transitions

Life, much like writing, is simply a series of transitions. We move from situation to situation in the ever-changing narrative that is our life. In writing, the transitions are tailored to the narrative and make sense, unfortunately, life does not follow these rules and sometimes our literal transitions can be abrupt, confusing, and messy. 

If my life followed the rules of a good story, and if all the transitions in it had made narrative sense, I would be in a much different place than I am today. Hell, if life made sense, I would have never been born in the first place. It makes no narrative sense that my parents met, yet they did.

I was born in the port city of Nanaimo, birthplace of the Nanaimo Bar, on a cold winter’s morn. I happened to be an emergency caesarian, and was immediately placed in a little glass box so that I could live. Not the most auspicious start to one’s life.

My best friend was the girl next door. If this were Hollywood, we’d be married. Instead, we live 2000 km apart and rarely speak. Dad was a social worker who worked with street kids and gang members. When I was seven we moved to Saskatchewan so he could be a mechanic and fix tractors.

Ever since that day I have wanted to go back home.

Home lays with the heart, and my heart lays with the ocean and the mountains.

My friends don’t understand; they’ve never lived anywhere else but the desolate prairies. They’ve never left their homes and their hearts behind.

In the prairies, I found god.

In the prairies, I lost faith.

Having finally thought found myself, I found myself lost. Amidst these strangers and strange things, I found religion to find stability.

With this religious stability, I found and weathered (whether or not I wanted to) many things: love, loss, despair, depression, suicide, self-loathing, self-hate, lies, and much more. With religion I learned to hate myself for who I was!

Who was I?

Bullying was not an aspect of my life until coming to the prairies. Hate was not an aspect of my life before coming to the prairies. I had no notion of what those really were, but I would soon learn. In the small town where I went to school, I was hated because I was from somewhere else. I wasn’t from another country. I wasn’t from a different race. I was simply not born in Saskatchewan, and so I was ostracized.

I love camping. It lets me be alone, and it lets me pretend that I am at home. With the woods blocking out the rest of the world, I can pretend that I am somewhere else.

When I was four, I broke my arm on a rock protruding from the ground. I was racing a friend back to our new house on Gabriola Island, and I lost my footing. The ferry to Nanaimo had already left, so it had to turn around so a four year old could be taken to the hospital. I honestly don’t remember the pain. I remember the wait of nearly nine hours before a doctor saw me, but the memory is like gossamer. How many lives did I interrupt in that moment? How many meetings were delayed, how many dates were cancelled? All because a four year old on a small island broke his arm?

When I was in my early twenties, I had my faith shaken. A few years later and it was shattered. This focal point of my existence was gone. All my decisions prior to this time were based off my faith, and now it was gone. My education (to become a youth pastor) was now useless, and all of those years felt like a massive waste.

 Growing up, the church taught me that there were only two genders and that being straight was proper, and anything else was a one-way ticket to hell. I believed them. Why wouldn’t I? These guys talked to God, they had to know what they were talking about.

Nudity was a large part of my bible college experience. I lived in an all-male dorm, and everyone was constantly half-to-completely nude. We would bond together on a couch while only wearing boxers, and often there would be cuddling involved. I enjoyed it. The physical contact felt good, and the openness that came with the nudity was refreshing. It was also intensely homoerotic, a claim which would be vehemently denied by my dorm mates.

When I discovered my own gender and sexuality, a year after I left the church, I was scared because I knew that I would go to hell. Even though I had no faith anymore, I was still scared that I would go to hell for this. Part of me still believed the hate that I had been taught as a child.

I wore bright leggings and bright pink lip-gloss to the first pride that I attended. My sister came with me, dressed even more flamboyantly; I’m pretty sure she even had glitter on her chest and neck.

I worked in a school.

I interned at one of the longest running film festivals in the world.

I work in an office.

Instead of moving closer to my goal, I have moved farther away from it.

With each transition, the narrative of my life grows more confusing. The plot, incoherent. The characters, despicable.

What happens next matters only as much as what has happened before. 

lingering thoughts

                As my thoughts linger, causing cancerous lesions in my mind, my fingers hover uselessly, unsure of what to type. Unsure of how to save my life. The longer I pause, the more time the lesions have to grow and spread until they consume my entire psyche. Until they become me. Thoughts corrupting thoughts corrupting thoughts until all that remains is simply corruption. Yet still I cannot type. Still I cannot expunge and heal. The corruption lingers.

                Once, in a fit of normalcy, I scraped clean an old rusted blade. It had been hanging, worthlessly, on a wall in the old garage for years. Alone and forgotten; neglected until it became corrupted. I felt pity for it. Why, I do not know… perhaps I felt a kinship towards it; after all, I too was neglected and corrupted. Therefore, I took it off the wall, sat down, and I began to clean it. As I worked away years of rust, my mind emptied. I lost myself in the work, and I became the work. At the end, I had a blade as clean as the day it was bought, but my mind was no more clean than it had been hours ago.

                The idle work of my hands allowed me to be distracted from my thoughts. It allowed me to pretend that I was not sick.

                It was a lie, but, to borrow a phrase, it was a pretty lie.

                Of course, as soon I was done the thoughts came crashing back with almost enough force to stagger me. Unfortunately, I was prepared for that. And it is unfortunate that anyone should be prepared for the sudden crushing weight of their own thoughts. One’s own thoughts should be uplifting and weightless, not a burden to bear.

                That is how I move through life: always looking for the next activity that can lift away my burdens for a short while. In those brief periods, I can pretend to be blissfully healthy and whole.

                I wish I knew of a way that I could just sit down and scrub away the corruption in my mind. Spend an afternoon mindlessly cleaning, at the end of which I would come away clean and whole. Alas, that remains merely a fantasy. A true cleaning of the corruption would take a lifetime of effort and will, and somedays I feel as though I lack all three.

                Through my writing, I heal, and yet most days I cannot bring myself to write even a sentence! I merely stare at an empty page until my self-loathing consumes me and I am left bitter and empty.

                So few hours in a life with so many things to accomplish, yet we waste these hours on what? Work so that we can pay the bills that allow us to continue to work? I cannot remember the last time I felt truly alive—it was summer, and the sky was clear. The lake which I stood waist deep in was a mirror and I was surrounded by the heavens. Everywhere I looked, I could see the stars. I could reach out and touch them. For scant moments, I was alive. Beautifully and truly alive. Instead I just feel empty. I would not say I feel nothing, for I do feel a deep and unending regret coupled with a yearning for something more.

                Amidst the regret lays a burning desire for something better. To find someplace where I truly belong. 

Standing Guard

I am saddened by the Canada I see before me. I see a plethora of jingoistic thought, and a disregard for core Canadian virtues. Scrolling through both social media and more traditional media exposes one to a growing “Canada First” perspective, and it breaks my heart. Canada has never been about putting Canada first; it has always been about putting people first. More specifically, it has always been about putting all peoples first. We, much like our southern neighbour, are a nation that was built by immigrants and refugees, and this jingoistic talk dishonours all Canadians who came before us.
Canada, first and foremost, stands for helping others. By picking up those who are knocked down, we pick ourselves up. Canadians have always stood for helping others. If something bad happens in a community, that whole community rises up—hell, the whole country rises up. Right now, the world is at a crossroads. Entire countries are in flames, with many more close to ignition. We are on the brink, and as a country we have two choices: continue to be the country the rest of the world knows us to be, or close ourselves off and lose what it means to be Canadian.
Those choices have ramifications for the entire world. If we stay open and accepting, we save the lives of thousands and maybe millions. We close ourselves off and we condemn millions to death. That’s what the choice boils down to: are we saviours or are we killers? To the Canadians who are clamouring to not let refugees in, are you so willing to become complacent in their deaths? Because I couldn’t sleep with that much blood my hands. To the Canadians who think we should be more like the States, have you even read the news lately? Have you looked at what they are becoming? We, as a country, are taking in people from the United States right now who are seeking asylum. And you want to become more like that country? Shame on you.
“What if we let them in and they’re terrorists?” Well, history says that’s not likely. And the last terror attack on Canadian soil was committed by a Canadian. A white Canadian. Not that I should have to make that distinction, but in today’s world apparently I do. The refugees we’ve welcomed into Canada have been nothing but thankful. And most of Canada has welcomed them with open arms. I believe that most of Canada still upholds Canadian values, and that it is just a vocal minority that is expressing these anti-Canadian sentiments.
Canada is, and always has been, a country that welcomes all with open arms. That is the Canada I stand on guard for. The True North, strong and free.

Trigger Warning: Buried lies, buried life.

This is my latest published article. It touches on depression and suicidal thoughts. If you are feeling depressed or suicidal, please talk to someone.  

As we age, we often look back upon our lives and wonder what could’ve been. If we had made better choices then would we be in a better place now? If I had gone left instead of right, if I had said yes instead of no, questions like that can haunt us.  

And maybe they should.  

Over the past two years, I have done a remarkable amount of soul-searching and self-discovery. In that time I came to terms with my sexuality, my gender, and my own mental health. I started to let go of the things that were holding me back. Past events that I kept hidden from everyone, including myself, that were stunting my personal growth. I would often lie about myself in the face of questions, and over time I came to believe my own lies. I lost myself. I buried myself is actually more accurate. I buried myself under the detritus of my lies, and I suffered for that.  

At the age of six, I decided to become religious. My parents did not force religion on me; they never made me go to church, or anything like that. It was my decision. The church, especially back then, was not accepting of people outside of gender norms, and of different sexualities. I was taught that it was a sin to be gay, and that gay marriage was wrong. And I believed it. For a long time. Whenever I had doubts or thoughts regarding my own sexuality I would bury it down. Whenever I did something (hug, cuddle, etc) with a guy, I would tell myself it was because of how secure I was in my own sexuality. Whenever I expressed interests in things that were “girly”, I would tell myself it was because of how masculine I was.  

I buried myself under the lies of my own making.  

I went to a bible college (one of the best in the country) that was actively against same-sex marriage, and routinely taught that homosexuality was not just a sin, but that it was simply wrong. I remember when another school backed out of a deal with mine over our stance on same-sex marriage, and our President painted the other school the villain, and I believed him. That homosexuality was wrong was ingrained in me. I didn’t even question it.  

The church disapproves of a lot, and it hides a lot. Members with mental health problems, be they anxiety, depression, or whatever, are told to pray more, or members of the congregation pray over them. If you were suffering from depression, you just obviously weren’t being a good Christian, so you hid it. You put a smile on, and you buried how you really felt so no one else could find out. This really fucked me up. Whenever I would feel down, I would just pray and pretend that everything was better. 

But it never was. It never got better.  

I kept things buried down, simmering out of sight, just waiting to explode. I would have outbursts of emotion: anger, fear, sadness, doubt. My self-worth and confidence became non-existent, and still I buried it down. I tried to keep it hidden from everyone. I didn’t want people to worry. I didn’t want to be shunned.  

This, of course, was extraordinarily bad for my mental health. I did end up on medication, which I hated for how it made me feel like I was empty. But the medication wasn’t my lowest point. That came in October of 2006.  

I was 16, still attending church where I was seen as a leader amongst the youth, and very active in the student council at my school. I wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but all the various cliques liked me. My days of being constantly bullied were behind me, and to the people looking in, my life seemed, well, good. The fact that every second was all out warfare in my mind was not evident to people. My feelings and problems were mine, dammit. I took in everyone’s problems, but never let anyone know mine. I had to be strong for everyone. That was my job, Jesus could take my burden, I would take everyone else’s. Unsurprisingly, this was not a good choice. I just became more and more depressed and worn out. I began to have suicidal thoughts. I wanted to escape, and I didn’t know how. I thought suicide was a legitimate option.  

So I decided to do it. I was home alone. I started cleaning before my parents left for a meeting, so I had music playing as I always did. Sometime after they left, I was ready. I won’t go into the details, they’re not important, but something happened that stayed my hand: a song started playing.  

The song was “Zero” by Hawk Nelson, and it’s about the affect that suicide has on everyone else. Words have always held power to me, and these words froze me in place. The lyrics washed over me, and I wept. At the end of the song, I collapsed and cried for a long time. Since that day, there have been many times when I’ve regretted not following through, but I have never acted on it again.  

This suicide attempt is one of the things I have kept buried. My depression is one of the things I have kept buried in. I didn’t want pity, I still don’t, but burying them down was not dealing with them. They are part of me. They, in a way, help to define me, and they allow me to relate. By pretending they didn’t exist within me, I was perpetrating the stigma that exists around mental health. Not only that, I was still damaging my own.  

I was, and am, so used to keeping things buried, that I didn’t give it a second thought. For years, I kept those thoughts buried down deep. 

I feel out of the church in my early twenties. I got so tired of the hypocrisy that I was seeing in its members. All these people claiming to serve god while they just served themselves, never mind the fact that felt that god had turned his back on me. For the first time since I was six, I didn’t know the direction of my life. I had gone to school to be a youth pastor for a church and a god that I no longer trusted. All that time and money I had invested became for naught. I was rudderless.  

It was around this time that the walls I had built began to crumble, and all my latent feelings and beliefs about gender and sexuality started bubbling forth. When I was religious I had assumed that my lack of sexual attraction to people stemmed from how awesome of a Christian I was. But I wasn’t a Christian anymore, and I still wasn’t being sexually attracted to people. I thought I was broken. So I buried it. Like I always did. Bad habits are hard to break.  

As I moved away from the church, more and more of my friends were queer, so I became immersed in that world. I read papers about it, I read articles, and I researched the history and the different aspects of it. In my studies, I stumbled across an article about asexuality. It intrigued me, so I read it. And it fit. Things made sense. I wasn’t broken, I was asexual. I was excited and I read everything I could find on it! I had the beginnings of a path in front of me; I just had to follow it! I was overjoyed. 

I think I told two people. 

I was still figuring it out; it was still new and personal. And I didn’t want to share. What if I was wrong? After all, things hadn’t worked out so well for me last time I thought things made sense. I guess I was mainly scared. Part of me still believed that not being straight was a sin, and all of a sudden, I wasn’t straight.  

With this new perspective, I looked back on my life: all the times cuddling with my male roommates, all the times flirting random guys in the city. Was it possible that, not only was I asexual, but also not heteroromantic? The answer was yes. As I researched more, as I dug into myself more, I discovered that I was more panromantic than hetero.  

But how I could come to terms with this? How could I let myself be honest, not just with myself, but with everyone?  

Unfortunately, I wasn’t done with the self-discoveries.  

As I reflected on my life trying to figure out what kind of man I was, I realized that I wasn’t a man. I wasn’t a woman either though, so this discovery left me more rattled than I was before. In the midst of discovering my sexuality, I began questioning my gender. My whole life I KNEW I was a man. That’s what everyone said I was. That’s what my biology told me. Now that fact was being called into question. Gender identities weren’t taught in high school and I went to a Christian college, so this wasn’t an area I had had much experience in.  

Thank goodness for Google. 

I found non-binary on a list of genders. It fit. It made sense. All the anomalous past events—those things that ‘normal’ guys don’t do—started making sense. Slowly, after decades of lying to myself, I was beginning to truly find myself.  

Looking back now at my past, there are parts I regret. I wish I had discovered my sexuality and gender at a younger age. Maybe I would’ve liked myself more. Some days I wish I had followed through with my suicide attempt, most days I don’t, but I’m more honest about my mental health now, and it’s getting better. It’s not something that will ever go away, but it’s become something that I can admit to and deal with in a healthy manner. I’m slowly becoming more open with people, and I am becoming more comfortable with my own skin. I still dress and act like a man on a daily basis; partly because it’s habit, partly because I’m still scared to be 100% me.  

As I sit here, looking back, I have regrets. We all do. I wish I had done things differently. I wish I had handled certain situations better, and I wish I had treated certain people better. But if anyone asks me if I would go back and change anything, I say no. Everything that has happened, all the bad, all the good, all the mistakes, they all brought me to where I am today. My experiences have made me the person that I am. And now that I’m actually being honest with myself, I’m starting to like that person.  

2017

Well, here we are: 2017. We made it through the hellhole that was 2016, now what? How are we going to make 2017 any better than 2016? We can’t just sit around and do the same stuff, obviously that doesn’t work! We need to change and adapt. We live in tumultuous times; we have a democratically elected man who studied and idolized Hitler, and is best friends with a modern dictator, coming to power. That would be terrifying in any circumstance, but it is especially apocalyptic when you remember that he will have control of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and is famous for his outbursts of insane anger.

How do we adapt and change to deal with that? We become more outspoken with our love. We stand up, together, and we help each up when we get knocked down. We can no longer sit idly by when bad things happen. We can’t just read a news article, say “that sure is terrible”, and then close the tab and go back to our latest Netflix binge. Instead we have to share. We have to speak out. We have to show our solidarity, not merely hint at its existence.

It all goes along with the old question of who’s guiltier: the bully or the bystander? The person doing wrong or the people who enable the wrong doing? It’s easy to say that the bully is guiltier, but the bully would not be bullying if they didn’t have an audience. If we stand up to the bullies, the bullies stop. It may take a while, and we may get knocked around a bit, but if we can show the bullies, the bad people, that we will not accept their behaviours, then we have taken away their power.

Obviously this is an oversimplification of a very tense and difficult situation, and the main thing to do is to make sure that you are safe. As with everything, you need to take care of yourself first.

Please be safe, please take a stand. Let’s make 2017 a better year than 2016. 

Top Ten Pop Culture Moments of 2016

It’s December 23, it’s almost Christmas, so let’s do a top ten list! In this list, I will be listing my Top Ten Favourite Pop Culture Moments of the Year! That’s right, moments! There will be spoilers after this point.

1.) Deadpool’s opening credits

This is how all credits should be done. They showcased the tone of the entire movie, and even broke the fourth wall a few times! From Hugh Jackman’s sexiest man of the year cover, the Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern trading card, to bullet holes and blood, these credits showed us exactly what we were going to get over the course of the film. Thankfully, the movie lived up its amazing opening credits!

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MjyGL0go60

2.) Jon and Sansa being reunited

These two hadn’t been seen together since the first or second episode of Game of Thrones, and they were the first of the Stark children to be reunited after all the terrible things that befell their family. It was possibly the first truly happy moment the series gave us, and it made everyone tear up with joy.

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzHj-LrhwBc

3.) Spider-Man taking Cap’s shield

I could’ve listed so many things from the airport battle, but Spider-Man’s entrance with him taking Cap’s shield and webbing his wrists together was just great.

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBANU6ZVFZY

4.) Wonder Woman’s entrance in BvS

There isn’t too much great we can say about BvS, but Wonder Woman’s entrance is one of them. From the electric violin, to Batman and Superman’s shocked looks, the scene showed us how could the movie could’ve been. She was in the movie for far too short of a time, but what a time.

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwgPtAKTfq8

5.) Samurai ATOM

Ray Palmer’s ATOM suit, with a samurai helm, on horseback. Thank you season two of Legends of Tomorrow.

6.) Ghost Rider’s reveal

This season of Agents of Shield brought it, and brought it hard. We got LMDs, Coulsen back in the field, and Daisy going full superhero. On top of that, we got Ghost Rider, flaming skull and all. Doctor Strange brought magic and idea of other realms into the MCU, Agents of Shield brought in hell and demons all wrapped up in a glorious burning chain.

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpW6XVe8JvM

7 & 8.) Battle of the Bastards and Sansa’s revenge

They’re in the same episode, so I’ll put them together on the list. First off, the battle. It was the largest battle every filmed for television and involved thousands of extras and a month of filming. It is easily on par with, or better than, the massive battles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. On top the of pure scale of things, it’s a deeply emotional and human experience. There are very few things that have left me on the edge of my seat and breathless, this battle did it. And then, at the end of the amazing episode (which also featured dragons destroying a fleet of battleships), Sansa got her revenge on Ramsay Bolton by feeding him to his own dogs that he had starved for days.   

Watch the battle here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsFeIVJfKsA

Watch Sansa’s revenge here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6cVrn4bqdM

9.) Darth Vader takes out entire rebel platoon

So technically this happened in 2015, but the collected edition of the storyline didn’t come out until 2016, so I’m counting it. Basically, in the amazing Star Wars comics that Marvel is doing, Darth Vader gets shot down and the rebels think it’s their best shot at taking him out. At one point he gets surrounded by an entire platoon, and after insulting them (see above), he kills them by detonating their grenades. Damn.

10.) Titanfall 2: Cause and Effect mission

Easily one of the best designed video game levels ever. During the course of the mission you get a new piece of equipment that introduces a new gameplay mechanic: you can jump through time. This allows you to try so many different things over the course of the mission, and is just ridiculously fun!

I’m not posting a link to a video, as they’re all walkthroughs and super long.

Let's f*****g talk swearing

Swearing, in English, is an interesting experience. Our curses range from the religious to bodily functions, and are often used to punctuate statements, or even inserted into the middle—fuck it. We all curse. Even if we avoid the traditional swears and use something like “fudge” or “heck” or “poop”, we all know what word you’re actually saying. My time at a Christian college was one of the most swear-filled times of my life! Of course fuck was replaced with frick or frak or frig, but the word popped up constantly, and was very obvious as to what word it was replacing. We called things “BA” instead of saying “badass”, because it was the actual saying of the word that made it wrong! If we replaced it, it was all good!
What a bunch of morons. Did we honestly believe that replacing the word made it okay, or did we think we were tricking the all-knowing God by using something else?
Idiots.
I am often thankful that my parents are never around me when I play Mario Kart or Halo, as every second word out of my mouth is some variant of “fuck”. My friends find it funny and think that I should stream it, but I don’t see the appeal of watching some guy swear a million times because a flying blue turtle shell came out of nowhere. Part of me believes that my family would think less of me if they ever heard (I know they wouldn’t), but I think that’s just left over shame from the church.
For a time, I was fascinated with British swears. While I was in school I decided that they didn’t count as swears because they were from a different country, so I called everyone “bugger”, and threw “bloody” into every possible sentence. It was bloody bollocks, it was. I blame it all on Ron Weasley. He was a right wanker. A tosser even.
I still use the word “frak” sometimes, but that’s because I like the word and it makes me think of Katee Sackhoff. And thinking of Katee Sackhoff makes me happy. For those who don’t know, Katee played Starbuck in the 2004 BSG series. Which, if you haven’t watched, you really should. It’s frakking awesome.
Just like swearing is for your health (talk about amazing transitions! I’m a professional, trust me)! It helps to release pent up negative emotions, which thereby helps clear the mind, and allows people to think…better. I was going to say “more clearly” but I had just used the word clear and now I’ve just gone and fucked everything up and this is becoming a huge run-fucking-on sentence. Ahem. Swearing releases a kind of endorphin that acts as a pain-killer, which would explain why we always want to swear when we get hurt. In fact, my grade seven English teacher told us the only time it would be appropriate to swear in glass was if we got hurt. If we got actually hurt/injured we had full permission to drop the old f-bomb. Unfortunately, it is rather easy to stay uninjured in a grade 7 English class, so the school hallways never rang with approved fucks, only the unapproved. Take that however you want.
Swearing, like everything, has a time and place. Swearing in front of little kids just isn’t cool. Same as swearing in front of grandparents—unless it’s a family thing. And swearing every second word should be strictly left to Mario Kart.
Also, don’t call your boss a fucking dickweed unless that’s how your office operates, but really confirm that information first if you’re the new person.