And it Begins

I can't keep it together. My heart is too full of humbling inspiration. Those who know me well, know that I live for the Winter Olympics. I have friends who have, and are, competing in these games but my love affair started long before that. Athletics has always been the thing that makes my heart sing. I have always found that great personal strength comes from being part of a team working towards a common goal, it also comes from the lonely nights on the ice, the long cold days on the slopes, solo paddles on a lake. Hard work, perseverance, doing more than was expected of you. Humility, victorious joy, deep and persistent national pride.

The 2010 Olympics lit my heart on fire. Having been an athlete in many of the sports I watched on TV I felt a common bond with the heart ache and exuberant celebrations I saw. I was glued to any coverage I could get my hands on. Every story, every win, every fall or slip, every measure of 10ths of a second that separated the winners from those who almost won. I, like I imagine so many Canadians, remember exactly where I was when our hockey players won their golds. I remember the first gold won on Canadian soil. I remember Jon Montgomery and his pitcher of beer. I felt so Canadian. I felt so much a part of something bigger than myself. Even now, as I patiently wait for the opening ceremonies to start I tear up (read: full on sob) at the images of Olympics past. Those images are imprinted deeply on my mind.

Sochi is different. I get that. I am disgusted at the treatment of people by those in charge and those who follow their lead. People in general because I believe it is so much more than the issues getting face time on TV. Discrimination and mistreatment is degrading to everyone and I hope, in not too many years, that the world will look back with disgust and disbelief on the behaviour of those who clearly have so much time on their hands and so little creativity that they have to take it out on who ever they possibly can. They aren't fooling the rest of us. That being said, I am electric with anticipation for the stories of redemption, victory and underdogs winning gold. I can't wait for the sport.

My passion for the Olympics started when I watched Eddie the Eagle fly above Calgary, when I met the Jamaican bobsled team, when I took my first ski run that winter. Not a bad place to start. Now it's more. Though SO much of it is political at the end of the day it is a wonderful reason to see good in the world. To see those who set the example of dedication, of spirit and who represent their countries with something greater than pride. They are teammates and let us be part of the team as well. Perhaps I am biased but I believe that sport is a great unifier and the Olympics bring something special.

I guess all that is left to do is get the Kleenex box and Canada gear out and get ready to cheer for the red and while!

Our Young Lives

Each one is different and we have survived another year. This time as I reflect on all that's changed since the last Feb 1st and since the first one, I can look back at the healing that has happened. We will never forget. Those cold days eleven years ago will be marked about our souls and minds like constellations imprinted across the sky, seven stars, even in the daylight they are there, just harder to see, but always there.

While we will likely never forgot what happened, how it felt, the bonds that formed over the loss, I see it in the faces of those I survived with, we are all finding ways to heal. What I lost when I was 17 was my willingness to let others in. I gained an unwavering need to always be strong, never be anything else. This marked my relationships, or lack there of, for almost 10 years. My heart lay only with the mountains that both gave and took life at their will. They provided me strength, a source of passion and creativity as well as a deep humility in the face of the realities of life.

In the past few years I have let a little of my toughness go. I have slowly started to let others in, beyond my walls of strength that were as much there to keep me in as to keep others out. It hasn't been the easiest or softest process but it has helped me to fill in some of the space that was torn open by the snow and rocks. I have been lucky enough to find someone who has let me become more more whole. Someone who has given me the space to heal and supported me when it was all too much.

With all the healing that has and will happen we will always remember those who and what we lost and the moments after that will bond us together forever.  So as I sit here, across the country, flung far from the mountains that acted as the pillars supporting my young life, I remember the moments of my youth. With fondness, growing up on the prairies and in the Rockies, and with sadness in the corner of my heart for what we lost. For what changed us in our young lives.

Pronoia: I choose chocolate

What got you here is not what will get you there. It's a phrase I hear over and over again at work and have heard at school, in past roles and in other aspects of my life. While this is critically true in most cases there are others where what got me there did not get me here and maybe I need to pick up behaviours, ways of thinking that used to permeate who I was.

Over the past few days I've put a lot of time into what was different then, when risk taking and unbridled potential filled my life. What was so different then that is no longer part of who I am? Through deep scientific process I have pinpointed at least one piece of the puzzle. I used to have a deep belief in pronoia. Pronoia is the belief that the world is conspiring in your favour. It was a phrase that I picked up when I sold stretchy pants and practiced yoga daily. Pronoia was how I lived my life in my early twenties and I am not exactly sure when I stopped believing.

I am the luckiest person I know and I understood this to my core at one time. Though I have never won the lottery I grew up with a solid understanding that things work out for me, that the universe is letting things unfold because that is what is meant to be, there will be no failure, no one will let me fall too far. I lived with an unseen safety net that let me grow bold. I lived in many cities between the age of 16 and 28. I've taken and quit jobs on a gut feeling and have yet to be betrayed by my decisions. I've done things that on paper seem foolish but that my intuition was certain about. Somewhere in the last few years I've lost this belief. I have become wrapped up in worry, about not being able to afford a house or a wedding when I am happily renting and not at all engaged. I have lost sleep over if one job will work out or not because I need to start building tenure on my resume. While these things are important they are all about the end and not at all about the journey. Worrying about them is not practicing the trust that brings freedom, that kind of worry causes stress and sadness and pain.

Life is never going to be just as you planned or just what we see on TV. Life is messy and scary and we wake up to have the choice every second of the day whether to trust that it will all work out or to live in fear that it might not.  I choose chocolate.

The 20 Project

Twenty is an age of blue sky possibility. Rarely is twenty old enough to have screwed up your life and often it is a time that any choice you make can be a formative one. It is exciting and tough all at once.

I remember thinking I had it all figured out at twenty. I was getting educated, I was young enough to  not be worried about what career I would have, I just knew I would have a good one, what ever I ended up doing. I wasn't worried about buying a house or how I would pay my mortgage, when I would get married or to who, though I was really interested in having a boyfriend and not getting anywhere quickly with that. I made job choices for the love of the work, not for where it would might take me, and never for the money, they took me amazing places.

My youth, wanderlust and encouraging parents made the world a place full of curiosity and possibility. I stood in nothing and everything was was available to me.

The 20 Project was founded by someone who has been a huge part of my journey. She was my first camp counsellor, a time in my life that had a huge affect on who I would become. She was also there for me when I decided to leave the first career I loved, but no longer served me, to go back to school. Of her many projects I feel so lucky to be a part of this one. The main page of the website reads "Advice from the other side of 20... a collection of memoirs, journeys and wisdom from around the world".  Collaborators from all over the globe of varying ages providing their thoughts on what it meant to be 20 and what they would tell those embarking on their third decade of life.

This might get you thinking about a simpler time, or a time when it was hard to make ends meet, or a when the challenges of life included getting up for 8:30am archeology class on a friday. It might make you remember what drove you before life became strangely more complicated and that may start to trickle back into how you make decisions. Whatever it does, I hope you will check out The 20 Project. Hilary is still looking for contributors for 11 more short days and we are all looking for a little sold wisdom and a few tales of adventure.

Scars and Milestones

Years later and I'm still moved to inaction by this time of year, still unable to shake it from my bones. My heart senses the shift in time and reminds my soul that once again, it's here.

The deaths of those amongst us are marks upon our lives. We still wear the imprint of young death, heavy in our eyes and in our voices, even for a few moments a year. It taught all of us who bore witness that life is fragile and our legacies are much more of a present, rather than future, matter.

It is often this time of year, a few weeks into January that I am reminded. I am listless, fatigued without reason. I am quick to cry and fall ill, if only in my heart. It creeps up before my mind even puts the pieces together. My body, scarred with the memory, reverts before I catch on. Eleven years later I am still haunted by the images of those weeks, tear stains on green blazers, the grey carpet of my classmates floor, how cold the ground was through my leather shoes in February.

It's taken work to get from there to here. Where trust was hard to muster and keeping a stoic exterior my suit of armour,  I have slowly learned to let the light in through the chinks, along with the people. I'm not close to being good at it but I've found someone who's strong enough to trust that I can only get better. What I'm looking for is not pity, I am no victim. What this time of year reminds me is that everyone is marked by some tragedy, it is what makes us human. It can't be covered up or fixed. Scars heal with time but never leave the body in their entirety. Be gentle with yourself and others, you never know what's lurking in the shadows of another's eyes and know that the events that mark our lives as milestones along a road they always do so for some good, never just bad. 

Back to the Mat

It may sound selfish or immature but I've really felt like I needed to see some positive change for the minimal work I've been putting into getting back to me, back in shape, and generally working off some of that brie and turkey I ate while at home in the bosom of my family.

Luckily I've been reminded of why I loved practicing yoga in the first place. Over the past few weeks I've taken to practicing to my yoga DVDs, in my sweat pants, in my "living room" (yes, the only room in our place is the "living room") while my boyfriend/roommate is at the gym. The magic of yoga is, while each practice is different, the difference are perceivable. It's instant gratification. I have noticed I am stronger through my vinyasas, my heels almost touch the floor in down dog, I'm sleeping better and it's not so hard to roll out my mat and get down to business. I've practiced maybe 5 times. Now, I know from experience not everyday is going to feel better and those days are the ones I am going to learn lessons on the mat, but in the meantime it's inspiring to remember what a yoga high feels like and that getting a bit of exercise, me time, and peace is not the hardest part of my day.

Old Julia

It's been a long time. Since a lot of things.

As cliche as it sounds change has been one of the only constants in my life over the past few years. The handful of organizations I've worked for, the three different cities in three years, different homes, different friends, countless different roles I've played. Trying to cope with this change along the way has left me sick a lot, I am not as svelte as back in my stretchy pant days by any means, a lot has had to slide to keep from floundering and I've been trying to stay ahead of the curve without taking care of myself.

The tide is starting to shift, I can feel it. Being home, out west, by the lake and in the mountains, recharged my batteries and now I am here, ready to take on what I hadn't felt strong enough to do while I was trying to manage everything else.

So this is not a list of goals, intentions or resolutions. I simply want words on paper stating that I will get back to being who I am, hitting the reset button makes the process sound far easier than I know it will be. Getting back to my yoga practice, on my mat (the one that feels like home), to my books, to writing and photography, that is what lights me up and brings me back to who I am.

So 2014 is not the year of anything new, it is the year of "old Julia".