours cannot have been for nothing. The sheer amount of it can’t have just faded away into nothing. Surely the laws of physics apply to love, for what is love if not energy? It feels consuming and electric. I need to believe that it still exists out there somewhere. The heartbreak cannot be larger and longer-lasting than the love that caused it.
These are the lies I tell myself. They must be working and maybe I have successfully fooled myself. It doesn’t always hurt and I go about my life as an ordinary person. But, oh, those moments. They take my breath away and I feel like half a person, a hollow shell, like only arms and legs. I have no heart, for you have it still. I can tape together the edges where it once was and I can pretend.
If only reality and fates and fairytales could meet with kindness. Until then, and until another lifetime, our souls exist only as halves; incomplete.
I know you feel it too, you’ve told me so. That doesn’t make it any easier, even if that’s what you had hoped those words would accomplish.
It’s indefinite.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Even in the Night
Darkness recognizes darkness.
That’s my theory on why I can’t seem to sleep until it’s light out.
While lying awake at night, I relish the thoughts of just going for a drive, going for late night/early morning McDonald’s, going out and about in the stillest of hours. At night it feels like I can do anything or be anyone.
Yet, as much as my bed often feels like a refuge, it feels like it has walls closing in as soon as the light begins to fade. Walls close in as the darkness quickens.
Sleep never comes easy at night but as the dawn breaks, I’m able to drift away securely.
The darkness in my mind and in my heart recognizes darkness and waits to conquer me once I close my eyes.
Half of this battle is working my entire life around this. In that, I have succeeded. I have worked one entire year of night shifts and have slept soundly during the daylight.
The darkness has all but put out my light.
How can darkness be at once still and freeing, yet heavy and suffocating?
I’m tired of the dark but it still feels safer, though only while awake.
I wish and wish for that eternal darkness where there is no need to worry about waking or sleeping; about dawn or dusk. For that I would go to sleep gladly, even in the night.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
6 Things I Learned as a Kid
1. Adults are not to be trusted
2. Pain is not temporary
3. Selfishness and selflessness can overlap
4. Nobody truly sees children
5. Sleep is not restful
6. Reading can be like running away.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If Not Love
Spending time with family used to bring me a little slice of contentment and peace, just knowing they were safe and happy was all it took.
Now it slowly slices off pieces of my heart. They are happy and safe, and they feel contentment and peace. I feel years removed from them. Their joy is no longer my joy. Time spent together is like rubbing salt in a wound, like hand sanitizer on paper cuts.
I spent so much of my life protecting them and shielding them and all I get for it is pain and faked smiles.
I was invited over for supper and by the time I got there, everyone had already eaten and the supper was cold. Their uncaring sliced deep. They were a family without me. I had worked thanklessly over Thanksgiving while they all spent time with loved ones but I did not get the same courtesy.
I spend so much time picking out presents for them that they will need or will find useful and I get not a one in return. My only gift this year was a jar of lotion in a scent that makes me nauseous, from my mother who doesn’t even like me.
It’s just one thing after another. There’s been times where I haven’t felt loved, but I’ve never felt so unloved.
I’ve always hoped to feel love from my family; true unconditional love. Now I don’t think I ever will.
I’ve loved them with my whole heart for my entire life.
I suppose I stuck with life partly because I always hoped I’d eventually feel love and that my family would feel like warmth and security. Family has been my safety plan for 20 years.
That’s what the books say, isn’t it? Have a safety plan. Create a safety plan. Have your friends help you make a safety plan.
Mine has been crossed out, scribbled over, crumpled up, and now it’s finished.
What is there left to live for, if not love?
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
.
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
Tired
When does the tired stop?
When does the tired come to an end?
When does the joy of living join my life and outweigh the tired?
Tired of being awake.
Tired of being in pain.
Tired of hurting.
Tired of wishing.
Tired of hoping.
Tired.
I’m tired of waiting for the sun to peek over the omnipresent clouds.
I’m tired of waiting for the relief of a painless deep breath; for a resurfacing from the dragging, heavy, cold water.
I’m tired of tired.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Nothing
I move through life
listless, but wanting.
It’s hard to know what to look for
when you don’t know what you want,
or when you want
nothing
at all.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
The Day the Sun Dimmed
I’m the only person who ever cried over the child I never got to be.
Parenting instead of playing; mediating instead of mingling.
My self-imposed role was to ensure that the boat never rocked, no matter what it took. Nothing was okay and all I wanted was for someone to notice, but I had to make sure nobody noticed.
My skills became planning, preparing, conflict-managing, de-escalating, cleaning, organizing, memorizing.
Age seven felt like seventy really fast.
My world had just shattered and all I knew was overwhelming confusion. Was I supposed to just let things happen as they may? Absolutely not.
Off I went to earn the best grades, to cause the least trouble, to be the go-between, and to parent my younger brother and sister as necessary. I was instantly their protector, whether they recognized it or not. It was all so unbelievably painful and if I could spare them any of it, I would, and I tried.
But at what expense?
Oh, but at what expense.
I was just a kid.
I was made to fill the role of communicator between two parents who tried to hurl nasty insults at each other through me. They couldn’t stand to look at each other, let alone speak to each other on the phone. They wrote letters back and forth. Dad faithfully sent anniversary cards the first few years while my mother ran away with his best friend, half his money, and billed him for every expense under the sun.
I spent years locked in a state of hypervigilance, my persona made up entirely of trust issues. I remember everything and have hearing that can catch a mouse walking across my bedroom floor in the dark. I have a keen sense for people and my first impressions are rarely wrong. My entire personality is a trauma response.
Years later my heart is still broken and I am still the communicator, the mediator, and the organizer. I have always felt old beyond my years and have longed for nothing more than to fit in. I used to read everything I could get my hands on and was reading well beyond my grade level; books were the perfect escape. This did nothing to help me understand my peers who played, laughed, goofed off, and had their lunches packed for them.
I cooked suppers, drew endless purple stegosauruses for my brother, and sheltered my sister. I read bedtime stories and tucked them in. I carefully showed them which landmines to avoid in this new landscape of ours. Both of them have hazy memories at best of what life was like before. It was all I knew. I remember the happy, the good, and the sunshine.
Now we spend time in the same house but nothing is the same, though we are master pretenders. We ignore the cracks, the avoidances, and the things left unsaid. We pretend we cannot see the glaring holes in the walls but we all know that we all know.
Nothing has ever been the same but the same is still what I long for after all this time.
I wish to return to that little girl who knew nothing but happiness and joy, to when the worst thing she knew was having to go to bed while the sun was still up.
The sun has never felt quite as bright since.
I have found that after all this time, I am still carrying this weight around, still balancing the boat, still protecting them. They are both grown now, as am I, and the role is no longer necessary.
I can’t seem to make myself give it up.
My worst fear is of failure, of the boat rocking, of letting go. If I let go of the control I have struggled with for twenty years, I have to let go of my idea of ever having a whole family.
One small part of my heart wants nothing more than that, twenty years later.
There is no getting over this, when my identity seems so fractured. Am I still the little girl? Am I grown? Am I the adult? Who am I outside of this pain?
It does not seem to matter, as it hasn’t since the day the sun dimmed.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Enduring
The sun sets and without it the world grows cool and monochrome.
Life already feels grey, without the sun, more so.
The cool dark stretches for years ahead of me and years behind.
What does it take to cause the sun to return, besides enduring the long, cold night?
I am weary of enduring; weary of the dark and the monotone.
Have I adapted to the bleakness or have I forgotten how sun can light up the world?
Is it both; is there any difference?
The leaves fall from the trees; snow flies, wind howls, but spring never comes.
Somehow even the darkness is too bright for my eyes, so I shut myself away further.
The cold seeps under my skin and the dark leeches into my bones.
Still, I find I cannot bring myself to yearn for the sun’s return.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Endlessly/Proof/Reaching
A trio of poems from a recent solo camping trip.
.
Endlessly
The waves reach the shore
as the breath reaches my lungs.
Breathe.
In.
Out.
Rushing away again,
endlessly.
.
Proof
Does the sand feel better as the waves touch its edge?
I know I did,
as your hands soothed my rough edges
until they were
smooth
and seamless, once again.
Your touch was like breathing;
steady, constant proof.
That I was still alive,
still here.
As even and as reliable as the waves.
.
Reaching
As the waves leave the shore,
so the breath leaves my lungs.
Eternally;
Ceaselessly.
Forever returning, reaching for more.
Does it ever stop?
Will it ever stop
reaching?
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Present Day, Canada
No country, state, or community should need a report that includes calls to action about buried missing children at the hands of the government, but here we are, Canada, and you refuse to listen.
Anybody saying that the 215 child deaths in Kamloops were an expected occurrence for that time period due to sanitation levels or TB is being ignorant. Know that prisoners were treated more respectfully than these innocent children.
I’ve heard people trying to rationalize it, knowing the last IRS closed in 1996. It’s not a dark chapter or history, it’s current trauma and lived experiences. Telling yourself that “surely by the time the 1990’s came around, atrocities weren’t being committed anymore” is cowardice.
We all need to do better. Don’t rely on your Indigenous friends or colleagues to educate you and do the hard work for you. Learn how to be an ally and amplify their voices, listen when they speak, hold our leaders accountable.
If you’re looking for actions aside from learning and educating yourself, or sharing on social media, you can donate to the Indian Residential School Survivor Society who provide counselling and healing for survivors at:
https://www.irsss.ca/donate
Better yet, support your community and neighbours by voting in politicians and supporting policies to do good work. Canada is a first-world country while its reserves and Indigenous communities are the equivalent to third-world countries. Many do not even have drinking water.
Many do not even have drinking water.
Time’s up, Canada. You’ve had the chance. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission gave you 94 actions to implement. Yes, even actions about missing murdered children.
From the TRC Calls to Action:
Missing Children and Burial Information
“71. We call upon all chief coroners and provincial vital statistics agencies that have not provided to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada their records on the deaths of Aboriginal children in the care of residential school authorities to make these documents available to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.
72. We call upon the federal government to allocate sufficient resources to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation to allow it to develop and maintain the National Residential School Student Death Register established by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
73. We call upon the federal government to work with churches, Aboriginal communities, and former residential school students to establish and maintain an online registry of residential school cemeteries, including, where possible, plot maps showing the location of deceased residential school children.
74. We call upon the federal government to work with the churches and Aboriginal community leaders to inform the families of children who died at residential schools of the child’s burial location, and to respond to families’ wishes for appropriate commemoration ceremonies and markers, and reburial in home communities where requested.
75. We call upon the federal government to work with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, churches, Aboriginal communities, former residential school students, and current landowners to develop and implement strategies and procedures for the ongoing identification, documentation, maintenance, commemoration, and protection of residential school cemeteries or other sites at which residential school children were buried. This is to include the provision of
appropriate memorial ceremonies and commemorative markers to honour the deceased children.
76. We call upon the parties engaged in the work of documenting, maintaining, commemorating, and protecting residential school cemeteries to adopt strategies in accordance with the following principles:
i. The Aboriginal community most affected shall lead the development of such strategies.
ii. Information shall be sought from residential school Survivors and other Knowledge Keepers in the development of such strategies.
iii. Aboriginal protocols shall be respected before any potentially invasive technical inspection and investigation of a cemetery site.”
This information is nothing new and can’t be brushed aside again. This conversation needs to be over, we need to move past conversation.
Canada loves to talk about diversity and welcome while blocking the door and hoping nobody looks under the rug.
(I say “you” but I mean “we”.)
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Eating Disorders Aren’t Just For Skinny People
Trigger warning: eating disorders
Eating disorders aren’t just for skinny people.
Mine looks like:
-not eating for 12+ hours
-taking 2.5 hours to try and plan a binge that will satisfy all the cravings
-spending 5 minutes eating enough food for 2 people
-waiting 10 minutes to feel full
-spending 3 minutes throwing it all up
-brushing my teeth for 4 minutes
-going about my life as if nothing happened
-feeling both satisfied and empty
-feeling guilt and shame
My shift work life easily enables long spaces between meals and not resting enough. I’m a nurse. Do I know better? Absolutely. Does it matter? Absolutely not.
It’s the thinnest line I’ve known between control and out of control: the swing from binging to purging.
You couldn’t tell if you watched me at work or in public, eating carefully balanced and portioned meat, quinoa, and veggies or having a salad as my side.
Nobody sees because I don’t let them.
I’m fat, I have an eating disorder, and nobody knows.
I wonder about telling my counsellor about this but we easily use up our time talking about the myriad of other thoughts and feelings taking up my brain. Ironic that I take up too much space and I feel as though this, too, takes up too much space.
Admitting it to myself is a start, writing it here is a little further. One day I’ll say it out loud.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
(Before you get all up in my grill about me calling myself fat, objectively I am a size 3XL, ~280lbs, and 5’6”. I will not use my BMI as an indicator.)
Fading
I can’t explain the feeling other than to say it feels like I’m dying. It feels like a process and it feels like I’m fading out of my own life. Everything seems like it should be goodbye.
In Pirates of the Caribbean they have the black spot.
In Harry Potter they have The Grimm.
You can choose your own omen of death.
Reality has a dark cloud.
I just have this feeling.
It feels inevitable. I expected it to feel suffocating and am almost surprised that it doesn’t.
It feels like I’m just going through the motions of living my life, which is nothing new to me.
At this new stage in my life, I assumed things would be better than this. I have an actual chance to live the life I want to. I have a degree, I have a nursing license, I’m living by myself, I have a steady income. However, these check boxes and milestones do not guarantee happiness. I assumed they’d bring me the feeling of security I’ve been looking for all my life.
I still feel like I’m just walking on the edge. Added to that now is the dying.
I wish this feeling would tell me how much time I have left. I can’t help but wonder if it’ll progress and then I’ll know.
It’s still May. June is close but July feels as though I won’t make it that far.
Maybe I’ll just be forever fading away.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
You Don’t Owe Anybody Thinness
“You don’t owe anybody thinness” is what I keep repeating to myself every time I find myself sucking in my stomach or hunching my shoulders in public. After a million or so times it should sink in.
For good measure I try to follow this up with “It’s okay to take up space.”
How silly it is that we live in a world where we’re judged by the amount of space we take up to go about our daily lives and that somehow our value should be derived from how much or how little space we use.
Has anybody directly told me “You take up too much space”? No. Is that message present in marketing and clothing sizes and diet culture? Yes.
My favourite feature is my face, I like nothing about my size or about my body. To even myself, I’m only just a pretty face.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Someone You Know
Trigger warning: sexual assault, suicidal thoughts, depression, self-harm
It has happened to someone you know. Someone you know has done it.
There has been a lot of talk lately of sexual assault and the violence women face on a daily basis. Every woman knows, every man does not.
RAINN has statistics explaining that every 73 seconds in America someone is sexually assaulted.
It happened to me.
It was St. Patrick’s day. I had gone out with two friends of mine and friends of theirs. We went to a fundraiser for a mutual friend and then to a bar. I had had a lot to drink. At some point in the night, my friends decided that their friend “J” and I would be a “good match”. My two friends had decided to call it a night and left the bar without me after “J” told them he would bring me home.
I did not know they left me there or I would have gone with them but that decision was taken from me.
“J” told me that my friends had left but that he had to take me home. He then told me that his roommate needed a ride so we would be going to his house. He then told me that I could spend the night and sleep on his couch. At 2am, drunk, couches sound pretty appealing. We got to his house, we visited in the kitchen, and we decided to go to sleep.
There was no couch.
I was 19.
At this point I was so tired and I just wanted to sleep. He said that I could just share his queen bed and he would take me to my friend’s house in the morning, and drunk me agreed.
Rape doesn’t just end when their hands leave your body. The feeling of those hands has stayed with me.
I have chronic insomnia, I have attempted suicide three times, anxiety and depression are my constant companions, I have disordered eating, and my self-esteem is on shaky ground. It has been 9 years since that night.
It wasn’t until my counsellor at university pointed out to me that good people don’t lie about having couches for drunk friends to sleep on that I started to let myself off the hook a little bit for everything that happened.
My favourite colour used to be green but for years after I said it was blue because the thought of green made me feel sick.
I can’t tell you how many nights I have spent up all night, waiting for morning to come so that I can feel safe enough to sleep in my own bed, or how many days I’ve showered more than three times trying just to feel clean again. I have a very good memory and my subconcious used that to my own detriment to create hyper-realistic flashbacks for me to relive when I closed my eyes.
St. Patrick’s day will maybe never be a celebration for me. Having your air cut off by your own shamrock necklaces can have that effect on a person.
I’m not telling this because I want your pity or your well wishes. I’m telling you this so that maybe you no longer see rape and sexual assault as one moment in a person’s life. It’s not just a physical recovery. I’m still feeling the ripple effects of that stone thrown in the pond.
I don’t feel safe at night out walking. I don’t go to bars alone. I don’t drink alcohol on dates.
Sexual assault is any non-consensual act. My story is not the only version, but there are countless similar ones out there.
If every 73 seconds someone is being sexually assaulted, then every 73 seconds someone is sexually assaulting. Don’t be that someone.
Be an ally: No means no. Practice explicit consent- only yes means yes. “Maybe later” is not yes. “Not now” is not yes. “I don’t feel like it” is not yes. Teach your friends; teach your children. Call out the behaviour when you see it. Rape jokes are not funny. Believe people when they say they’ve been assaulted. “Not all men” is not a valid argument. Don’t assault people.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
Waiting
I didn’t expect my twenties to be like this. I didn’t expect to spend my life waiting for my life to begin, waiting for adulthood to start, waiting for the inevitable to strike. Maybe it’s because I’ve felt old since I was young; spending too many years making too many decisions above my age. Perhaps because I’ve spent many years hoping and waiting for death. It’s already been more than a decade since I first wished to leave. It seems as though I’m always waiting for what’s next.
High school, done.
Driver’s license, done.
Relationship, done.
Post-secondary acceptance, done.
Graduation, done.
University, incomplete.
Breakup, done.
Diploma, done.
Job, done.
Nursing school, done.
Job, done.
The rest of my life, …?
I work too much, I pay bills, I buy groceries, I wash dishes (most of the time), I have a cat, I do laundry, I call my grandma.
When does the settled feeling start? When does the relief come? What next? When do I feel like I’ve got it all under control?
I’ve been striving for control since I was seven years old and I have yet to find it. Does peace come with letting that go? Probably. Will I? Probably not.
Perhaps the inevitable is me spending my life striving and searching for things beyond my grasp; spending my life waiting.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Funerals, Loneliness, and Space
At funerals, people love to use phrases like “she loved life and life loved her right back”, or “she found joy in the everyday living”, and “she lit up any room she walked into”. Even worse is “she was the life of any party”.
Anybody who uses sayings like those at my funeral will be lying or they never really knew me at all.
I’ve never really loved life, and life hasn’t loved me back. I’ve just been lucky enough to have loved people in this lifetime.
I have spent my life wishing that I could take up less space and wishing that I could take up none at all. Even as an adult, I spend my days cowering in my basement apartment, trying not to make noise or bother my upstairs neighbour.
I don’t want to be a bother.
I work hard to appear okay and work even harder to avoid vulnerability. If people don’t get close to me, I won’t be hurt when they inevitably leave.
That’s the truth.
Also the truth: I just want to be seen.
I only get hugs in my dreams, and I dream often of reuniting with people who truly know me; without me having to reach out first.
I am the friend who checks in with everyone else, I am not the friend that anyone checks in on. When I’m lonely, I reach out to others, though I doubt if I didn’t that they would notice.
I wonder, frequently, who would notice if I quit posting, quit communicating, and quit being.
I’m not sure my own aching loneliness could stand to be out of touch with people in that totality.
“Hey, how are you?”
“……. you?”
“Alright!”
This leaves no space for knowing, for wondering, for caring. I box myself into a corner by wanting people to ask how I am but then not answering truthfully when they do.
Life has always been lonely for me and I feel like it always will be. That looming perpetual loneliness is a heavy weight, one that I’m unwilling to bear.
I wish for sunshine, joy, and warmth to filter into my life as if I could remember what they feel like and I could recognize them if they came. By now, I’ve spent so much time in the dark, surely I could recognize light when I see it.
Perhaps not, perhaps all my days will be grey and cold. Maybe all my life will be empty.
I’m tired of taking up space in this world.
I’m so tired.
Nobody will say “she dreamed of death” or “she lived an aching life” at my funeral, though both will be true.
What will they say, then, to phrase the constant loneliness, emptiness, and chill that I have lived with? How can you spin looming despair into a personality trait?
If my friends can look me in the eyes and not see that I’m not okay, either I have done my job well or they’re not really looking; they’re never really seeing.
Life gave me loneliness. I searched so long for safety and protection, and now I only feel lonely. Loneliness is the only thing I am certain of.
There is no “life of the party” in me.
I do not light up any rooms.
Everyday living has no joy for me.
Who can see me?
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
Daunting
Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts
From where I stand, the future looks nothing but daunting. It’s hard to remember the good at the end of such a terrible year. Each disappointment and struggle seems like a heavy stone in the backpack of life that I insist on carrying around.
The weight has pulled me off the podium I stood on at the start of the year and dragged me to where I teeter on the edge. Will I be just one more casualty of this year? It seems more appropriate to close my eyes for good when it’s still a terrible year, instead of souring a new one.
People are looking toward 2021 with hope, so much hope. All I feel is dread. Once the new year starts, my life has nothing left for me to do but to be tugged along with the passing of time. I have a degree, a license, a job, a life, and a home. I’ve lived so much life in these years, I don’t feel accomplished, I just feel old.
My friends are all moving on. They have their own lives. They have relationships, pets, children, homes, and triumphs. They look forward to adventures, to new beginnings, and to a future. Joy and love fill their lives with so much colour. I’m glad for them and envious at the same time.
I can’t feel the colour in my life anymore. I’ve learned how to avoid disappointment by avoiding expectations and hope. Each day is a consistent defeat in itself, why add to it? Food is bland, tea is lukewarm, sleep is fitful, and warm is never warm enough.
A bleak winter’s day with thin sun and glaring brightness is my reality. Nothing has colour and everything is too bright to be enjoyed. The trees are bare and the wind whistles enough to chill my bones. It is silent except for my trudging foot steps. I pass houses with warm light shining from festively decked windows and see smoke from what I imagine to be a warm fire inside. These houses are not for me. I have never been inside one, nor will I ever know the love and joy bottled within them.
My chest aches with the cold, the emptiness, and the loneliness. It is as familiar to me as my breath and the beat of my heart.
Despair.
Sorrow.
Hopelessness.
I used to long and now I find myself longing no more. I don’t want to find the energy to enjoy life. I’d rather fade away into this bleak winter’s day and never trouble the sunniness of a new year.
Maybe in another lifetime I’ll see colour again and find the warmth. That, too, seems daunting but it’s the only hope I cling to, the hope that lies in death. Hope that death will be kind to me as this life hasn’t been.
I’d like to fade away in sleep, though rest is something I never find at night. Perhaps that is the secret to the kindness of death. Dying instead of sleeping doesn’t feel so daunting after all.
.
.
.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
Lonely or Alone?
Holidays and family are supposed to bring joy, love, and hope. They are known for gatherings and good company. This year, people are going to extraordinary lengths to connect with loved ones from a distance to maintain any sense of normalcy.
Here I sit, surrounded by my little family, and I’m feeling more alone than maybe ever before.
Oh, the scorn I would feel if people knew how I was taking being able to gather for granted.
There’s so much pressure when you come back to family; pressure to assume the same roles and to put on the same shoes, to live behind the same façade, to do the same pretending.
“I’m happy.”
“Everything is fine.”
“I’m glad to be here.”
“I love the holidays.”
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”
When you celebrate with the same family in your broken childhood home, it feels different as you get older. Everyone pretends they’re the same and that we can’t see all the cracks.
I’ve never felt so lonely- pretending I’m the me they know, when I’m the me that I know. I don’t feel comfortable around them. I don’t feel comfortable with myself. I am not happy. I’d rather be with people who love me for being me, who would love me if they really knew me.
I want to die but here I am celebrating trivial things and faking a smile.
My heart aches and my chest hurts from pure loneliness.
The forced joy of the season makes this feeling so much worse. Don’t get me wrong, this is nothing new to me. The global circumstances just make the guilt bigger too. How dare I feel this way when I’m so fortunate?
I’ve come full circle to where it’s truly a pain to live again. I’ve been here before. It’s almost as if all the work I’ve done to leave this place never happened. I’m stuck going in circles; the struggle is perpetual.
Am I lonely or am I alone?
Lonely. Always lonely.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
These Lines
Trigger warning: self-harm
When do I take really good care of myself?
When do I make sure I’ve showered? When do I tuck myself in to bed? When do I give myself grace? When do I feed myself and drink hot cups of green tea? When do I brush my teeth? When do I wash my face and apply moisturizer? When do I lotion my body and feel okay in my own skin? When do I take deep breaths and breathe in peace? When do I put on clean, safe clothes?
When I look down and see these lines. These lines I put on my own body. These thin, neat, red lines. These lines drawn across my thigh by my own hand.
Only then can I find it within me to take good care of myself. Someone has to.
Hope this finds you well,
-L
If you or someone you know needs support right now, there is help available.
Sight Unseen 