HAVE YOU EVER...: September 2011

Accompanied by "Strength, Courage and Wisdom" by India Arie. Perfect lyrics. OR George Michael's "Faith" which has nothing to do with this blog topic but who doesn't like a little George Michael??!

Sorry for being MIA! It's been a crazy last few weeks for me after coming back from vacation. Work...work work...fun...work, fun, work. Fun. Some very interesting opportunities coming my way though so we shall see where life takes me soon! In the midst of all this craziness a few revelations were presented to me:

1) I need to calm my hormones down. Like seriously...eff.
2) I need to buy groceries eventually. Surviving on fridge air isn't working so much.
3) I need to be less like a guy and perhaps more like a girl.
4) I need to feel I deserve more than what I'm accepting.
5) I should really go back to the gym I've been paying for for the last 9 months.
6) I don't know what I'd do without the invention of batteries. Thank the effing lord.

ANNNNDDDDD....

7) I need to have more faith and learn to let go of situations that don't serve me well!!

Faith faith faith. G. Mike sang about it, we are told to live by it, religions swear by it (let go and let God), but sometimes it's not that easy!! Perhaps it's the Virgo in me coming out wanting to control everything and anything, or maybe its the lack of stability growing up that makes me weary of having faith in anything, but letting go and having faith and trust has always been a somewhat difficult thing to grasp. It's tough to have faith when your life is stagnant and you have no effing clue what lies in front of you. It's hard to have faith when you repeatedly don't get what you want in life (jobs, relationships, money!! etc.) If there is a higher power up there listening to me and my ego ridden requests, why isn't he/she/it giving me what I'm asking for damnit??! Pssshhhaw. With all this said, it's the lack of faith in the universe, and lack of trust and confidence in my intuition and abilities that has lead me down the road called Constant FUCKING FRUSTRATION!! Like really. I tend to beat my head against a wall quite a bit over things that I KNOW won't work out but I don't want to let go of because I don't have the complete faith that something better will come along. If you've tried everything to get a situation in your life to work because you WANT it to work, even with your gut screaming at you to freaking stop the madness, then that's where faith HAS to come in and the surrendering has to start. Its wasteful to exert that much energy that can be directed to something more positive! This over attentiveness to the useless situation is also providing the perfect blindfold to the perfect opportunity that you've been waiting for forever that's right in front of your face. On the other side of the coin, there are times I don't take any action AT ALL because I'm too afraid and don't have any faith in my own self or the gifts that I've been given. I will procrastinate and do everything in my power to avoid putting myself in a place of vulnerability just in case I fail. Eventually life forces me to take action but with much resistance (control control control!!).
Essentially by trying to control everything in life, you aren't leaving much breathing room to let things flow how they are supposed to. You become riddled with anxiety and your knuckles turn white due to how tightly the reigns are being held. Things cannot be forced to happen whether we try hard or not. The universe has a mind of its own unfortunately. This past year I've been trying REALLY hard to just let go and let the universe do its thing. There is constant struggle between what my mind is wanting and what my intuition is saying. However despite my control issues and lack of faith in certain situations, I still have always believed that there is a purpose or plan for us and that we just need to be aware and listen to the cues we receive in life to fulfill this purpose. My issue is that I'm impatient and want things to happen at this instant, and I take control of things when it's not the right time. Theeeen I start to lose hope and faith because nothing is working in my favour. I'm trying to live with the belief that opportunities will present themselves to me at their own time, that will move me forward in the direction I desire. Whatever is meant to be will be, and when a door closes hopefully a huge ass door will open in its place. It's much less stressful taking this approach than carrying all the pressure on my own shoulders. There is no need to carry the burden when there is help and guidance out there to support me. Even if we don't see in the moment why things are happening in our lives that may be less than desirable, hindsight eventually comes in and there is a sudden realization of why all the shit happened in the first place. Starting the writing thing has certainly made me feel like I'm on some sort of track, which in turn has helped me let go of the frustration attached to other aspects of my life. I feel like life is starting to move upward and I feel that this year is going to be a great one. I will keep the faith that I'll meet the right guy, find the right profession that suits me, become a successful writer, and perhaps settle down and have kids one day (although I'm scared of producing devil children!!!) It will all happen when the time is right :) But please God...if you're listening...can you make it happen sooner than later??? Pretty please? ;)

Love ya's!!!!
Lovely Lianne :) XOXOX

Accompanied by some Acadian Music!!!

Hey yoooo!!! SO I haven't written in a while mainly because I've been running around like an ant that's ready to be stepped on. My birthday just recently passed (the big Christ year...33!!!!!) and what better way to celebrate than to kick it off with an East Coast roadie! WOOOOHOOO! My mother, brother, his girlfriend Erin and I were all going down for my cousins wedding and I was super excited!!!!! This road trip was a bit different from my last ones due to the fact that I decided to drive up by myself. They went up a day before. The main reasons for that were:

1) I got in a fight with my Mom and probably would have thrown myself out of the car at the 2 hour mark of our trip. Period. The trip was great though with her and I :)
2) My birthday was the day before my family was to leave...aatttttt 6 a.m. Eff that. I would have been hungover...sleep deprived...and unprepared. And hungover.
3) I was unprepared.
4) I wanted to experience the liberation of driving by myself somewhere and seeing if I could actually arrive at my destination relatively in tact.
5) I wanted to see how long it would have taken before I went stir crazy and started to talk to my steering wheel...and or the imaginary passenger beside me...and or the people beside me in traffic. And or the dust bunnies floating around in my car. There ARE one hundred million of them so conversation would have certainly been continuous.
6) I wanted a chance to be with myself and reflect on my life!!! And reflect I freakin did. Definite changes needing to be made.

So off I went on September 1st at 5:30 a.m....my 33rd year in full effect and my eyes barely open. My dog wanted to attack me as I said goodbye which wasn't the kind of goodbye I had hoped for. Bitch. I had gotten up at 4 a.m. to pack the rest of my stuff which was still hanging up wet from the AFTERNOON before. Like seriously?? Awesome. I did the last minute check around to see if all was OK for my friend Deana who was staying at my place to look after the dog. I even cleaned for her. I almost didn't want to leave because I was enjoying my clean apartment so much *sigh...I am such a great friend* It was still dark out when I left and I looked like crap. I drove down the 401 with nothing but open road in front of me and a sense of absolute freedom! The sun was starting to come up, traffic was non-existent, my music was blaring, my voice was starting to come back which made it much easier to screech out the songs from my Ipod, and my eyes were becoming less foggy. I passed through Ontario snacking on all the shit I bought and sailed into Quebec with ease, which is where I unfortunately ran into my first snag. As I was belting out the tunes and loving life, my foot was also loving its life. The more I got excited the more my foot got excited and the more the gas peddle was getting excited. It was SOOO strange how that was all happening. It was too late before I noticed the cop car sitting to my left waiting for easy targets like me to nail (and not in a sexual way). Fucker. Of course being from Ontario and as my friend pointed out, having a Leafs border around my license plate, I was fucked. I wonder if he noticed the expired sticker as well and if my unpaid Quebec parking ticket from three years ago would come up on his records. I quickly slowed down to 110 and slowly switched over to the right lane. I was hoping he would just leave me alone, but theeeen his stupid ass colourful lights came on and I had to move onto the shoulder. I slowly opened my window staring at him all doe eyed, batting my eyelashes a bit.

Cop: "You were going 128 and it's 100 here (pretty sure I was going 140 but whatever dude)."

Me: "I know....I'm trying to get to New Brunswick (yelling that excitedly! maybe he would get excited too I thought!) You should really get off the side of the road because there are a lot of trucks flying by."

My fake concern didn't work. He went into his car to write me a ticket. Eff man. I tried not to let this bring my mood down, and started to pay better attention to my speed demon ways (which really meant...140 140 140 oops I'm going 140. 120 120 130 135 140...oops I'm going 140....) I took a power nap at 3:30 for 15 minutes and I felt more alive for the second leg of my drive. I crossed the New Brunswick border at 6:30 and a half hour before I reached my destination I got lost. It was 10:30 by that time, and I went down the wrong highway having a slight panic attack on the phone with my cousin. It was dark, the road signs said I was on my way to PEI, and I was afraid of moose and deer attacking me. BAH! I pulled off on the side of the road with cold sweats and a palpitating heart. My cousin directed me back to where I was supposed to go which I half listened to in the midst of my panic. Thankfully I wasn't far off from the correct highway exit. A half hour later I MADE IT!!!!!! And I was alive!!!!! My cousins and my mother were waiting up for me relieved that I didn't die. I felt happy that I accomplished something and it was so great to see my family.

I've been going to Bouctouche since I was a kid. My mother's side all live there, and it's one of those towns where you have to pray to god that you're not making out with one of your family members (its pretty small). It is a half hour away from Moncton, and is absolutely magical. We are the offspring of the Bouctouche Mofia...a clan made up of some powerful sisters whom can make news travel within 5 seconds of the news being delivered to one of them. I feel quite lucky to be a part of this family. There is so much creativity and hard work that runs through our blood and so much love. We used to have amazing bonfires at my cousins cottage on the beach with all the neighbouring cottages joining in, and of course a few cute boys attending (that were probably my cousins). I remember having crushes on Michel and Julian, and trying to be set-up with a guy named Maurice. Those were the days. We would make trips to the beach (trying to avoid the disgusting jellyfish in the Bay of Fundy), visit my grandparents and my great-aunts and cousins (who tried desperately to teach us Chiac..which is really Frenglish - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiac), and we would stop in at The Dixie Lee for some greasy food. I remember this one summer my cousins Danielle and Michelle and my sister and I all went into Moncton to watch Free Willy. I would say we were probably 14 or so and when we sat down, there was a bunch of teenagers that sat down beside us and in front of us. There was this guy that sat beside me and the whole movie we would have our one arm and leg pressed together. Oh Free Willy. Oh boys. Such innocence. So many great memories. I was lucky to have two of my best friends come down with me one year as we all went on an East coast road trip. It was nice to show them how I spent many of my summers and have them meet my family.

The next four days of this years trip were amazing. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and we were even able to go to the beach and chill out for a few of the days. We made day trips to Moncton and to PEI which was super fun, and no one killed each other in the car which was a bonus! The wedding for my cousin Denis and his now wife Kristin was beautiful. It was intimate and full of love (and I cried which I don't normally do at weddings)! They had a great band, some really cool hand made pinwheel centre pieces (in lieu of flowers!) and I was able to catch up with all of my cousins I haven't seen since last year. A lovely evening for sure and I'm so happy for them!!!!

A couple of days after the wedding I may have driven with my parking break on for probably 15 minutes..up a hill...unnoticed until my brother and Erin heard a loud screeching sound. I didn't even realize that sound was coming from my car! When we got out of the car there was smoke coming out of both back tires and a lovely burning smell. God damnit. We had just come back from the beach so my mind wasn't in the right place clearly!

I feel hopeful for the year to come :) After having an incredible two hour conversation with my cousin Sylvio the last day I was in Bouctouche, I was able to put my life into perspective. Things are certainly shifting in a good direction so here is to an amazing year 33!!!!! I arrived back in Ontario 11:30 Tuesday night after an 18 hour drive that went surprisingly well (minus getting lost in Montreal for a bit). Can't wait for the next time :)

Some pics for your viewing pleasure: