not exactly

i've been asked by several friends lately why i'm no longer writing. they list a number of excuses and my only response is "not exactly."

i didn't stop due to a lack of things to talk about. in fact, that's the complete opposite issue that i'm facing. and maybe it's partly because i have trouble organizing my thoughts well enough to write down what it is that's bothering me. i'll be honest though. there are hundreds of reasons why i stopped writing, but it all boils down to one main common theme: time.

i don't have time to write.

i could go on for an eternity as to why my days are so full of doing things. but that's the price of adulthood - or in some cases, a lack thereof, if you're the only one who does things. outside of work, i practice self-care and it has become an integral part of my being. it will hopefully continue to speed up the healing process and let me someday live a normal life again. or at least, that's my end goal. while i'm not where i was a year ago and there's definite progress in healing, it doesn't happen overnight. i've come to terms with this even when everyone else hasn't. i refuse to let it slow me down (although sometimes it still might - hey, wait up, i got these tiny little legs!)

it becomes increasingly difficult to have a well rounded life when two, well, three things take up the majority of my time. but when i can remove certain variables, more time becomes an option. even though time these days is almost an illusion. hell, look at this 4.5 day weekend right now. where the fuck did it go?

in just 5 days, i'll have my own place for the first time in 29 years. since moving to toronto nearly 6 years ago, my goals included getting a job and moving out on my own. i've had hit and miss roommates, including one roommate from literal hell that makes me never want to live with anyone ever again. okay, that's an exaggeration. maybe i'll get lonely. maybe i'll always need someone around to reach those items on the top shelf. but the idea of being on my own is the most exciting and scary thing going for me right now. i need the independence. i need the quiet. i need the ability to do my own thing.

it might be difficult to understand, but after living with a roommate you don't particularly enjoy, it changes you. unfortunately for me, my roommate situations haven't always been the best. and i'm ready for that next step to call my own place home with just a single tenant occupancy. but fuck, toronto, could you calm your shit with the rent prices? it took 6 years to get to a point where i could finally afford to be somewhere without roommates and compared to most friends, i'm extremely good with my money.

time might be the biggest common theme with my lack of writing but there is always more to the story. when you really enjoy doing something, there's always time for it. i've spent the better part of the last two years or so spending less and less time on social media. my blog and everything it was set out to do, didn't quite serve a purpose any longer. i continuously had all these thoughts in my mind where i'd think that the topics would make a fantastic blog post and no time to write them. this is one thing i want to change. writing used to be an outlet for me to understand whatever was stressing me out. whatever was keeping me up at night. these stressful things no longer keep me awake at night. instead, they get overlooked and pushed away.

maybe it's because i can't change the things i complain about regarding work. maybe it's because i don't have any complaints about dudes in my life because there's only one who makes things better and not worse. maybe it's because i don't tend to complain about life as a whole as much any longer. maybe i'd rather listen and help than attempt to bore you with the little things that bother me. maybe it's because despite it all, things are finally coming together the way they're meant to be, even if it isn't what i expected 6 years ago.

maybe i'll write again in a week or a year. maybe i just need more time.

where have you been?

sometimes, your whole life can change in a mere matter of months.

i never doubted for one second that my job search would last more than a couple of months. with the way i was getting interviews and the ability to carry myself within those interviews, as well as getting interviews for both jobs and companies i wanted to work for, i knew i was doing something right. i had a number of good references by my side and, as i've always known, eventually, things do fall into place.

in early november, i was hired on into the reinsurance industry as a claims administrator for a maternity leave coverage for a year. within a week, i knew this is where i was meant to be for now. i've just completed a month and a half worth of training and begin on my own this week. at the christmas party this past weekend, my boss made it clear to me that he wasn't worried at all and believed in my ability to do a good job. i can't tell you how nice it is to work at a place that actually respects you as a human being. sometimes, you get so used to being treated like shit in all other aspects of your life that you go on to take it is a normal standard of living. let me tell you, that's definitely not the case.

in late july, i met a new dude from my adventures in tinder that, surprisingly, was after sort of the same thing as me. it's been a very good few months and i enjoy his company a bit more each time we hang out.

i had one last tinder adventure before my current dude which nearly had me deleting tinder forever and never looking back. let me explain a bit.

this dude and i had barely a conversation before he decided we should hang out. when i told him i wasn't sure if i was comfortable with me not being able to figure out if he was a serial killer as he was hesitant to give me his facebook, i should've known the red flags right away. but, i let it slide. a few days later, we met up for drinks after work. he seemed... alright. alright in the way that i knew i wasn't ready at all to jump into anything. but i had a feeling that was never his intention. we went on a second date to see jurassic world and ending with him leaving in the early hours of the morning. i wasn't happy. it didn't feel right and i was hesitant. he wasn't happy with that. i was reluctant for the next couple times we went out and made sure to end the dates early. by the last time i saw him, he had invited me over to his place to make me dinner and i knew this would be the last time i would see him, even before what happened actually happened.

i've talked about adventures in dating in the past, but this threw me for a loop. as i was trying to leave, he forced me to stay in order to do things, while doing some things i was definitely not okay with and made that clear to him. he eventually stopped pressuring me and word for word, said "but i made you dinner"

WHAT.

NO.

i ran away as fast as i could.

in the early part of 2015, i hated my job, could feel my relationship slipping away, was not in a good place, and knew the end was coming for a lot of things in my life. i just never imagined that any of it would happen the way it did.

i really appreciate the turn around for the latter part of 2015, if only for my sanity.

2016, you have some big shoes to fill.

the year everything ended in november

you might recall about a year ago, i was in a really bad place. i wrote countless blog posts about how everything in my life, including, well, me living a life, turned to absolute shit very quickly.

it was a combination of falling ill for 6+ months and losing my job where i wasn't sure things could get any worse. but let this be a lesson to everyone: the minute you think nothing is going to get worse from where you are, you're wrong. so very wrong. when you're ill for 6+ months, you pick up other sicknesses on the way and lose any and all hope you ever had that you were going to get better at some point. you lose track of who you are, physically and mentally. i got lucky that the severity of my symptoms were limited and that it was diagnosed and treated correctly the first time without my body rejecting the antibiotics. i got lucky that i had a strong family and friends base to keep me going. but it became arduous to keep on explaining to anyone who asked what was wrong with me. i wanted to believe it was something more than what the doctors kept telling me. how did everyone else get over this easily? why was it only me that had these issues? why was i the only one who needed to be hospitalized several times with no end in sight?

"why me?" was a phrase i uttered too many times during the course of treatment. nurses and doctors continued to greet me with looks of disappointment.  

"i thought i told you the last time you were here that i didn't want to see you again" i wish i had an answer. "

you might just have to be on antibiotic treatment for the rest of your life" were words that chill me to the bone to this day.

and maybe it was the stress of my job. or maybe it was that dude i was with awhile back i knew nothing about. maybe it's diet. maybe it's environmental factors. whatever it was, i wouldn't wish what i went through on anyone. i'd be a very happy girl if i never had to set foot in a doctor's office or hospital again.

a year ago, the life i had was taken from me abruptly and i was now bound to a life of "sorry, i can't hang out, i'm in the hospital". i'll always remember november 2013 of the worst month of my life up until that point.

but by january 2014, things began to change yet again. symptoms persisted and i knew i had to be strong. i was hired on at a job which i love, despite me not being able to make rent. i pressed on to events i wanted to go to and simpsons trivia nights that let us win first place a number of times. in july, i met a great dude who wasn't from the internet. yes, a real dude. and he's showing me what a real relationship is supposed to be like. it's amazing and only continues to get better as time goes on.

so, maybe things have to reach an all time low at some point before things ever start to get better. just try not to be deceived when what you think is the bottom ends up to be actually be further than you thought.

maybe happiness is wealthy if you spell it right

in toronto, you're always looking for a job, a boyfriend, or an apartment.

yes, i just tweaked a quote from sex and the city. i'm a girl. get over it.

i've been lucky enough to have one of those for the last 2 years. and it's not a boyfriend. despite ongoing issues with my apartment and struggles to pay rent, i've always had a roof over my head. it's the other 2 i can't seem to get or keep.

that all changed thursday afternoon when i got the call.

a job offer. a real job offer with a legitimate company. with a salary. and benefits. and vacation. and experience. and all the things i've been trying to get since i finished my BA in april 2011.

so how did it happen?

i saw a  job posting on linkedin for a "digital analyst" position. i didn't understand most of the vague description but noticed that i met all of the requirements. without looking up where this company was located, i applied via linkedin. if you're not familiar with this linkedin process, you can apply to jobs simply by sending across your profile and, if you want, a resume and cover letter.

you might remember that i've done this before and got an interview out of it for something in my field. my hopes for that one were extremely high and it fell through when they hired someone internally and kept me on the hook for weeks. i figured that one was going to be my big break and it wasn't. i guess you could say that's when i became overly depressed about my ongoing job hunt.

i applied to this digital analyst position with just my profile and resume. when i looked up the location after i applied, i realized that they were just up the street from me. i gained optimism. i could walk to work! the next day, i was contacted by an intern from the company asking about my salary expectations and my anticipated start date. upon my response, i was contacted yet again for an interview later that week.

i was interviewed by two people who didn't give off many signs that they were too interested in me or my qualifications. one was the manager and other was the guy currently in the position i was after. it was a standard interview with no "scenario-based" questions but more of "can you do this and this" and "how well can you do this and this" and the nice part was knowing that i could do everything they asked. i tried out a few new interview techniques that i had read about and had been told to use by various people in my life. using these techniques let me see my interviewers' true intentions about me. i was convinced they were interested in me.

the next day after the interview, i received another email requesting a second interview and scheduling an excel test. a second interview! in all of my job searching, i've never had a second interview. i was stoked. i met with the director of the team i'd be working with. she, like the other people interviewing me, didn't give off that many signs that she was interested in me. she kept talking about how my skills would be valuable in the position, but i know i've heard that on several occasions from other potential employers before.

then came the excel test. they gave me an advanced test to work on and told me not to worry about it because it was a very difficult test, but all they had. i went into the test feeling confident. i had spent the entire weekend boning up on advanced excel tutorials and figured i knew my shit. well, according to that test, i didn't. so i threw on my poker face and took it one step at a time. you know, only freaking out in my head about why these fucking numbers weren't showing up in the spreadsheet and where the fuck did those errors come from and how the fuck am i supposed to calculate this when it's missing the actual numbers to make the formula with... and so on. i maybe got through 1/4 of the test before my time limit was up. i made it very clear to the HR person about how the test didn't really reflect my excel ability and laughed it off. she seemed impressed with me and how i handled the test. i left the company trying my best not to punch anything on the way back home.

i figured that was it. i was going to get a call saying i sucked so much at the test and i wasn't going to get the job. or worse, i'd just never hear from them again even with my following up. they had told me they were going to make a decision wednesday. by wednesday afternoon and no response, i followed up, on edge. i knew they had contacted my references and at least 2 of my references had responded with awesome things to say about me. a response from the intern said they were very close to making a decision, but wednesday came and went.

by thursday morning, i had basically wiped this job out of my head. i figured they went with someone else. a little later thursday morning, i get a call with the job offer. i was stunned. i didn't even know how to react. i decided i was just so numb when it came to the job hunt that i wasn't even sure how to talk to someone about accepting a potential job offer. i guess 2 years of continuous rejection will do that. she sent over a written offer and i'm waiting to sign it tuesday. i start on august 12. it's a full-time, 9-5 deal. the best news was when i found out the building my company is in is LEED certified. so at least there's a kind of indirect exposure to sustainability where i'm working.

i'm 2 for 3. i now have a job to pay my rent (which is going up in september) to keep a roof over my head. i imagine it'll take another 2  years of continuous rejection to get that boyfriend, right?