This past December, my family saved my life. It’s been frustrating trying to put this experience in words because it’s all knots and confusion top to bottom, and concerns a situation so painful that I was only a few months away from silently, quietly ending my vicious world. I had endured seven full months of psychosis – paranoid delusions and hallucinations that doctors misdiagnosed as anxiety. It was 99 problems and a bitch all day every day, but I had angels.

My mom saved me. On December 10, 2012, three days after moving back to my hometown and after a dinner in which she saw me as I had lived since May – curled up, constantly scratching a spot at the back of my head, eyes intense and sad, hands shaking and droning on about how my sore throat was cancer – she stood up saying she’d had enough and grabbed what works for her to de-stress, vitamin B12. With two pills of a basic vitamin she erased who I had been for seven months within five minutes.

And that’s the thing: life was going great in May. I had just come off the biggest career success of my life as an editorial intern at a major magazine and was confident I was going to find a fit somewhere in Vancouver. Things were in what NASA calls the ‘final launch phase’, and my excitement was obvious to everyone. A week in Victoria hunting ghosts in the cemetery with my friends (a regular nostalgic activity) and a total bender for my birthday capped off a memorable trip. Three days later in Van at 2am, I sat up in bed with my light on looking at what I thought was condensed dust in the shape of a man looming above my bedside. I tried to scrunch into

the couch in the livingroom the next two nights after feeling and seeing his presence. Whenever I turned lights off in the livingroom or bedroom and closed my eyes, my eyes would flicker side-to-side uncontrollably. This was all too frightening and exhausting. The next few nights I just slept in bed with all my bedroom lights on with my head sandwiched between my pillow and the wall. This is how I would sleep for the next nearly 210 nights, lights blazing with my head to the wall. I felt like I had brought home a spirit. I was haunted. I had made a joke about a doctor who was buried there and now I felt like he was here analyzing my body for a 19th century-style operation. Pain was coming.

A hallucination can really fuck up your state of mind. First week of June – I don’t remember how it started – but, two paranoias began: One, that I was surely getting cancer again and every little sore spot on my body, blemish, rash, swelling, pain, ache and bump was the sign; and Two, there was going to be an earthquake if not in the next half hour then definitely few hours, or day. I had two apps I used nonstop. (And I mean it literally, when I had a free moment I was on them, goodbye Facebook.) For the cancer paranoia it was WebMD, and for earthquakes it was a real-time earthquake tracker that provided alerts for earthquakes near you and to your preferred Richter level (I set it at the bare minimum: 2.5 and had hoped for 1.5 because with all of the other around-the-clock research on quakes I had found that clusters of 1.5 are a tell tale foreshadowing a big one is about to shake.) This is all ridiculous and writing it out is weird. I’d shake my head at this. What a weirdo. But that’s just it, I could actually feel my nervous system strung out and buzzing. I had waves of tingling across my face, toes and finger tips on my left side. More to be freaking out over cancer about, but also all textbook signs of a vitamin B12 deficiency.

By mid June I was now hauling an emergency kit with me when I took the skytrain, when I went to work (which I was able to do somehow, though bathroom breaks were to get a quick cry out – being caught in a mall in the middle of an earthquake is not where you want to be) and to my friend’s place. The ingredients of the bag I’ll share, only because I think it portrays my mindset better than I can explain. In one red backpack I had:

A new, fully stocked emergency responder first aid kit, Q-tips, knives (serrated and combat), spoon, fork, can opener, three weeks of meds, toilet paper, tarp, garbage bags, hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, deodorant, shampoo, tooth brush and paste, gum, two pairs of socks (one black one white), two pairs of boxers (black), passport, birth certificate, cash, change in multiple denominations, cell phone charger, pay as you go cell for the US, camera, film, map book of BC, notebook (paper to journal my story of the disaster situation and full of contact lists for family and emergency centers), SAS survival guide, three pens, books to read (Alice in Wonderland to escape the brutal real life disaster scenario I would be dealing with and Dalai Llama’s Book of Transformation, positivity and wisdom to deal with current disaster situation), photo album, pack of playing cards, two stainless steel half-liter bottles of water (because water supplies in the city will be poisoned), five caribeener clips, zip straps, a second packable backpack, four Powerbars, one can of chili, one can of Chef Boyardee Mini Ravioli.

I was prepared, yes, but more so I was scared beyond belief. And of every passing minute, too. Pure obsession was keeping me alive, but the fear was paralyzing. I missed birthdays. All of my projects died. My plants died. I never wrote or did art. I missed appointments. I lost weight. I was living under a rock, but that rock was my brain. To remember many of the days and nights is difficult because it’s one solid wad of pure terror and the same repetitive behaviours, but I do remember the day I went to the doctor. I had held out because, having bipolar, I figured it was just part of the game, stuff my sis had gone through, but there was so much more behind it: there was embarrassment and shame.

It was the day I saw on my earthquake tracking app that there were some small tremors in the 400 mile vicinity of Vancouver. I texted my mom telling her I love her and maybe she should look into buying herself emergency kits, not trying to scare her like I was scared. I made sure Mom and my sister were going to be outside and not at my sister’s which I was sure was a death trap from research on structural damage I had done. I packed up my backpack, umbrella and an extra 1-liter water bottle and sat in the soccer field for four hours waiting for it. Prepared.

It started to rain. With the umbrella up I was dry until the wind pushed the rain sideways and the water came at me through the grass from all sides. The tarp helped, but I looked ridiculous. All of the houses started to look less dangerous and more representative of a warm livingroom, a safe hug. I felt so alone, not just in where I was huddled down, but with this horrendous curse. No one could possibly relate to me here, or love me. I called my doctor and said it was time I went into the hospital. I surrendered. If cancer or an earthquake wasn’t going to kill me, fear and the fear of fear was going to kill me. I had also prepared a suicide plan; quick, quiet and clean. But I couldn’t let the flame go out. I wanted my life back. So I called my health team and was admitted to an intake unit that was like a B&B, but with a curfew, meds time, shittier food and doctors who tell you to “just accept” that you have an anxiety disorder, even though you know and say it isn’t the problem. In retrospect, it was more like the mental hospitals you see on TV, but in a fancier package.

Truthfully, I knew about B12 then. In my first bipolar hospitalization six years ago it was B12 they stuck me with at the beginning, saying I was low. I requested B12 tests here, but found out just recently (calling my Vancouver nurse to flip out that they did everything wrong) that they actually never did the test.

When I was out I was more confused than ever, still obsessively paranoid in my delusions of illness and emergency, but so filled with self-blame that it was my fault for thinking this way. The shame and embarrassment from the whole thing was all on me. It hung from my neck like a steel anchor. Having to partake in anti-anxiety courses were a battle because I couldn’t stop my fear that ‘the mole on my arm is darker than normal and therefore I definitely have cancer.’ My fear was panic-filled. Each moment like cutting yourself deep and panicking about what to do next before the blood pours, so in a class setting I was barely there, especially during the Mindfulness exercises. And my attention was on my latest symptoms anyway: Irritable Bowel Syndrome pain and my vision was like looking through a mist of static snow you see on TV.

But, I got work in Victoria in November and didn’t have anything really tying me to Vancouver except my friends who knew some of my story. In Victoria, I’d have the opportunity to make more money, live in a less expensive city, and yes, I guess being around my family would help. Secretly, I had given myself a timeline. If I was still in this excruciating state by my birthday in May I’d possibly kill myself then. I had been planning the perfect way to do it for months, a way which wouldn’t traumatize somebody finding my body like a jumper’s mashed up body or a gunshot would. It would be quiet, on my bed and show that I went quick and simply “faded out” as I like to think my fellow bipolar Kurt Cobain meant to go. It’s a hard thing to plan, but when your life – the freedom of your movement and thought – has been so completely drowned out already, as if by wave upon wave of a chaotic, soul-scraping static sound, you make the room to plan these things. It’s a survival instinct.

So, thank God for my sister, who’s been through this with her schizoaffective illness and an unshakeable love for life. It’s easy to think about suicide, but useless to ponder further when you have someone you care about so deeply that you’d do anything to never see them hurt. And that got me to the pill, which got me to these last few months of coming to terms with all of these things. After trauma there’s a period where you feel like the little kid who just dizzily stumbled away after spinning in circles. There has never been a more blissful feeling than when that B12 sunk in and I could close my eyes without them flickering back and forth. Pure serenity washed over me completely. It was the greatest reward. And all of this, the time I’ve spent wrestling with the fact that I was severely traumatized for seven months and that doctors were of fault, and also being angry at it all, has come and gone. I have freedom of thought again, like I never remembered how it felt. I’m learning what things I like to read, what I like to do. What do I like to do to relax? I’m learning. I’m incredibly thankful that I got here. I’m nearly 32, lost a year, but have a world to explore in a whole new way. Now that my hands can steadily move my record player’s needle to the groove without scratching, I’m creating a new soundtrack. There’s going to be so many more troubles along the way (it’s life,) but I really do believe I survived something worse than I could have imagined, and this battle showed me that I have the will to do any damn thing. It’s something to be said for challenges that nearly break us. They allow us to build ourselves anew, and stronger for next time.

It’s a month after my birthday. June, and it feels like time ripped open and grabbed me by the cortex. I’m back in the hospital. Actually it’s an intervention unit, which is the same thing except it’s a building that looks like a house nowhere near a hospital, but looks and is staffed like a hospital, except the TV room has three sofas.

And I’m sitting up in my bed at 11pm, an hour after “lights out” and my nervous system won’t stop, my nerves, I can’t stop being scared.

It’s two things: I’m getting cancer or an earthquake is coming. Every minute of every day (since three days after I wrote my dreamy last post in May) I fixate on something like a lump on my arm, a cough, a stomach ache, or I secretly plan all of my escapes, where I’ll hide during a quake or check my earthquake tracker app.

I carry around a full emergency kit and cans of soup in a backpack. I’m ashamed.

And I don’t know why this is happening. In one night, this started happening:

-nervous system ringing tight and causing panicky paranoia, intense fear like something is killing me.

-tingling across the left side of my face, into my eye, left fingers and toes,

-I can’t sleep with the lights out. I think there’s someone, something, in my room watching me unless the room is lit up.

-I can’t stop shaking. My hands can’t lower a needle on a record of hold a phone to my head for longer than 5 seconds before I look like I’m convulsing.

-when I close my eyes in the dark my eyes flicker left and right uncontrollably really fast.

-my vision is deteriorating. I’m seeing like TV static snow on top of what I see.

Doctors tell me it’s in my head, that I have General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and I need to make peace with it and do many ongoing anti-anxiety classes the rest of my life. But, they don’t understand, it’s not anxiety causing nerve damage… it feels like nerve damage causing anxiety.

I think I’m going crazy. I don’t want to feel the need to weigh myself three times a day and fear that any loss of a pound means cancer and I’m going to die. I really feel like I’m going crazy, that I’m annoying the doctors when I ask them each night to check my blood pressure because my heart is racing and choking me.

I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. My family is so far away. I’m scared. I miss them. I wish I was home. I just want to be able to think, but I’m chained by something wrong inside me. I’m trapped and being torn apart.

With all the ups and downs of my life (hence: Rock the Seesaw), it’s been natural for my mind to focus only on what’s wrong and how to fix it. And because of that, I’ve only thought of myself as never right. There’s always something wrong with me. I’ve had a lot of bad feelings about myself, and in my perfectionism, I am always a loser.

But, there’s a lot to be said for panic attacks, which I’ve been dealing with for the last three nights. They might have been caused by side effects with my night time meds, and interactions with that and beer from the weekend. But, once those attacks started my nerves on the left side of my head, face, fingers and toes started pin-pricking and feeling stroked by insects. Scary. WebMD = brain cancer. Thoughts = the end.

A day ago, a friend told me she just wants to see me like myself, and another told me that I don’t need to struggle on To Do lists of how to fix myself – I’m perfect just the way I am. I’ve head these before, but…

I love my friends.

So last night I looked at myself in the mirror and made goofy faces, to kill my disconnection with my reflection. And I meditated through the ringing nerves and let it all go. I just gave up. If I met myself on the street, hung out for a bit, I’d see me as a hero. This guy beat cancer, deals with bipolar fantastically, writes amazing, imagination is bounding, and the type of person you want in your family and as a friend, always there for people when they’re at their worst. I fell in love with myself for the first time last night. When it sank in and I genuinely stated it in my mind, I felt wild shivers all across my body, under my skin. It felt weird but thrilling, like my body was detoxifying and accepting something new. All of the obsession over scary physical symptoms shit is just news, and if I can successfully block out the news like I have the last four days, it’s gone. I was grounded and felt as accepted by existence as being accepted by a new love. Lying in corpse pose in bed, embraced.

I don’t have regrets it’s taken me this long. It means too much to me right now. It’s all golden.

As my friends were moving through poses with finesse, without shaking or cheating, I had realized that I could touch the floor with my fingers when standing, too, but I had to bend my knees to do it.

One thought leads to another and I’m stuck with the realization that, in life, my friends are so much further ahead than me. It’s so stupid and I’m not a jealous person, but… I guess I am, but it’s less jealousy and more that I’m mad at myself for falling behind.

I’m lucky to have such creative friends and to be joined by them recently in the big city, but all of these friends who I went through writing and film school with, even the friends in the year behind us, have been finding success networking, striking out with more filming, creating their own flashy portfolio websites, and, what the hell, doing jobs that I never would have thought of (motivational speaking? For fuck’s sake.) Not to mention I’m 30 and most of my friends are under 25.

Its so easy to think of life as one path and speed that everyone is stuck to. The race. I’ve always been competitive to a fault and have judged my output against that of others, but I can’t do it anymore because I’m hurting myself. I don’t hate my friends for their successes, I’m so happy for them of course, but seeing the glaring reasons for why I slip behind hurts: I have bipolar and I haven’t beat it like I thought I have.

You, too, can follow along if you don’t have bipolar. Substitute it for anything like depression or a sports injury. There was an initial incident: a crash or traumatic event. Then, there’s the healing process. For me, when moments like this hit me (in my case: cancer, family deaths, bipolar) I’m Captain Hero. It’s really no big deal and I handle it like a champ. And then I keep doing that. And then it gets out of hand.

Recently, I finished a huge success for myself, an editorial internship at a popular magazine. I was so jazzed after. I was going to take over the world and get a new, killer job at some fantastic company. And then I had some health scares that may have been worsened by my own out-of-control fear, and was hardly able to do anything at all, paralyzed. It’s that cycle of having a huge Go Me moment and being bitch-slapped back down by something that feels so out of my own control that the only possible way to survive is to hide away in the house and maybe sleep it off. Either way, i know I’m not doing anything with my life to propel me on that path and I hate my hating self for that because, oh look, the people I know are lapping me now. Sometimes I even feel like I should get out of their warpath and just walk away. Maybe because it will hurt me less to watch them.

But, no. That’s stupid. Realistically, my chest-beating that ‘I’ve got bipolar and it ain’t no thang’ has now shown its fault. If you’ve torn your knee during a marathon, you’re going to be pulled from the track. Next, you can’t be running around saying you tore your knee and everything’s good. You have months of rehab to do on it! So, no, I haven’t beaten bipolar. I have it, I had a crash, and now I’m on the gradual path to recovery.

And that sucks because I can easily beat myself up about that, too. ‘Psh, you should be better than this.’ But, I’m not, and everyone of my friends and everyone in the yoga class and especially me, all run on our own time. The exercise is to let go and accept it and to take the energy spent hating myself and transfer it to the recovery process.

I know my friends talk about me and I’m sure they wonder about my stagnation, maybe they don’t, but that’s what my mind is dreaming up. And in this case I find it so painfully difficult because I know I am different from my friends. I got bipolar and, yes, it does set me back. The fact is: I am behind my friends.

Beating yourself up, judging yourself, when we sense this happening in our scrambled minds, we really need to just dunk our heads in ice water before we cause ourselves some real pain. We’re raised in a competitive society and age has been the only thing we really time our life success points to in the same way women’s body standards are set by a Photoshop-backed media. You can’t really kill it because it’s also on the lips of everyone. You’ll rarely be at a party where friends are asking who’s been doing what lately. These are the times I completely shut down and look for ways to steer the conversation before it gets to me. It’s so stressful, rummaging through my mind for some sort of half-lie, maybe a vague concept, to throw at them when it’s my turn. “I’m freelancing.” Sad, but that’s the way it is. I have to learn that I have my own speed. It’s slower than other speeds, but this is part of the recovery process and maybe my speed will catch up. Or at least catch up with some sort of idea of where my speed should be. Or maybe with all of this thinking upstairs I’ll discover time travel.

Every athlete, every person who has gone through a trauma, has this moment. It’s the painful, spiteful moment right before committing 100% to the rehab process with a sharp view of the finish line in mind. I’ve had so many successes while having bipolar and I haven’t even really hit my correct stride yet. I know the faults I have to work on and I know that before all else, I have to be good to myself. I don’t know how to do that, I really don’t, but I’ll learn. Even if I have to bend over backwards to figure it out.

I won’t lie, I’ve cried over the thought that I will be “no more” at some point. I’ve cried many times as a kid, too young to know that it’s the typical ‘glass that’s half full or half empty’ situation. I guess, I never think about death being like an exciting surprise I get to open one morning when I’m scratched off the big man’s list.

When I was with my grandmother as she passed away, I surprisingly witnessed it as an amazing experience. My mom and I watched her move from a total bed-ridden state – her mind already gone, she was simply a body slowly letting go – to sitting up in bed marveling at someone in the corner of her room, her eyes twinkling with so much life, the way they did when we gave her a crystal ornament each birthday decades ago. It was grandpa there. It had to have been. It’s what she’d been waiting 30 years for. We had brought in an old timey CD to play for her those nights, and the beat to Bing Crosby’s voice had her feet, which she had had no control over, tapping away like they did when she used to show my sister and I her “moves.” She held a teddy bear and we held her. She was never happier.

Death and I are really tight now, homeys from way back. He and I cross paths in the cemeteries I explore with friends, but we respect each other. I don’t mess with him and he doesn’t mess with me. I already gave him shit for the whole cancer thing and he took off, so I think we’re good for awhile. And really, if he shows up I’ll be fine. My grandmother put her trust in him.

But, today it wasn’t my mortality I was realizing – I realized my immortality.

What! How does that work?

I was on the Skytrain heading to see my dad before he drives down south where the sun is visible and I was thinking to myself “Hey, I’m really happy right now.” It was a little me-party I was having in my head, really feeling it for the genuine and complete moment it was, just pure “nice”. It was a pretty good day I’d had. Earlier, I had partook in a luxury watch store’s media party with my friend, Jenn, was given a big bag of swag (my first swag ever, if you don’t count birthday goodie bags), on my way to the train station I leaped to open a door for a woman with a stroller carrying twins, and then I chatted with an elderly woman who told me she had gone all her life without seeing twins until that day – to which I had this really strong feeling of empathy for her in that moment. She’s going to tell so many people.

I was sitting with my swag bag on the Skytrain and looking at the streets and buildings of people flipping by as I passed on a bridge, caught my smile in the window with my silly Cowichan “tea cozy” hat pulled low over my eyebrows, and said, “hmm, my mind is prompting me for the obligatory ‘worry about an earthquake striking while I’m up here speeding along, hurtling me into the water where I could die at least 52 different ways’”. A silly fear, but a fear I deal with. Yet, today something new is coming through the worrying mind murkiness.

I epiphanied that if I die, there’s no way this inner monologue is going to switch off. It’s just too damn… there. My body’s gonna go for sure, totally gone, but thinking about everything tonight, I know I’m going to have this forever, the ability to humour myself by the people I encounter and the things I see, and better yet, the things I make up. It was a moment where I felt I could be locked up in solitary confinement and I’d be okay. I have enough really pleasant memories, astounding situations, I feel the love others have of me, and hey, I can make better movies that Spielberg can, and these are far more advanced than 3D.

There’s an episode of BBC’s Planet Earth that showed the floor of a jungle. Ferns would shoot up, cutting the light off to the vegetation on the floor. It would be overtaken by another fern, and its plant matter would be reused into the soil. This worked on every scale with every species in that jungle. Everything leaves behind some residue when it apparently ends, nothing on this planet just completely zaps right out of existence. No, Death does not own Star Trek weapons. So, the essence of this moment for me is that, if a 747 were to drop on my head or my Skytrain splashes down into a megashark’s jaws, my body will definitely be mash potatoed, but this thinking and feeling that I hold with me all day every day since I was born, I’m going to have that forever.

I’ve been with myself for 30 years and have just now realized that I’m in it for the longest haul of all time and I’m very happy with that. I had always felt robbed that I wouldn’t get to see what happens on this planet a thousand years from now. But maybe this is a good thing, that when my body dies I’m not anchored to just exploring Earth, I can Wall-E all over the universe, still making better movies than Spielberg, even if he’s up there with me. Thank God for imagination.

It’s easy to tell someone how they make you feel, or how “I understand what you’re going through.”

“Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll…”

“But, that’s just you!”

“That’s Roxby, always laughing when the shitty things happen to him.”

“Typical.”

I’ve always had a problem with my identity. I look at myself in pictures and don’t know who that guy is. I’m told stories of things I did or said and I nod my head and keep the conversation going, but I can’t place myself. In the mirror it’s a stranger. But, the worst for me is that I get scared of people perceiving me wrong to the point that I go mentally mental if I hear that a friend or someone I met thinks I’m a certain way.

I had a friend who confided in our shared friend, my best friend, that I’m a university grad asshole, strutting around like I know everything and making people feel shitty when they don’t.

I know the guy was one of those alpha males with a thin crust and an insecure centre. He gets jealous. I can relate, I was that guy in high school but at a beta male level. I was never one to consider myself the type of person others would get jealous over and it makes me so angry. I just want people to know I’m nice, humble and caring. And if I do correct people about things it’s only because I’m honestly a geek when it comes to learning things and I want to share that with others.

If I ask you if you’ve seen the Shining, for instance, and you haven’t, I will sit you down and watch it with you to share the excitement of the emotional impact. I love to see people’s reactions. I lose a little bit of myself because I get thoroughly get involved in interactions with people to the point where I just have no sense of me. I’m like energy moving about with absolutely no physical recognition or understanding of how others see me. The only thing I ever wanted was to know someone who knew my psychological inner workings, the gears, the Freud stuff, what my daily experience is like and the stuff that runs through my head at night when I turn the lights out.

We all just want to be understood.

And it’s great when your partner gets you, but it’s better knowing what others outside of your tiny bubble see.

Last week, Meghan Bell, made this image for me. She’s quite easily one of my most inspiring friends of all time due to the fact that she’s a Category 5 hurricane of creativity, just blowing people away with each project in a chaotic central eye of deeply perceiving perfection.

And this is that image. My first reaction was that she used a photo taken by my former girlfriend and longtime friend Julia during the best summer in Tofino. So that had a reaction that was good and sad, looking at a me that was very much in a whirlwind of love and excitement. It was a rare image in that I absolutely recognized myself and the complexities of my life experience then.

With that thought fading, I took in this image and I just remember having all of this wind escaping my lungs and hearing OH SHIT escape.

She absolutely nailed my entire personal experience with life. I was never able to tell someone how being bipolar affects me day-to-day, let alone how I go about life everyday, how my mind and heart go about navigating through it.

This image shows that despite the hardships I’ve endured, be it the emotional scars of the cancer I beat, but especially living with bipolar, I see and walk through life with only the utmost positivity, optimism and see the good in things. And it’s completely correct, though this is a side of me that I’ve never had the awareness of it. And for someone to see this in me, to show that I am perceived this way, I’m understood and to put it in front of my face in such simplicity, reinforced a lost confidence in myself.

I nearly cried, but was so elated that the only thing I started doing was texting her in all caps lock and madly forwarding it to all of my family. Facebook profile photo six seconds later. In essence, this is my profile photo for life.

I always saw myself as too complex and hard to explain to people. I think we all do. But, now I get that I was struggling with explaining it to myself and needed the right mirror. I hope everyone has a Meghan Bell in their lives. I really do.

—————

CHILDHOOD

The first thing I did this morning was knock my glass of water off my bedside table when I was reaching for it. You know exactly what kind of day you’re going to have. Every movement you make is just a couple milliseconds shy of exact. Everything you reach for is just an extra two centimetres away. You want to just go back to bed, like you think incubating for another hour will cure the day.

There’s also no food in the house. Looks like it’ll be Subway Sunday. Again.

I’m standing at the bus stop for work, feeling stuck in the Truman Show. In a shop doorway, a freezing homeless man turns over in his blanket while an 18-year-old Asian kid, bundled in a designer fur-lined winter coat, lights up a smoke as he returns to his Ferrari parked along the curb.

Thanks, just when I felt like I was doing better in life, I’m reminded of how far away I am from success. (and yes, on days like this, success is measured by money.) I also lost my nametag and got a rejection email from some people on trendy Commercial Drive who were looking for a roommate. This is crushing because I hung out with those hipsters for an hour and was sure I got it.

I feel like I was just denied parole. My neighborhood lacks any

life signs and I’m the only young, white guy in a mile radius of culture shock. I have to go home to that isolation and the smell of my landlords’ mothballs. Shit. I want to murder someone, but apparently it’s illegal.

How am I supposed to turn this effing day around when karma’s already working against me?

—————

ADOLESCENCE

I work in the mall, and everyone in it today is standing still. New types of walking-into-people’s-paths are created here. Two harajuku girls walk into me and deflect off my shoulder, and all I can think about is how the muscles in my arm began to contract into a punch. I fight the feeling, passing seniors and moms pushing their double-seated strollers. I’m struggling with an urge I’ve never felt so sure, and in such the wrong place. The nerve that sews its way up the centre of my arm is bent on shooting directions to cock my arm and fire a fist towards some pedestrian’s chin, and soon I might let it.

I don’t hate my life, I’m just sick of it.

—————

ADULTHOOD

I skip Subway for McDonalds, letting my emotional state pick my first meal of the day. I sit down at a single-serving bench and unwrap a Double Quarter Pounder. Sucking down the iced tea, my mind meditates on the concept of being cursed. Fuck, I’m stuck in a home I feel lonely in. I’m clumsy. I hate everyone I share this town with. I’ve grown cold. Kanye West’s “Monster” bangs through my iPod and I feel nothing but poisonous and misdirected power.

A boy jumps on to the bench across from me. He’s four or five. I don’t know, he could be six. He holds an action hero toy and flies him around. He’s shaking the toy and talking to me. Asking me questions about who my hero is. I was just as excitable when I was a kid. I remember having so much amazement for older boys.

I reach for my iPod and come to the biggest snag of my day. I could easily turn my volume up and put all my attention on swallowing this melting burger, or I could ‘just go with it’ (as I read in a self-help book once, I think) and give the kid my attention. It all comes down to: which decision am I going to regret more when I lay in bed tonight?

I take the buds out and tuck my iPod away.

“THIS IS CAPTAIN STARKLE! HE IS THE STRONGEST, DID YOU KNOW THAT?”

Holy God, I hate this kid. What a bad move.

“Yeah, he’s the greatest.”

Aw crap, am I starting to smile?

“HE CAN JUMP FROM MY DOOR TO MY WINDOW! ZOOM. DO YA WANNA SEE HOW?”

I am now simply playing with him, in the way adults play with each other’s emotions. But he’s a kid and doesn’t get it.

“Yeah, totally. Show me.”

I can’t take much more of this. Where is his mom? I have a smirk on my face and I hate him for that.

“I CAN’T! IT’S A SECRET! WELL, OKAY. HE SHOOTS HIS FIRE THROWER GUNS FROM HIS FEET AND FLIES THROUGH THE AY-OH!”

Great, now I’m laughing.

I think the world magically creates situations like these. When it comes down to it, The Power That Be really doesn’t like seeing us dwell in feeling so angry over others. I wonder if that boy was just a projection put here to affect my day, to make it better, or if there was much work in the cosmos that was carried out to merge his path with mine.

It’s weird to hate being happy, but after a couple hours, you thank the day that you encountered that person, or news story, or show, or website, whatever form your sign comes in.

When I was old enough to ride my bike around (with training wheels), I would pedal up to the high school kids chilling at the park in my neighbourhood courtyard. All my mom would hear was, “UGH, not THIS kid again! Go AWAY!”

She was ready to run across the field and throw punches, but one of the other highschoolers would say, “Relax, he’s not doing anything. Leave him alone.” And they would laugh and accept me.

I hope that when I was a boy, I made a late 20-year-old grouch smile. I hope I made him hate his day because I forced him to laugh for the first time since he knocked that water over at nine in the morning. I hope I made an older boy wonder if I was real, or just a projection.

Stardate: A Sunday in 2004.

My girlfriend and I spent the afternoon inside from the rain. Like most new couples, we decided to break out the boxes of our childhood remainders our mothers had once packed up. Listen to me when I say, there are reasons why these things are packed up and shoved deep into the crawlspace.

Lost in my new-love drunkenness, I cracked open my box, smiling into her green eyes and completely oblivious to how embarrassing sharing that stuff always is. I hesitantly shared my itty-bitty Spiderman sneakers, my sparkly, homemade Michael Jackson glove and a Tupperware container of baby teeth. As I was picking out a macaroni-and-glue picture of what seemed to be my grandfather (or an amoeba with a moustache,) she reached in and snatched the most horribly embarrassing item in my box.

No it wasn’t the nude baby picture set of me playing in the garden sprinkler (or as my grandmother has affectionately labeled the series: Young Adam in the Garden of Eden - retch,) although, that would come later. It was something so ridiculously appalling that she had to say it aloud, like anyone does when they discover something from someone’s past that they know is sure to destroy them in the most hilarious way.

“A membership card… to the Star Trek: the Next Generation Fan Club?” she asked, clearly aware she was now thrusting the answer in my face, and proceeded to fall on the floor ravaged by laughter so evil and unrelenting I thought she had grown horns and a forked tail.

Yes, there it was in plain sight, with my name inscribed on it in large, space-lettering. She continued to analyze it as if it had come from another world, which it had, really. As I watched her tormenting me and my youth, I began to feel a pain. It seemed to be the back of my mind or deep in my heart, somewhere faint. The voice began to call to me.

Only closet-Trekkies know this. It’s a resounding voice that rings in our minds when watching TV with our girlfriends. It all starts while they flip past channels during commercials (what girlfriend doesn‘t control the remote?) We make that “ooh!” sound when we see a flash of the Sci-Fi network’s Star Trek marathon and they respond, “Why would you wanna watch that? I don’t get what you see in that show. Why don’t you go beam me up some popcorn, Friends is on next.” We shudder, and the voice of a man echoes in our mind, suave and strangely spasmodic. It is the voice of a God,

our God: William Shatner. The legend, Captain Kirk. He tells us what we need to hear.

“Boldly go… where no man… has gone… before!”

As I listened to those words, I watched as the still devilishly smiling girl beside me suddenly fell quiet. Every man understands what this means; she was planning which of her girlfriends to tell. I had to make my move. The Trekkie I stuffed away in the closet shot out.

“I loved that show,” I said as I began to do the puppy-dog thing. “And I still do!”

“Aww, honey. I love you, you know that.” She glanced at the card again and giggled, “You’re such a geek!” She gave me that hug that is supposed to allow silly insults to slide by.

I struck back, “Well, it’s better than the shows you watch.” Did I strike back boldly? Nope.

“Oh, so it’s going to be like that?!” Her neck coiled like a cobra and that woman named Lakeesha on Jerry Springer as they‘re about to strike. “Friends is way better than that nerdy show!”

The intergalactic battle had begun. I loaded my proton torpedo nacelles to the firing tubes. Fire one, Mr. Sulu!

“Star Trek deals with ranging issues including that of multiculturalism.” I advised in my highly educated way.

“What? Chandler had an interracial relationship in season four!”

Deflector shields, Chekov!

“Yes,“ I shot back. “But it doesn’t get into in-depth intercultural relations issues like Ferengi-Gorn marriage and the ongoing battle between Romulans and Vulcans.” Ah ha! Mr. Spock, I think she took a hit!

“What the heck are Romu-whatevers?” Okay, maybe I was illogical to think she had taken damage with that barrage. She said, “Friends has so much comedy! Star Trek is disgustingly serious.”

We’ve sustained a direct hit. Fire second proton torpedo!

“That’s not true at all! Look at episode 85, titled Data’s Day! Data, the android, had to dance at a wedding on board the Enterprise. He was confused because his neural processors became disassociated by an anomaly so he ended up frizzing out and broke out into a hilarious tap dance.” Yikes, how did I remember that? By the look on her face, she wasn’t happy I had.

I continued, “There’s always a lot of humor at the expense of a naïve alien. You see, sweetie, Star Trek is a lot like daily life.”

“Really?“ Scanners are showing she’s warming up. Fire photon lasers.

“Absolutely! You see, all the show does is mirror our real life. Conflict, family, sickness, learning, socializing, helping, loving.”

“Loving, honey?” She asked while batting her eyes. There is no Star Trek techno-babble for when a girl does this at you, but when it happens, it’s sweet. Her shields are failing, Mr. Sulu? Excellent. She continued, “You don’t mean they deal with love better than Ross and Rachel’s ongoing fling?”

“Star Trek is the only show that was able to unite a deadly Klingon man and a stubborn Earth woman, two sworn enemies. During a vicious battle, the Klingon saved the Earth woman’s life. She saw him not for an ugly brute, but as a nurturing, intelligent man. A wonderful, smart, handsome, sexy man. They fell in love.”

“Forever?”

“ReH! Forever.”

“Mmm… you can speak Klingon to me anytime, Captain.” Sulu, initiate tractor beam, bring her in! Scotty, I’m going to need all the power you have!

The Enterprise had successfully completed its mission and I, its captain, had won over a new fan to take back to my quarters. In the ultimate action of how undeniable Star Trek is, she wrapped her arms around me and boldly transported me to the bedroom. For real, no hologram. Who’s the geek now, world? Warp speed ahead!

In typical Julia/James twins fashion, we both separately decided that things had changed and the inevitable had come and had both thought the other didn’t know what was coming. I was in Vancouver now and enjoying this new world I’d thrown myself into. Though I had a rocky patch early August, I’ve been set to make this my new home. I was missing Julia, but found myself making realizations about her and what I have and haven’t been getting from our now long distance relationship – or as friends called it, an LDR. Like the label itself, long distance can be cold.

So, at some point in August, I had emotionally detached and was trying to strategize when to break it to her.

Should I call her now? Too soon. She’s packing, James, come on. That’d be mean, she’s in a fragile state!

Okay, so then I can’t do it early September cuz she’ll be moving in. Correct.

The end of September? She should have her roots down enough. Good idea.

So, it was set, and I obviously hadn’t learned from my last relationship that the only best time to break up is right away and not to drag it out.

I came to Victoria to see her and her play, Atticdwellers, at the Fringe. (If you didn’t see it, you missed a dark and beautiful show.) I kind of winced when I signed a card for her with “Love”, but I do still love her in the way best friends share. Hanging out together was a little stiff, but I just summed that up as me disconnecting and letting the Relationship James walls come down a bit. Perhaps I was getting a little hip hop on her, and she doesn’t like that.

So, we walked her dog to a nearby park. I’ve nicknamed it Bomb Park now because it was the park that she dropped the bomb that she was going to Toronto and wanted to do it alone to claim her due independence. It’s also the park that the seesaw pic in my header graphic up top was shot at. Very ironic.

I sat at the bottom of the slide and she sat on the grass facing me. She was wringing her hands and finally said shakily…

James, things aren’t working for me.

Yeah, things aren’t working for me either.

The most mutual parting ever.

We ended up talking for a couple hours. We talked about how funny it was, and especially how much of a relief it was. She was understandably a mess, thinking for a time that when she dropped the bomb I, totally oblivious, would be hurt so bad that it would affect my bipolar and send me to the hospital. I was relieved she was relieved, since I knew from experience how tormenting it is to be the one who breaks up with someone who doesn’t see it coming.

I have never known such a mature and caring girl. We both agree to remain best of friends and co-editors, sharing our new journey with each other. Pals. And we can do that. I would love for her to get the most out of Toronto on her own, but I also would love to see her find happiness with whomever comes her way, as she feels the same for me.

From the soil, a rose sprouts and blooms. No one can deny its beauty, and it’s rare that a rose can grow to be something that leaves an impression on people so deeply as this one did. When sun, water and the other nourishing elements don’t reach it, the season changes and it dies. But, the rose has roots and the roots spread to the rest of the garden.

Julia and I have had the best last year and seven months of our lives. Our first summer lives in our memories as the best we’ve ever had. She has raised the bar high for whatever next girl graces my life as she told me I have raised the bar for her next suitors.

I don’t really know how to end this. We both feel a glorious feeling of freedom to take this world by its horns, but there is sadness, and with it a feeling that something is gone in me; her smile, her touch. This phase is always the hardest because you cry over the good memories as your mind ignores the reasons you decided to end things in the first place. There are reminders everywhere. I write this with the pen she gave me in Tofino last summer.

For now, I still wear my Irish Claddagh ring that was my first Christmas gift from her, a sign of a love so deep. It now faces out, the traditional sign that I’m looking for my next true love. And when people say, Who gave it to you? I will always say, My great friend.

(Update: The Claddagh ring was replaced by my grandfather’s a few days after writing this. I don’t need to wear a sign that says I’m single. I also don’t need a physical object to remind me that I have a deep and honest friendship with someone. If I wore a piece of jewelry for each of my friends I’d be more valuable than a Faberge Egg, and a thousand times stronger.)

I obsess about things. Pros? I take the time to get the good stuff. Cons? A guilt complex and a lighter wallet.

So, I found a hide-a-bed that was free. I called the guy:

“What’s the condition?”

“Oh, excellent. We’re Italians so you know right there that it’s in fantastic condition…”

I did not know this, and whether it was a fact of life or a big fat stereotype.

“Uh, okay. Why are you getting rid of it?”

“It was my sister’s. She died a month ago and her husband just recently died. But, don’t worry, they didn’t die on the couch.”

My brain would have never come to that thought, but I’m really glad he told me just in case I went to sit down with Julia, cuddle up and watch a movie on the thing and all of a sudden formed that notion. Paranoia would sent in, consisting of my try to inhale strong enough to smell any odours that I hadn’t noticed, and trying not to inhale too loud so I didn’t get her attention.

Her: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Oh, I wasn’t sure if the previous owner died on the couch, so I’m sniffing for decomposition.”

But, hey, free retro hide-a-bed! And this is where the couch gets multicultural…

-> I get it free from an Italian.

->Delivered by an East Indian.

->Received by me, a white boy.

->Assisted in a beautifully choreographed zig-zag into my livingroom by my Chinese landlords.

I understand this city now. I get it. We all feel like minorities, but when we combine forces no majority can stand in our way. (or couch). So if my logic is correct, then Vancouver is like Voltron, with language barriers. Vancouver Voltron may take twice as long to save the day, but we’d save it at some point, damnit.