Face Time

This is exciting. Thanks to my brilliant boss, I've figured out how to enhance my blog to make it totally better. Check it out: on the right side: most popular blogs from the past month. So you don't have to read the crappy ones. :)

Please click on the ads, apparently I've made a whole $12 without even knowing it because I didn't know how to set that up properly. Now that it's done, Google will be sending me a check. I'm going to spend it wisely.

At the bottom of the page, you can hit buttons to share me on FaceBook, Twitter, Google+. If you help me out I'll give you my $12. Remember: if Dumb and Dumber taught us anything, it's that an IOU is better than money.

And the best part - for all you Europeans, Asians, South Americans, is that there is now a translate button at the very bottom so you can read me in your own language. I'm sure something gets lost in the translation though, as a warning. It's like trying to read Gabriel Garcia Marquez in English, or worse yet, watching the movie version of Love in the Time of Cholera (El amor en los tiempos del cólera).

Speaking of love, I've decided to dispense some more relationship advice this time around. I know what you're thinking and you're right. Why should you listen to me? The one girl who always ends up single while all her girlfriends constantly "relationship". Have you thought though, that maybe that's exactly the reason why I'm the best person to tell you this?

I've been listening to y'all bitch and moan about what you aren't getting from your current (seemingly fine) relationship. And what I would like to tell you is that: no relationship is perfect. Far from it actually. In the world of FaceBook and Instagram, we all look at each other and envy what the other person has. We compare our lives to everyone else's and obviously they are succeeding where we are failing. One person has someone who is there all the time, to do family dinners and take them on trips and build a home together but craves the emotional intimacy they feel lacking. Another one, has the seemingly perfect partner, while they are secretly sad said partner never thinks in couple terms about the future, and only lives in the single-life mindset. Or what about the relationship with the guy with the great job, who owns his own property and wants to settle down and have a family, but refuses to be affectionate?

I'm going to do you all a favour and make it very simple to understand. There are just a few basic wants and needs your woman has and here they are:

1) Emotional Intimacy: a deep, personal attachment and connection. She can tell you how she feels and you understand and communicate your feelings, needs, emotions back to her. Easier said than done, I know, but without this, she feels lonely and misunderstood.

2) Affection. This has nothing to do with sex. (Although, gawd, you're an adult, have sex with your girlfriend already.) Hugs, a kiss on the cheek or forehead, hold her hand when you're walking home from work. That's it, this one is easy.

3) Commitment. It's not easy to love you if we feel like we might wake up tomorrow and you're not going to be there. Be there. We need reassurance and consistency.

4) Validation and acceptance. We need to know our feelings and opinions matter and you will take those into account when we make decisions together. Even if you make a decision that contradicts ours, we need to know you considered all our inputs as valid. We need to have a voice that's heard.

5) Quality time. Men and women are very different in this respect. It's been proven that men feel that they've spent quality time with their partner when they've spent the night watching tv together on the couch. Women need that connection, that conversation to feel like it's been a quality interaction. That doesn't need to happen every night, but it needs to factor into how you view the quality of your relationship. Face Time.

Face time is something women are good at, and I'm not just talking about the iPhone app. I did recently get an iPhone though, as y'all know, and for me and my girlfriends who aren't in Toronto, we all know how important it is to make that tiny special effort to look each other in the face and feel our bond, even of only for a few minutes. It kicks the ass of text messages, emails and even phone calls. Do it. She'll feel oh-so-special and love you for it.

Now, I'm not saying you have to do all the work. But this is some pretty basic, free advice that I'm giving you here, and at $150 a pop at relationship counselling, you should at least think about it. Men and women, we're programmed differently. We don't get each other but we can keep trying.

And PS don't feel bad for me that I'm home alone writing blogs while y'all are cuddling on dates. If things don't work out here in Toronto, maybe I'll end up marrying the American or Vienna so the time I spent alone working, going to school and learning to speak German and American will really pay off. It's all going to work out in the end if we stay true to ourselves and remember, when you choose to really be in a relationship, life stops being about you and starts being about someone else. And when they're happy, you'll be happy too. Trust me.

"Forget" You

Listen to this while you read me.

Happy long weekend everyone. : )

I love Labour Day weekend. Y'all know I get all sappy at Thanksgiving (I know we get presents at Christmas, but Thanksgiving is the best holiday ever), and I know that no one should be sappy about this long weekend. We should all just thank the Universe that we don't have to go to work. (Well most of us. Sorry JJ.)

I'm strangely excited though about the end of summer. Fall is my favorite season. It's so beautiful and melancholy. (Yup there's that word again.) I have to put away all my wee dresses, but we get to buy new sweaters. Tweed is always "in" and most years come fall, I die my hair red. Days get shorter, nights become crisp and everything dies. (Sorry, if that was morbid. But we're all gonna die people. Fall is the perfect reminder to do all the things you need to do before the leaves turn brown.) Winter is coming. (Yes, I know, I need to lay off the Game of Thrones. And stop italicizing things.)

Then though, we'll see spring and everything starts all over again, almost as if, from the beginning. And as many falls, springs, new years, birthdays I've been through, we could always use yet another fresh start. It might be the week off work or the two sessions with The Doctor, but I've gotta say I feel extremely grateful for life as it is. I think my little writing project has finally helped me find some closure. My Doctor asked me if I was scared that it's coming out and honestly, I'm not. I was, for a long time but not now. Now that I've given the story to someone else, I can talk about it, and it's just a story.

I want to thank everyone who's read me or been part of the the journey I've been on the past couple of years. This blog has been an important, no necessary, part of the healing process and when I started out I remember being so impressed when I had had 2,000 reads on here. Now we're almost at 20,000 and who knows what will happen soon? Jersey Shore says once I hit 50,000 I'm marketable so it doesn't seem that crazy to think that we can get there.

I've had family, both JW and not, who asked me why I had to do this. It inconveniences them I know. They want to know: if I want to be a writer, why can't I just write another story? I wish I could and maybe someday I will. One more Games of Thrones mention and I will stop, but it's fascinating how his imagination came up with all that. Although this will seem cliche coming from a girl from PEI, in Anne of Green Gables, the best advice she ever got was just to write about what she knew. So this might not be my last story, but it's definitely my first one, and the reason why y'all keep reading me.

I've had someone recently post on here, an old friend no doubt who I'm sure cares, why don't I just come back to them if I'm so obviously miserable? I want to make it very, very, very clear, I'm not miserable. The exact opposite actually. I'm overwhelmed with how many wonderful people I can call "family" now. I have trouble figuring out how to spend my weekends trying to fit everyone in who wants to see me. Sometimes, I have relapses and I need to talk about the past. Sometimes I worry about the children of the JWs now and what will happen to them if they buy into that and then become adults and change their minds. I worry about people like me who are constant people pleasers and will face the hardest battle if they ever decide to follow their heart.

Yes, I lost my mom. But I found another one. More than one actually, because here in Toronto I've found mothers and fathers and sisters and even a kid. Whatever happens, this is a success story already. And you can do it too, if you're ever wondering if it's possible to start all over. I have two bunches of fresh flowers from the market and a BBQ to get to. It's the long weekend. Let's have fun. And, THANK YOU : )

Sullivan out.