In September, I began purposely distancing myself from various faucets of life. In particular, my online presence, Flickr, Vox, Facebook & Twitter, became virtually non existent for almost 2 solid months, some longer. Even recently my activity has been guarded.
I purposely took myself offline, and removed myself from real-life social situations in order to refocus on myself. After the events of 2008: being laid off, our miscarriage, moving out of our inner-city apartment, which became symbolic of our inner-city era, which were easily the best years of our lives, I found myself floundering through life. Putting on a brave face to the world, full of ambition, but feeling dead inside. Feeling guilty, feeling like I had failed, feeling hopeless.
Admittedly, I had a lot of hate in my head. It wasn't the result of those events in '08, or even the subsequent struggles of '09, it had been building for years prior. The drama and the politics, and perhaps the injustices of life built up gradually over time, and came to a head. My anger was directed at various people and various situations, and in many cases it was justified, but it blinded me from the joy and positivity of life. I moved forward with a sense of false direction or purpose. I was motivated to act more by revenge, as if to attack with a "I'll show you" mentality, sizing myself up to others every step of the way. It took me nowhere, and by September I had hit my breaking point.
It's really only been in recent weeks that I feel I've had that "eureka!" moment that has changed my perspective, or at least begun to. Every day is a challenge, and some are better than others, but at the root of it, a single word has become the foundation from which to build from: Discipline.
Inspired by Theo Fleury's recent comeback attempt to the NHL, and all the "positive chaos" that has surrounded him in recent months, I realized that I was heading down a road towards self destruction, again. I had no structure even in my day-to-day routine. I realized I needed to focus solely on myself, and get back to basics, and that required discipline. I began by focusing on my health.
Whereas most people "hit the gym", I chose to "hit the rink", and began ice skating twice a week, by myself, having not skated in almost two years, and even back then, only skated for a few weeks, casually with Ange. In a way, I hadn't really skated in over 10 years. I started from scratch, I paid my dues, got hurt, got injured, and have fallen flat on my ass a few times. But in a way, it was symbolic of the woes of life. I think that people sometimes think that if we fall, some mysterious person will come by to pick us up, and essentially do it for us. There's no one coming to save you. It's all up to you. When I fell on the ice one of my first times, I remember sitting there, cold, covered in snow, wondering what to do: get up and leave/give up, or get up and try again. Either way, I had to get up by myself. What I chose to do afterwards would subsequently dictate the direction of my attitude. I chose to get up and try again. I've been going to the rink twice a week ever since, and today I skate better than I ever have before, and improving every time I go because I purposely challenge myself to try something I hadn't tried before. Discipline got me there.
I had issues brewing inside that I had merely tried to sweep under the carpet and forget, but that doesn't mean they went away. I realized I needed to bring those issues to the forefront and confront them, because otherwise, they simply linger by the wayside, waiting for an opportunity to attack and consume your mind.
Again, Theo Fleury helped inspire this realization after a post he made on his blog in which he lists the 12 steps from AA's "The Big Book". One step in particular that struck a chord with me was: "Made a fearless and thorough moral inventory of ourselves." To be brutally honest with yourself about the state of your life, and identify those demons responsible for bringing you to the place you find yourself now. To hold yourself accountable.
I have had a lot of hate in my head, but much of it was never confronted, or again, blinded me from acting with the proper intentions.
I've only just begun confronting those demons, where possible, but already I've seen a shift in my perspective. I've tried to turn the other cheek and, if unable to confront things, at least come to have peace with it, to put it behind me, but not out of hate, but out of growth. I've actively chosen to remove people and situations from my life whose energy is toxic to my own, who radiate negativity and engage in drama, politics or gossip. It does nothing positive for me, and I choose not to expose myself to it.
For me, a new chapter has clearly begun, and though every day is a challenge, I at least wake up every day looking forward to them, as opposed to trying to skirt by them just to get through the day. There has been a lot of changes that seem to have come as a result of this new-found discipline and attitude, and plenty more to come, I'm sure of it.
So, I've been using my Typepad account instead of VOX, and whenever I come back over this way I have shit loads of spam comments to delete. Surely, VOX, if you delete a spam account, it should automatically delete all of the spam comments they've left as well?
