Category: self love

I wanted to sneak in one last Wise Project post into 2018, an opportunity to tell a lit bit more about myself, dispel some myths and say some inappropriate stuff.

I believe people get a certain idea of me from my writing but it is somewhat one dimensional. From my writing you would not garner that I talk about penises way too much to be normal and that I live a lot of my life in song lyrics and movie quotes. Most of you are not even aware that I am incredibly funny; the problem is I often forget the punchline.

I have passed these things along to my middle child Morgan, along with some other great stuff that I am sure she will be eternally grateful for. While students were moving a table in her high school class Morgan yelled ‘PIVOT, PIVOT” in the consummate Ross Gellar voice, Friends circa February 1999. (She would have been four months old when it aired originally) Only her teacher got the reference but in any case that is a parenting win. I also convinced her that in the U.K. there were 8 days in a week, hence the popular Beatles song. Unbeknownst to me, she carried this belief with her like a favorite childhood teddy and protected it fiercely. Despite being bullied for this she stood a firm ground on it because her mama was always right. At nineteen she finally knows the truth. She has known the truth for about nine months now and a lot of truths came out that day, she discovered that the ankles of the bread were actually heels (at least to boring people) and that Chef Boyardee ravioli was not made with horse meat. Perhaps what I should have said is that I find me incredibly funny.

If you have spent any time with me at all you know that I care about my undergarments a great deal and I believe they should match. The last thing I want is to end up in a car accident and the nurse’s judge me for granny panties and a ratty old bra. I also had embarrassing incident in my twenties where I ended up in a compromising scenario wearing no underwear, the day “el fresco died”  To me, mismatched undergarments is like going on a hot date that has the possibility of ending in sex with unshaven legs.

I went on a coffee date a couple of weeks ago and I had on a nice designer sleeveless dress that I managed to score at the thrift store. My entire outfit cost about $18.99 but I felt like a million bucks until I discovered I had forgotten to shave my armpits. I have multiple Groupon’s to use and had intended to get them waxed when I took care of the rest of my personal business but alas I sat outside of Starbucks and dry shaved my armpits with a razor I picked up at Sobeys on the way there. Sometimes looking good comes with a price.

Last week my daughter was watching “How I met your mother” and Robin was on a date with a hot surgeon, she had not intended on it going so well and had not shaved her legs. I was watching this intently as I sat there with my overgrown jungle woman legs. She somehow convinced her bitchy waitress to go buy her a razor but she did not grab shave cream. Robin was shaving in the bathroom using butter as a shave cream, some dropped, and she slipped on it and knocked herself out. Meanwhile the waitress picked up the hot surgeon. I had never felt so deeply seen and understood in my life. I am Robin and Robin is me.

On a previous waxing appointment I had not let the hair on my legs grow out long enough and it hurt like a motherfucker and grew back patchy. The last time I thought they would need to use a lawn mower on it. As a lady who likes to parade around in her fancy matching bra and undies, appreciating my smooth, daily shaven limbs the grow out period is painful for me. I feel like my relationship with myself suffers immensely. I am avoid things like good night cuddles and admiring touches. Weeks pass where I do not wink at myself or slap my own ass. My love meter drops into the negative. Last week Kelsey at Bodhi Spa helped bring me back to myself. I came home that night, put on the Rose Royce classic “I wanna get next to you” and I felt a great love for myself.

Not that that is relevant to anything at all but I am not a swinger. I am finally at peace with the idea that everybody you meet creates a different version of you in their own minds so if you have created me as a swinger I hope I am at least a good one, whatever that would mean. After my husband passed away one of his old buds’s started that rumor and I am sure it was tossed around a lot over drinks. As the case is with small towns and possibly all towns, people talk more than they listen and they just adore gossip. I am glad I gave them all something to talk about and I am sorry to disappoint. I do rather respect swingers for their ability to just be themselves and no matter how you or I or their parents feel about it, adults can and will choose the sex life that feels right for them. Anyway, I am sure the rumor morphed from a story about the time that Kirk and I accidentally ended up at a Swingers bar and as he recounted it I am sure he had no idea that someday it would be twisted and turned into something it wasn’t. We sat in the corner eating donairs because we are nothing if not East coast classy and then we decided to make the most of it by playing this match the boob’s game. They had a huge poster board and rows of boobs and below those, rows of faces to match them up. There were some interesting boobs, let me tell you. I will never forget my late husbands face when a woman came over offering for him to squeeze her tits to be of some assistance. That is almost the extent of Kirk and I’s swinger lifestyle. In fact, until we moved to Edmonton in 2008, I thought Swinging was just something you do at a park. I do appreciate boob’s though, one of my fondest memories is Las Vegas in 2009, at a huge, I believe they call it ‘Gentlemen’s Club’, I was telling this young, beautiful Latin girl that her boobs were just perfect and she did not need a breast augmentation. Somehow this led to a fun game, as most nights involving tequila shots do, next thing you know I am the resident boob expert and I get to decide real or fake for a succession of amazingly beautiful women with boobs of all shapes and sizes. No jury needed, real always wins. It is difficult to recreate the squish, the bounce or the gentle curve of a real breast. Breasts really are art come to life. I suppose I just started a new rumor that I am a lesbian, which no disrespect to lesbians, I just do not like cats that much (according to Ellen to qualify you need to own three or more)  and I have a great love for penises and sometimes the interesting men attached to them.

I share a bathroom with my fourteen year old daughter Haley and she could tell you a lot of stories I am sure. I am grateful that she taught me how to contour and highlight, I did it all wrong for several years and the results were atrocious. She didn’t outright tell me I was doing it all wrong but after about a year of her horrified sideways glances I finally asked her for advice. She has watched countless hours of YouTube videos and basically knows everything about everything.

My son Jeff is a younger, less jaded version of me and it is very difficult to say no to him. I like to think that everything I do is rooted in love and then Jeff visits and he is so magnanimous in his affection and capacity to love, minus the lackluster, world-weary, cynical bullshit that I often have to wade through. The way he goes through the house picking out things he would like to take home reminds me of how after I moved out I used to go to my moms and I was constantly in her cupboards, “WTF Mom, when did you guys start buying Nutella?”

My kids are amazing and I have a tiny fourteen year old cat that slithers around like a thief in the night, continually begs for canned food and stares at me while I am sleeping. It is quite romantic when I wake up at 4 am to the muted sounds of The Police ‘Every Breath you take and my cat; Aulie staring creepily into my eyes. I make excuses for Aulie because she was thrown out of a moving vehicle when she was too young to be taken from her mother, my late husband rescued her and she picked me to be her person. She has trust issues, anybody would.

My dog Buddy is a rescue as well and he was abused. He was anxiety ridden when he came to us, however he is the most loving and gentle beast. He is a Collie/Cross who hates to be brushed and even if I brush him three times a day he sheds an entire other dog. Due to early mistreatment Buddy came to us with early onset arthritis and is currently experiencing pain. He likes to chase the cat up and down the stairs and his pattern seems to be chase, hurt, rest for three weeks, REPEAT. I have a handful of people in my life that I feel truly get me and love me without judgement and Buddy is definitely in that Tribe. Aulie is not, Aulie does love me, in her own way, but I know she judges me constantly, even while I am sleeping.

I used to be a fairly judgmental person and I took a long hard look at that and I make a conscious effort to always offer love before judgement. I am human though, and therefore I err. Just a second ago I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and saw a model who was advertising a new hair color and my first thought was her nose was horrible and then I metaphorically punched myself in the mouth and decided promptly that the model was beautiful and her nose was not the problem, it was the angle and then I swiftly judged the photographer for his terrible eye and the advertisers for accepting the picture. I like to think of myself as a work in progress, constantly making an effort and calling myself out on my own bullshit.

I believe the best we can do in any given moment is the next best thing. Life is just one moment. Then the next… I do not believe in coping mechanisms, I work hard on thriving mechanisms. I am an introverted extrovert who overshares.

I am sure my mom is reading this and saying to Papa “Jesus Gord, does she really have to talk about penises? Maybe the right penis would shut her up!”

I see you Mom, I see you. 😉

2018 brought me the most amazing experiences and I thank my children for constantly dragging me outside of my comfort zone. If it were not for them I might spend all of my free time curled up watching Drop Dead Diva reruns. They show me everyday what is possible in life and how important it is that I do the same for them.

Like all of you I am sure, I had experiences in 2018 that brought me heartache and lots of tears, those experiences also brought me lessons that I really needed to learn. Society would have us believe that if we are single we are somehow less than and what I learned is that my heart is expansive, I have a huge capacity to love, though it is not my job to be enough for anyone or to make myself small to fit into a box that is not for me. Being single teaches you a great deal about yourself and what is important. When I find myself succumbing to loneliness I become curious and observant. I learn from others. The one thing I am very aware of is that I do not want to settle for someone that does not tick all of the boxes for me. In the future, if I commit to being in a romantic relationship with someone else there has to be an intimate friendship; they must be my best friend and be able to communicate with me even when things are tough, there must be mutual respect, we do not always have to agree but we should respect each others differences and while we remain rooted together we must also be free to grow individually. They also must be an animal in the sack, no exceptions. (My mom is now either fist bumping the air and saying “yes” I made her or crying and tearing her hair out” This is not negotiable! I have a great relationship with myself and I have lots of fantastic people I can spend time with, if I am going enter into a serious relationship or lets be real, even a casual  sexual relationship, it must meet this criteria “GREAT SEX”

I think sex is an important criterion in a romantic relationship as it distinguishes it from all our other relationships and that intimacy that is created between couples can be powerful, should be powerful. You can all send me hate mail if you like and tell me all the reasons that there is more to sex in a relationship. I agree, there is more, lots more, however it is my fake relationship we are planning and this box must have a big, red check mark beside it (the bigger the better 😉

As I marinate in all that was in 2018 I realize that I did not become a “new me”, I did however dust off and polish some layers of me that were blanketed under the weight of burdens, expectations, old vows and beliefs, fears, shame and insecurity. As I move forward into 2019 I want to continue to shed anything that is no longer useful.

It is hard to narrow down the life altering events in my life in 2018, if was full of organized learning opportunities, courses and workshops, art, theater, ballet, music, friendship, love, loss and heartbreak. All in all I feel incredibly blessed.

I have started courses working towards my certification in Life Coaching and I just finished a 30 days of Sensuality Course with Ev’yan Whitney, who penned the piece titled “Too Much Woman” which shifted my entire perspective. I am hoping to work extensively with Ev’Yan in the coming year to heal and step fully into my own personal power and the full expression of my own sensuality so the niche of my future coaching can be focused on helping other women to do the same. I feel like I have been blessed with some special gifts that I am compelled to share with others and I know that as a woman who has suffered past trauma that we often allow our fears, shame and insecurity to keep us small and silent and that prevents us from embracing ourselves as beautiful sexual beings and enjoying amazing and fulfilling sex lives. Pleasure is our birthright and I believe great sex is an integral part of the mind*body*spirit connection that keeps us physically and mentally healthy.

I hope the year ahead for you is filled with magical madness, great literature, art that makes you ponder, movies that make you cry and moments that make you want to sing. I hope you kiss someone that thinks you hang the moon each night, I hope that same person would hoist the sky into the sky each morning if it meant brightening your day. I hope your love for yourself is profound and I hope you find healthy ways to fulfill all of your needs and that you chase your dreams instead of just living the same day over and over. You are about to be presented with 365 new opportunities. Do something amazing!!

Have a safe and wonderful end of 2018 and a fantastic beginning to 2018.