Carly's Ramblings Blog - Style

Board Games, When I saw him last....Depression & Hope

Today's blogs...

30 Day Bloggers Challenge

The clouds are rolling in campers. It's gonna rain hard and get cooler. How are we gonna stay warm and entertain ourselves? Someone's gotta cover the firewood and make sure our supplies are safe, but until then, we've got some board games in the main tent...what's your favorite?

I vote for a team effort in getting everything covered and dry. Work first and then we can play. I know we can all work together to get the jobs done in short order.

Board games are great but so are card games. Anyone up for Ucher? Crazy Eights? Go Fish? Cards are so versatile. They can easily fit into a back packet. If you are alone you can play solitaire and there are a variety of those games as well (I learned about many of those on the internet).

Checkers are good to. I never learned how to play chess, but I would like to learn if someone is willing to teach me. I find watching others play a great way to learn.

Really I am up for any board game, but I would also enjoy a cozy pile of blankets, some hot chocolate (maybe with some Baileys in it) and a good book or my notebook to write.

Blog City – Day 168

Prompt: The last time I ... saw him was seven years ago. I watched him walk out the door on his way to work. He was dressed in his Harry Rosen suit, his best and most cherished one. The one he splurged on. He'd grabbed his briefcase and if I had not gotten up from the table, he would have left without giving me a kiss, his mind was already at work.

I dared he'd miss me. Probably come home and wonder why dinner hadn't been started but then figure I was at my writing group. The one he thought was a waste of time. He never did understand my need to write with others. My need to build my confidence in a secure environment filled with other writer's like myself.

That's why I had to leave. There was too much he did not understand. Too much he was unable or unwilling to understand. He did not get that I did not want to advance at work; that I did not want to stay in the business world. That was his playground, not mind.

For me, I longed for the more creative side of life. The more spontaneous, artistic flourish. Sure, I needed to work. My receptionist job was just that, a job. It helped me pay the bills and freed me up to create and hone my craft.

That was seven years ago. A lot had happened since then. I had gone back to school... and not just any school. I had gotten in to the University of British Columbia's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program. I had moved myself clear across the country to follow my dreams. Dreams he could not fathom. Dreams he said were a waste of time and foolish.

I had worked hard and now I had something to show for it. I had a published an acclaimed novel. Won awards and now I was reading at Toronto's Harbourfront Writer's Festival.

I had come back to Toronto after I had graduated. Come back to marry the man I loved, the one who shared my dreams and devotion. Although he was not reading at Harbourfront this year he was hugely proud of my accomplishments. He came and stood in the wings blending his strength with mine.

We had carved out a life I loved. One that made writing central. One that allowed me to teach as well as write, but unlike my husband who taught at Ryerson, I taught middle school children, and teenagers and also ran a writer's group for a group of women friends. It was very rewarding.

When I saw him. My ex. He was in the audience. I had moved across the stage when I was introduced and took my spot at the podium. I smiled out into the sea of faces and tried to find my equilibrium. My eyes followed to the edge of the stage to the front row. I saw his mother first and felt the warmth of her smile as she looked up at me. I was glad I had kept in touch with her. She was wonderful, truly amazing. She had been sad to hear I had left her son, but she also said she understood. She knew he was not an easy man.

Beside her, he looked up at me. His face twisted dumbstruck. He looked to be in shock. I smiled at him. Fueled by the past that swirled at the moment, then I opened my book and began my session.

The passage I chose to read was poignant and revealing. It painted my anguish at the situation I had, or rather my character found herself in. Loving, but not being loved as herself, but as what he wanted her to be. All the time I did not look at him, but I felt his gaze, his confusion.
When I finished and moved off the stage my husband enveloped me in a all encompassing hug. He knew the man in my story was there tonight. He gave me back the strength the telling had taken out of me. By the time we moved to the after reading mingling I was steadier.

When his mother approached and gave me a loving hug, he stood back. He still looked perplexed and his calm facade veiled his underlying emotions. My husband moved up to offer his hand and he only stared at it at first, then out of a sense of the expected he took it and shook.

"Your loss is my gain." My husband said in his jovial manner and though his mother and I laughed, he did not.

"I did not realize..." he began.

I smiled warmly at him and shook my head gently as I said, "No you did not, but you did fuel me to move on."

He nodded and sucked in a huge breath as if needing the sustenance.

Other friends moved in to congratulate me and he was forgotten.

I made plans to meet up with his mother for lunch before she returned to Ottawa and then they left.

I had thought the encounter would rock me, but I felt strangely enlived by the moment. I felt the fulfillment of having made the right choice and though I had up and left him, I felt that had been the only way for me to truly go without feeling I was a fool for following my heart.

Not every relationship is meant to be; some are there to put you in another direction and I am grateful I listened to that still small voice that said... "Go!"

Welcome To My Reality – Week Thirty – Five

1.This past week saw the passing of a great man, Robin Williams which has inspired many discussions about suicide, addiction, depression and the need for people to understand mental illnesses which some people still consider a taboo topic. So tell us what you think about any of these issues or if you prefer lighter fare tell us about your favourite things about Robin Williams, perhaps his movies, stand up comedy routines etc. after all laughter is the best medicine.

I did a blog entry about Robin Williams the other day. I am still feeling the sadness of his loss. I try to feel and understand the pain he was dealing with. Suicide, Addiction, Depression, Mental Illness all circle like ravenous vultures ready to strip a person, regardless of what they may have accomplished in life. Words weighted like rocks on the soul, pulling you under without your consent. Damning your life to grey and letting the joy bleed out like a would that never heals. No matter what we do to cover it or mask it, it bleeds through and destroys the happiness that could be.

I grew up in a home that was touched with depression. Luckily suicide was averted as my mother felt she's been told by some 'higher voice' to get up. She had me to raise - I was only seven at the time. The depression darkened are world and it was not until I was sixteen that she was able to get medication to regulate her synaptic responses - they were chemically unbalanced and not firing fast enough. Since then things have been better, but northern Ontario still brings dark thoughts and demons. I can feel them slink in around North Bay when we go up for a visit and they don't leave until we get south again.

My favourite aunt is bi-polar and my grandfather was depressed and took his anger and demons out on his family by being emotionally and physically abusive. I am here today because my mother was able to break my grandfather's finger during a fight that involved pitch forks. That stopped the fight and brought him back to his senses.

Mental Illness is a devil's disease. It hides and slinks and kills and destroys within the layers and it does this all behind a veil. Without coming out about it, we only hold the curtain over it. Discussions pull the curtain back and help to break the cycle that damages families. Shedding light on the issue breaks the taboo and allows people to get help.

3. What gives you hope?

Heavenly
Operating
Procedures
Endure

Faith in knowing I am going to be okay because God is watching over me and my loved ones.

Full
Abiding
Indescribable
Truth
Happens

Good
Orderly
Direction

Live
Optimism
Values
Eternal

A Little Toby Mac...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qGa5rIOB28&list=RDg1ovNZTpVcU