Brittany VS. Frittany

First off, I am alive and well. Shame shame on me for not writing for so long. I have no excuse, other than I have been busy with work and other mundane things and have been feeling creatively 'dry'. But no more! Today is a new day and it will be full of my senseless ramblings, just for you.

Let me preface today's story by filling you in on something that happened a few weekends ago. I got drunk. Not just 'Frittered' drunk, but 'blacking-out-by-10pm-I-have-a-drinking-problem' drunk. I won't go into details, because it's embarrassing, but suffice it so say, my train was severely derailed. So after this night I vowed to get my drinking under control and smarten up. I may have mentioned before, but I party with basically an on or off switch. I'm either crazy Frittany or relatively normal Brittany. I'm not usually able to find a middle ground. But, since mine is the hand that mixes the drinks, I felt confident I could behave.

So this past Friday I went out for my good friend Kiran's birthday. We went to karaoke, and it was a lot of fun. I had a pleasant buzz going and was feeling good. I even sang 'Material Girl' mostly in the right key. However, comments that kept coming up, from people I just met that night and from friends, was "I heard you were so crazy. Be crazy!" "Have a shot or something!" "Where's Frittany?" or something along those lines.

Needless to say, it was a little upsetting. First of all, I believe I am a fun person. I don't have to be drunk to be hilarious and silly. Secondly, I resent the idea that when I am out with friends (or strangers for that matter) I have to 'perform' or behave in a certain way. I don't go out to entertain people, that is a trap I fell into not too long ago and it didn't go well. However, because of this resentment I felt, along with the fact that my buzz was fading, the cold weather, and my 6AM start that morning, I fell into a rather bitchy-Brittany mood. We went to another bar to dance, but it was so packed with sardines/people that I left almost immediately, and went to drown my sorrows in moral arguments and a milkshake. By that time I was in full on 'don't-look-at-me-or-I-will-kick-you-in-the-face' mode. And that wasn't much fun either.

So what to do, what to do. Do I give up drinking entirely? Do I stop going out on Friday nights? Do I refuse to ever leave my house and make life-size cut outs of the characters from The L Word to keep me company when my roomies are out? These are the questions that keep me up at night. (Not really, I slept for 11 hours on Saturday night/Sunday morning).

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I'm stressed. Maybe I'm undersexed (this is a definite, actually). Every so often I'm hit with the reality that I am 24 years old and should probably be acting like a more productive adult. So I do my best. I volunteered with Movember Calgary, I have been putting effort into this writing gig for ModernSocialite, I have pulled my socks up at work and been much more organized. But still I feel I want to get away from everything, I want to stop wearing makeup and go off in to the woods for a while. This kind of thinking isn't practical right now, however, so I will endeavor to do the following:
1. Meditate more (daily if possible)
2. Read more (to die on the couch watching Netflix would be quite depressing)
3. Spend quality time with friends (quality does not = substance abuse)
4. Spend quality time with myself (I went for a bike ride then baked some cookies last night, so that was a good start)

Maybe Brittany and Frittany can start to reconcile. I know it would make my liver very happy.

It's Friday, Friday, Friday Hi-5 on Friday

I apologize for that title, but we can't go forgetting about Rebecca Black now can we? Just kidding, we totally can.

It must be weird to be famous when you're a kid. I used to have a slight obsession/sexual fixation with Justin Bieber. It was creepy, but when he sang so sweetly and looked into the camera, I felt like I was 14 years old again. He just sounded so freaking happy and innocent! Those were good days. But now he's all grown up and he's trying to be a mini Usher (uh, uh, uh, yeah girl). If anything, I just feel sad for him now. Any child star, really. Look how MJ turned out. Genious, but oh so troubled.

This is leading somewhere, I promise. So anyway I was talking about High School Brittany last night, and I was reminded how happy I am that I was an unpopular weirdo. I used to take a marker and go around correcting punctuation on signs in the hall. I used to go through our school's storage shed and take old costumes to wear around. I would spend computer class blogging about my emo long-distance boyfriend. I had partners in these crimes, of course, but the fact remains - I was not one of the cool kids.

It was painful some days. I resented being left out of things, and my disdain grew for the girls who didn't have acne, or didn't let their mom's talk them into getting a perm in grade 10. But I grew up. And I realized one day that I was attractive. I have to say, I did not use my powers for good, at first. I shake my head at 20 year old, recently divorced Brittany. She was a bit of a tyrant. But these days, living in this city in particular, that I appreciate knowing what it's like to be unpopular, to be forgotten. I'm not afraid of it happening now, I know I can deal with it, and that at the end of the day I am just great all on my own.

I worry about my little cousin, who I facebook creep from time to time. She's absolutely gorgeous and I have no idea what's going on in her life. I want to tell her to use her brain instead of her body. That boys her age are all idiots and not to worry about them. That being true to yourself is so much more important than fitting in with your friends. But then I feel like a dork all over again, because aren't those the statements I myself rolled my eyes at when I was her age?

I suppose all I can do at this point in my life - my still very young and relatively inexperienced life - is to lead by example. I'll end with a quote that someone special shared with me recently: "Don't follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail for others to follow."

And now - enjoy some pictures and have a fantastically amazing weekend!



isä

That's Finnish for father, btw. I chose it because I think Finnish is a fun word to say, not because I have Finnish roots or I'm in love with Finland or anything like that. Speaking of roots, I am Ukranian and Scottish, with a sprinkling of Metis on my father's side. And it's my father's side that I want to talk about today.

I'm told that when I was little more than a baby, my dad had to go off on a trip somewhere for a few weeks and when he got back, he tried to hold me but I had forgotten who he was, so I freaked out. I should mention that at this time he had bushy black curly hair and a bushy black moustache, so really I had a good excuse to be frightened. To this day when he tells that story, however, he will tear up at the thought of being shunned by his little girl. Which, in turn, makes me tear up. In fact it will be a miracle if I make it through writing this post without crying.

Anyway, when I was younger I have to say I was closer with my mom. She played barbies and 'Kitten Surprise' (I pretended to be a kitten she received in the mail, and would proceed to crawl around meowing for an hour or so) with me, and later she was the one who I talked to about boys, my body, my faith, and pretty much whatever else that came into my head. So this post is not to compare my parents, but since it is my dear old dad's birthday today, I thought I would focus on him.

My father was always a quiet man, and his face had the tendency to appear stern, at times glowering. He likes things very structured; family vacations were always planned to the T. He is fiercly protective of those he loves, and for all of his sarcasm and silence, he is very soft hearted.

I remember dreading getting in to trouble with him, leaping out of bed in the morning at the first sound of his footstep on the stairs, whispering threats to my brother not to tell on me for pushing him into a birthday cake one time, figuring out how to twist my stories so that while I wasn't lying, I wasn't necessarily telling the truth. The worst was when I was seriously in trouble and he just refused to talk to me. On one occasion he wouldn't even look at me for days. It was the worst feeling in the world.

I have many other memories of my dad. I was lucky enough to have both parents around, and generally very happy together, while I was growing up. But my very favorite memories of him are not the typical father-daughter kind. Like when he told me that he didn't really know what I was up to, and didn't need to know, but if I decided that I liked girls he would support me and love me anyway. Or when we were standing outside the church together, arm in arm in his tux and my gorgeous white dress, and he looked at me and said "if you want to turn around and go, I'll take you." How hard it must have been for him to watch his only daughter give herself to a man he knew wasn't The Right Man. But he did. And he never threw it back in my face when I came to the same realization. He loves me enough to let me make my own mistakes, and has always been there to pick me up and dust me off afterwards.

His favorite phrases stick with me, and I will probably repeat them to my children (if I have any). His wisdom and open mind helped shaped me into the reasonably functional and very happy person I am today, and though we can calmly discuss things like funeral plans and executors of estates, I shiver to think of a day when he won't be around to answer my emails or phone calls. And so I am taking the opportunity now to give credit where credit is due. It always seemed silly and a little sad to me that people usually say the nicest things about you after you're gone.

It's funny how your relationship with your parents change as you get older. In recent years I began to see my father as the man he is, apart from his role in my life, his family obligations. Instead of panicking because I didn't want to face yet another stage of growing up - ok, fine, I panicked a little bit - I decided to get to know him. I'm so very happy to say that we can talk for hours about many things, and I have a strong sense of who he really is, not just who he is to me. 

To sum it all up, I'll have to refer to my favorite Disney movie, The Little Mermaid. It's not Sebastian's catchy songs or Prince Eric's dreamy smile (he seems a bit slow in all honesty) that stand out in my mind. Whenever I think of that movie I think of King Triton, looking at Ariel who is looking at the Prince, and he says "Then I guess there's only one problem left...how much I'm going to miss her." Thank you, Daddy, for being everything I needed you to be, and loving me enough to let me become whoever I wanted. Happy Birthday.

Friday Ramble and 5

Well this will be a big weekend. I am conducting my first interview today! I am fairly unprepared, Google has majorly failed me in my attempts at research. I don't even know her last name. The old Brittany would be having a cow, a panic attack, a minor stroke. But not today. Today I am confident that it will go well, I am confident in my ability to observe, take in, then rework and spit out through my keyboard. That is thanks, in part, to you. It took me about a month to actually start this blog, not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I needed to overcome my fear that no one would read it. However, thanks to blogger's view tracking system (which is so easy even I can use it) I know you are reading! In Russia, even! This is very exciting to me and I sincerely thank you! Also don't worry, I'm not going to hack into your computer or anything. I can still barely figure out Twitter.

Anyway back to business (jeez, get over yourself). Interview this afternoon, then covering my first event on Saturday night. By the way, I'm an unofficially offical intern at the ModernSocialite online magazine (www.modernsocialite.com). Thinking seriously about getting a small fedora, so I can put a little ballot that says 'PRESS' on it, but fedora's have never really suited me. And now that I think of it, I am writing for them because of this blog! See what can happen when you get over your fear of rejection? [insert corny inspirational phrase here].

Also this weekend I will be visited by 3 ghosts...and by 3 I mean 1 and by ghosts I mean childhood friend. Feeling a little off the rails today. Anyhoo, my tall ginger friend, who I first met in pre-school, is coming to visit me for the first time since I have moved to Cowtown (Calgary). I sometimes feel stressed at such occassions, I don't know who to be, Small-Town Me or City-Me. However, City-Me is kind of an idiot ("I can get us guest list wherever you want, just let me know" which, by the way, is a lie) and I don't really feel like that person anymore. I will simply by Myself, and I am interested to see what my friend's perception of that will be. More to come on this topic.

Oh by the way, last weekend was not as much fun and frolick as I had anticipated. It was more give-a-drunk-girl-at-the-bar-a-pep-talk-while-petting-her-head, then climb-up-a-willow-tree and later fall-asleep-mid-bite-of-Thai Thai. I'm getting old and weird(er). And now, HI-5!

Goodnight, Travel Well

When my dad called me at work yesterday morning, I knew it wasn’t good news.

My great uncle had passed away last night, he told me. It was for the best, he said, and I could only agree with him. My uncle and I weren’t close, I had a few memories of him from my childhood and teen years. He was a quiet man with a quirky sense of humor. It was easy to see the resemblance between my grandmother and him. I didn’t cry, I simply gave my dad my condolences, hung up the phone and went back to work. Last night I thought about him before I went to bed, and I was thankful that he had been in my life, I sent comforting thoughts to his wife, I was sad.

I have always had a strange relationship with death. I remember finding dead animals (mostly cats) around our farm and sobbing over their furry little bodies, occasionally holding funerals for them. I have a vague picture in my head of standing in a graveyard when I was four or five years old, beside  my great grandmother’s casket. My clearest memory on this topic is my dad talking to me about what would happen if he and my mother suddenly passed away. I understand he wanted me to be prepared, but I had a hard time falling asleep for a few years when my parents were out, always half listening for the sound of the garage door.

So for as long as I can remember, death has been an inevitable force in my mind. Because of this, when I am confronted with it, my first response is to stay calm and accept it. No use crying over spilled milk, I can’t change anything now, what’s done is done, and so on...

It has been six months now since my dear friend Erica passed away. There was no warning, I’m still not sure if the doctors even know the exact cause. Looking back, my first response was not grief or sorrow. It was confusion. I didn’t know how to process this; I didn’t know how to feel. Erica was not an animal. She wasn’t old, hadn’t lived a full life. She wasn’t terminally or even seriously ill. It didn’t seem real to me that she was just so suddenly and abruptly gone. Let me be clear, I’m not a sociopath. Of course I wept, of course I made travel arrangements to go home. But it wasn’t until I was sitting in the church before the service, with only a few people scattered around, and looking up at her beautiful pictures that it hit me. The reality of that moment came rushing in and I felt like I was drowning in it.

Grief and regret flooded through me. I hadn’t called her when I was home for Christmas a few months ago. I hadn’t tried to see her. I couldn’t even remember if I had wished her a happy birthday last year. The day went on. I hugged her family and talked with old friends. I was washing my hands and avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirror when two girls I didn’t know came in. One said “you’re Brittany right? We’ve heard so much about you.” Her friends knew who I was, yet I had no idea about them. How could I have been so selfish?

The question plagued me. I knew there was nothing I could say to her now, no way to apologize for being so self absorbed, so distant. I eventually decided that to honor her I would get a tattoo. Then I realized I don’t even like tattoos and that that was a stupid idea. So I thought about all the times she rolled her eyes at me when I started at myself in the mirror too long. I thought about how she reacted when a classmate of ours passed away in junior high. I thought about the night she confessed that she did, indeed, have feelings for her boss (which, incidentally, turned out to be mutual and grew into a very happy relationship). I recalled that no matter how long we went without talking or seeing each other, she was always excited and animated and ready to share with me, to catch up on each other’s lives. Erica was not afraid to express herself. She was brave enough to be sad, and she was courageous enough to be happy.

I have been doing my best to remember these qualities, and to adopt them as my own. That is how I choose to honor her. It’s so easy to get caught up in life’s problems, its hurts and dramas and disappointments...but at what cost? What moments and opportunities are passing you by?

A few weeks after I got back from her funeral, I dreamt about her. We were riding in a car together; as we often had to be chauffeured around before either of us had a license. We were talking and laughing when all of a sudden I realized that she shouldn’t be there, that she was ‘gone’. I went quiet and looked at her, confused. She looked back at me, smiled and said “it’s ok. I know. But it’s ok.” 

I still have a tendency to shut down in moments of intense emotion, though I managed to cry through most of Marley & Me just fine. It’s the real feelings that scare me, that make me want to run and hide. It’s shame that tries to trap me, to hold me down in regret. Erica was truly a beautiful person, and the pain of losing her still catches me, sticks in my chest. But instead of beating myself up over things I cannot change, I am trying to appreciate everything I have. Thinking of her reminds me to feel, reminds me not to be so selfish, reminds me to keep an open heart.