What do you want on your tombstone?

When I was in grade Twelve, I took English Literature. It was rumoured to be a really hard class, and the teacher, Mr. Kelly, had a reputation of being a really difficult teacher. We didn't have AP classes in my high school, but this was the closest thing to AP English. There were only twelve kids in the class and we were all girls; we were also some of the most brilliant in our class. It was an honour to be able to take the class.

Turned out that Mr. Kelly was excellent and had a really low tolerance for teenage B.S., which is why students thought he was so tough. I loved Mr. Kelly. He was one of my all time favourite teachers ever.

There was this one assignment that I just couldn't wrap my head around; we had to write our own eulogy.

I have this thing about death. It terrifies me. It's the worst thing that could happen. I hate it when people die. It's so permanent. It's so unknown. It's so inevidable. I hate death and I totally don't ever want to die, so thinking of what I want to have said at my funeral was something that I one hundred percent did not want to ever never want to ponder, let alone write a paper for.

So I didn't do the assignment. I never turned it in. I couldn't do it. This failure has plagued me for twenty-five years. I have thought about it many, many times over the years. I am so disappointed that I couldn't complete the assignment.

I still can't even think of my eulogy other than I want that poem that Matthew read at Gareth's funeral in Four Weddings and a Funeral: W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues. I demand for there to not be a dry eye in the place for my death will be a tragedy and the world will be a worse place when I am not here to grace the face of it. (mostly kidding)

Anyway, other than the Auden poem, and the fact that I want to be chopped up and fed to the sharks so that I can be in the ocean forever, and I want a bench with a plaque on it underneath a cherry tree, I still can't think of the words that I want. I can't write the words.

I have narrowed it down to two:

Here lies Rantgirl 12-8-1971 Death Date
Mother Sister Daughter Wife
That girl had integrity

Or

Here lies Rantgirl 12-8-1971 Death Date
Mother Sister Daughter Wife
She had a way with words.

I wish I could figure out how to combine "That girl had integrity" with "She had a way with words", but inspiration has yet to strike. Considering I have mastered neither - integrity nor words, I suppose there's no rush.

Writing is saving my life

What I look like when I'm writing - obviously an older photo

So I'm really thankful for this blog.

Back when I started a year and a half ago, I mentioned how my therapist told me that I needed to write to help me with my depression. I halfway said it as a joke, because I don't technically have 'a therapist', but the times that I have consulted with a licensed therapist, they have advised me to write.

"An artist who does not create is a menace to society." This was a point made in Where'd you go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. The truth of this statement hit my heart like an arrow. I am a creative person. I need to create. Words are my life. I love to hear them, look at them, read them, say them, and make them up.

When Dewey was going through treatment, everything about me was put on hold while I focused all my energy on keeping my family together; buoying DH up as he was depressed and without hope, cheering Dewey on because he didn't want to die so he needed to fight this, desperately trying to do what I could to ensure that Huey didn't get passed over and that he knew that he was loved and cared about just as much even though he didn't have cancer. I put all of my desires aside except for one; the happiness of my family.

I have discovered that in the aftermath, when I wasn't desperately trying to hold my family together any more, that I was lost. I went into a major depression after Dewey's treatment was complete that went on for much longer than I thought was necessary, but nonetheless, it was there. I was so lost and so dark and felt so hopeless. I wanted to cease to exist.

And then I started this blog. I started it because I wanted to rant and rave and whine and moan, because I needed an outlet, and because I wanted to document my 'weight-loss'. (I haven't lost any weight). It took me a long time to find my rhythm, my voice, my whatever. I'm not perfect or fabulous or anything, I'm not that full of myself, but I have written some things that I'm sort of proud of, and I have found a groove that makes it easy for me to write. I've gotten over the fact that no one reads this blog; this fact has given me the freedom to write what I want, how I want, and to figure out how to write. I use this blog as a writing excercise and creative outlet and it has helped me mentally immensely.

It's hard to write when I'm feeling uninspired, or when life gets in the way, but I have found that I am making time for it now because I need it. I have given myself permission to not have to write otherwise my blog will not be popular. Screw popular. I don't need to be a famous blogger, but I DO need to write.

This is preventing me from spiralling down into my rabbit hole so far that it takes a long time and a nervous breakdown for me to find my way out. Don't get me wrong. I have my spirals, and they are not pretty, but they are prettier than they used to be, and I can pull myself out without thinking that I'm going to have to commit myself.

Words, I love you.

I'm never going to read again!

I have always been a voracious reader. I love to read. When I was in elementary school, if I wasn't running through sprinklers, eating popsicles, riding bikes, or going to the beach, I was at the library. My dream road trip is taking a historical route and pulling over at every road sign in order to read the historical marker. When we go to museums or anything, my family always gets way ahead of me because I stop and read every sign. I read the liner notes in albums. I always spent my birthday money at Coles Books.

My parents joined a children's book club when we were kids, so every month we would get a couple of Disney or Dr. Seuss books. I read these books over and over. I read them to my parents, and I read them to my siblings. Those books are trashed from all the reading I did.

After Dr. Seuss came Nancy Drew. I babysat for a friend of my mum's early in my babysitting career and she had every book ever written about Nancy Drew. Every time I babysat, I would borrow a couple.

About grade six, I was introduced to young teen romance books like Sweet Valley High. These are the books I would spend my birthday money on. These were the books I checked out from the library. They were easy to read, not boring like the books assigned at school, and so addictive.

Once I got to high school, I quit reading books for pleasure. I had to do so much reading for school that I didn't want to look at one more book. Ridiculously enough, I still had a huge appetite for reading, but this was filled with liner notes from cassettes, newspapers, and magazines. I am full of useless information because of all the magazines I read. Berit used to ask me, "How do you know all these random facts?" The answer? I read. She calls me a media maven. I kinda love it. I'm not book smart, I'm not street smart, I'm media smart.

I was introduced to magazine reading the summer between grade eight and nine. We were staying at a cabin in Birch Bay, WA and it was raining and I was, like, so bored. My mum sent me to the little store to see if I could find something to read. I found a couple of teen magazines like the ones my cousin Cyndi read. I bought them, and I was hooked. My favourites were Teen, Seventeen (had a subscription to that one), Elle, Spin, and Smash hits. Reading magazines caused the detour in my reading career that I regret. I missed out on classics like The Chronicles of Narnia and the works of Roald Dahl because I never went to the library any more; I just bought magazines.

I have since been re-introduced to the wonder that is the library, and my love for reading for which I am joyous, but I've been trying to slow down on all the reading to make room for some writing.

Well, a month or so ago, DH was going to lose his Continental air miles unless he used them. He didn't have enough for a flight anywhere, but he could use them for magazine subscriptions. None of the magazines really appealed to him, but were there any that I would be interested in? I now have a stack of the following on my night table: In Style, Glamour, Elle, GQ, Details and Entertainment Weekly.

As soon as the subscriptions started rolling I thought to myself, "Great, I'm never going to read a book again!" Fortunately, Beautiful Creatures came available at the library and I am hooked on a new series of books. I have also discovered that I don't have to read every single article in the magazine, so it doesn't take me as long to get through magazines like it used to.

Now that I've found balance between reading books and magazines, I'm hoping that I can find some balance between reading and writing.