down and out.

I moved around all the money I could possibly borrow off of my credit line and my Visa, and I have exactly $0.72 left in my account, but I managed to pay off that stupid, hateful CRA bill. Sans Becky Bloomwood closet assets.

I looked at the letter again and realised that there’s NO email whatsoever to contact, only phone numbers or site links for more “services and telephone numbers” and plus, they’ll charge me more interest if I dont pay by March 12, so I just fucking paid it.

And then I had to tell my dad (“OH, THE SHAME,” SHE INWARDLY GROANED AND CRINGED), because I have to borrow from him after all, to help pay off my student loan repayments.

Shoot me.

“Yoga breath, yoga breath,” she reminded herself brokenly, saddened by the fact that she could not even take out the trash because she was low on garbage bags and had no money to purchase more.

As it turns out (and not totally unexpectedly), the bank in France had also charged her extraordinary amounts of interest for having exceeded her credit limit the previous months (140 EUROS!?!?).

“But I needed to buy food!” she protested. “I’m not about to faint in front of my students!”

“I’m actually grateful for rice and pasta now,” she laughed derisively. “I guess the world is conspiring for me to eat less. Thank god for the 15 euros each week that feeds me. No, fuck it, there’s no god, “Thanks [name of student she tutors],” more like. I can’t wait for the cantine on Monday. I’m going to take lots of extra bread and extra fruit and take the fruit home with me afterwards.” Sometimes they even had little prepackaged biscuits or madeleines. “I’m taking those too, I paid for it, after all,” she realised indignantly. Now, to play some guitar and sing out the stress, a “luxury” that she considered a necessity and would rather sacrifice food funds for, than to give up.

“What the fuck, Facebook!” she yelled internally. “I started off my day shittily, do you have to let me down, too!?” she shrieked, when her panicked messages to her boyfriend failed to send.

She sighed. “I have one egg left, should I fry it and eat it as is, or make pancakes? Oh wait, I don’t have milk. Alright, should I make apple cake? It seems like more sustenance, I have some flour and sugar left, and the recipe requires just one egg…”

It was a sad turn of events indeed.

The optimist in her surveyed the situation and decided to romanticize her story. “All of Austen and Ibbotson’s heroines were poor, and spent their free time in the pursuit of knowledge, in helping others, or in roaming the countryside. Even Cassandra in “I Capture the Castle” was desperately poor, her family could afford one or two scant meals a day, and she spent her days scribbling with a stubby pencil in her cheap ruled notebooks from the village. If they can do it, so can I,” she reasoned, “for I have always wanted to be like them.” She had always related to them and hoped that she was as spirited and as capable of rising above adversity as they were, but she had sunk to new lows, for she was more alone in this than she had ever been before.

Despite everything weighing on her soul at the moment, she paused to look out the open window at the gathering clouds and smiled. “At least I am still capable of amusing myself,” she thought, while simultaneously contemplating the gathering of clouds in the sky as a sign of pathetic fallacy. That song in Kindergarten about Mr. Sun being your friend might have had some truth to it. And just like in all harsh realities, he leaves you when you’re down and out.

“Good, I hope it rains,” she concluded bitterly, yet without conviction. “I have no money to go out, anyways.”

*******

Self narration: It’s cheaper than self medication.

things i love thursday: feeling broke edition

(…after the tradition of galadarling, who i used to read religiously for years.)

Having received some sudden and unexpected bad news regarding my personal finances and facing yet another day of tepid drizzle, my sleep deprived brain has been rapidly churning out desperate ways in which I can dig myself out of this continually sinking hole I’ve dug myself. But it knows to slow down and be rational, to take a breath, and… then it decided that a TILT list was a necessary, temporary reprieve from the heaviness of mauvaises nouvelles.

Even though I feel now what Becky Bloomwood must have felt when she was drowning in the consequences of her shopping addiction, I don’t have a rich PR boyfriend to lean on, nor do I have a walk-in closetful of auction-able assets to float on, to safety. Consolation – be it materialistic or superficial – in the form of “Things I (still have left to) Love Thursday” it is!

♥ Jane Austen/Emma Fanfiction, because six Austen novels are not enough.
♥ Rereading Eva Ibbotson’s novels: A Countess Below Stairs, Magic Flutes; Discovering never before read Eva Ibbotson novels: A Company of Swans, Madensky Square, A Glove Shop in Vienna and other stories.
At least, if I do not have money to spend, I still have my sight, I still have imagination and emotions, and those can’t be taken from me.
♥ The free time to read for hours at a time. I haven’t had this luxury since I was in primary school. Just last night, I must have read for 5-6 hours straight. It was a lovely escape from my financially threatened reality.
♥ A cup of tea (or several) feels like a delicious privilege, especially when I think of how tea was once traded in bricks and held more value than coin currency.
♥ Cheap lunch meals at the lycée cantine: 2,90€ (~ $4.10 CAD) for an entire, relatively healthy/well balanced meal tray!? Why do I bother cooking!? This is the equivalent of what I could be eating for two meals! (I made myself eat a lot more than usual to compensate for what I know will be a frugal dinner). For instance, today, I ate: A barley salad, a fruit cup, a big plate with seasoned beef cubes and a big portion of mixed vegetables (carrots, edamame beans, beans, bean sprouts, etc.), 2 tranches of fresh french bread, a couple of slices of different regional cheeses, and a glass of vin rouge.  Not to mention, I couldn’t afford to try French cuisine otherwise!

(Look at this lovely paper doilied basket tray of regional French cheeses, found in the staff lunchroom! Thank you, Lycée Clément Marot!)

♥ Equally cheap French wine to drown my sorrows in – because it can literally be cheaper than bottled water. 1L Bottle water at the train station: 2,80€. 1 x 75cL bottle of red wine: 2,75€! Do not take me seriously when I attempt to justify this purchase by repeating wayward wisdom I’ve read somewhere…wine is made from grapes, and grapes are fruit. Hence, I am drinking a fruit salad. Ouf, believe what you like. Nevertheless, antioxidants.
♥ Singing and learning new songs on the guitar. Another way of losing track of time and reality.
♥ Going for exploratory petites promenades and discovering or seeing things that I can’t believe I missed before:

(How does one miss an entire fountain that one is prone to walk by at least once a week!? Evidently, I have!)

♥ Feeling camaraderie with some of my students, seeing that they are genuinely enjoying the games we play (Who Am I?/20Qs., Apples to Apples, Heads Up, Cheers, Guv’nor!)
♥ Being accepted as a volunteer to work on a vegetable farm in France for two weeks in May/June! I knew of WWOOF (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms) before, and now I will finally get to immerse in this learning experience (and most likely in some mud as well).
♥ Finding a position in Montréal as an au pair for 7 weeks this summer! After just one Skype meeting with them, I can tell that they are going to be a lovely family to live with, and I am so excited about the time I’ll get to spend with their daughter. I couldn’t feel luckier about this opportunity.
With these opportunities awaiting me later this year, I can see that my current gloom seems disproportionate, so…voilà,
♠ Lizzy Taylor’s advice, which I followed to a T!

I’d like to add, “& Pout For The Camera!” to Miss Taylor’s glamourous pragmatism.

and at the end of the day,

♥ Someone special to talk to. ∞

do you have wanderlust yet?

it’s almost 2 am, and i’m sitting outside on my friend’s little balcony in a little town an hour away by train from Bordeaux.
the skies are absolutely clear, and even with a few lit lamp posts across the street, i’ve never seen a brighter Orion.
it’s a tiny bit chilly, but it’s the end of October after all, and this would be a perfect August night in Vancouver – i’m sitting outside in a t-shirt and my hair is freshly wet from a much needed shower (we did wheel our carry-ons and march with our daypacks for a good 40 minutes in the sun to get here).
i’m coming off of a happy white and gold wine induced haze. in the distance, i hear the echoing rattle of passing cars, and all around me are terra cotta tiled apartment complexes, all one-storey high, low to the ground, generous to the indigo skies.
i inhale deep, deep, deeply, like i am trying to suck in the beauty and fraicheur into my lungs, like i am trying to absorb the clean night air into the lining of my big-city polluted lungs.
everything else is completely still and silent.
i like knowing that there is a port nearby. it seems i always end up where there’s water, beaches, and quais. chanceuse.
tomorrow, i get to feel soft sand between my toes again.

i think i’ll sleep with the glass balcony door open tonight.

from [August 1, 2013]:

(from my neglected Tumblr):

I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY

It’s been almost a year since my last (and most serious) ex broke up with me. I hadn’t been single for 5 years before that. and in these past 11 months, I feel like I’ve done so much more while single than I did in those 5 years in relationships, and it is so amazing what I can be capable of doing when I allow myself to be open to all possibilities. What is ironic, is that he told me that he had more productive things to be doing than to try to make the relationship work, and I ended up being the one actively doing things, while he got a new girlfriend two weeks later. I just need to make a list (because that’s what twenty-somethings enjoy doing anyway) of all the things, trivial or major, that I’ve done, so that next time I’m in a relationship, I won’t forget or lose who I am, and I’ll remember that I have my own life to pursue :)

1. Joined Vocal Jazz Club at my university (literally the day after the break-up. My eyes were red rimmed and my friend <3 forced me to join something). Performed in two end of semester concerts. Made new friends :)
2. Started ice-skating again!
3. Got back into running and ran 2 half-marathons!
4. Started doing Moksha Yoga 3-4 times a week, made new friends at the studio :)
5. Sang in first solo performance onstage for a Vocal Jazz Club concert!
6. Went to a lot more concerts! I just love music!
7. Saw a ballet for the first time (Swan Lake)
8. Went to a Vancouver Symphony Orchestra concert for the first time.
9. Picked up knitting again and knit scarves for friends and family.
10. Did a Moksha Yoga 60 day Challenge!
11. Tried a ballet class.
12. Gave a 25 minute seminar presentation in an English course!
13. Spent 5 weeks in Québec for EXPLORE and stayed 3 more weeks to WORK IN Québec!!!! Never been away from home for that long by myself before! (and i didn’t want to leave yet…)
14. Sang a french song in a concert performance at the end of the Explore program.
15. Went canoe-ing for the first time in the Maurice National Park. (feels strange saying it in english, when we always referred to it as Parc de la Mauricie).
16. Saw Coeur de Pirate live for the second time in Québec! (Rented a car with friends and we drove to another small town to see the concert :)
17. Greyhound bussed my way to Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto! And stayed with friends that I made in the program or that I knew from uni.
18. Saw free concert performances in Montréal for the International Jazz Festival the weekend that I was there.
19. Saw a free concert performance during the 2-week music festival in Trois-Rivières :D
20. Biked along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa!
21. Went to Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto! I can never ride enough roller coasters! I’d ride one everyday if I could.
22. Saw sunrises in Montréal, Ottawa, Vancouver!
23. Started trading at my yoga studio (volunteering in exchange for free unlimited yoga!)
24. Went to Whistler for the first time (in February).
25. Went camping for the first time in Whistler! (July).
26. Went snowshoe-ing for the first time on Mount Seymour :) (was stranded at the lodge on the mountain for a few hours afterwards due to snow!)
27. Went hiking to a waterfall in Pemberton, BC.
28. Hiked all 3 peaks of the Chief in Squamish, BC!
29. Got my second hand bike all fixed up, bought a helmet, and biked all around East Van, West Van, North Van and saw a fireworks show.
30. Saw the Avenue Q musical at Granville Island.
31. Biked to Granville Island and back in the middle of the night!
32. Got another tattoo ;)
33. Oh, yes, did most of this through 2 full-time semesters while working part-time.

I’ve done a lot more other things that I probably can’t recall at this exact moment, but I am just awestruck at the amount of things I can accomplish when I want to.  At first, I was so grief-stricken after the break-up that I could barely get up and walk on my own two feet and I couldn’t eat for a week without throwing up, but it was gradually replaced with the realization that all my time is my own and I regained my thirst and hunger for life. All I want to do is run harder at life, and do as much as I can. I can’t bring myself to sit still for long, even when I am exhausted. Part of the reason for this is probably because I feel the need to make up for all the years that I missed out on doing everything that I wanted to do. But I have always had wanderlust and a sense of adventure, and now I know that it doesn’t take much to find freedom – it’ s just a walk, a hike, a bus ticket, a bike ride or a yoga pose away.

It’s not just about the experiences I’ve had. I’ve also learned so much about myself and I used to think that I knew myself well. Just from my travel experience away from home for the last 2 months, I’ve learned that I don’t need as much as I thought I needed to be happy. I used to buy a lot of things because I thought I needed more to be happy. My parents couldn’t afford much when I was young, so I felt deprived. When I started earning my own money, I was free to purchase whatever I wanted, to ease the “deprivation” (first world problems…). Of course, I also shopped for the “benefits of retail therapy.” I also lacked the freedom and independence in areas of my life (thanks, ex-boyfriends) that I (didn’t know I) needed, so I filled my life up with things over which I had a choice – the things I could buy. But, in the 9 weeks I spent away from home, I pretty much lived with all that I brought in my one 50 lb. limit checked luggage and my backpack. In my last week of city-hopping, I lived out of my suitcase and sometimes, just out of my backpack. I felt freer and happier than I ever could have imagined I could be, and when I first came home and came into my bedroom, I was overwhelmed with how crowded my room seemed, with how much stuff I didn’t remember having.

In retrospect, it probably hadn’t seemed like that much to me before I left. Now that I have had experiences that I value above having material objects, it all just seems like too much unnecessary stuff. Of course, it’s nice to have the comforts of home and more of the “extra essentials” in my life again, like more clothing to suit the variable weather, or some of my books and supplies – but that’s exactly what they are to me now, luxuries. I appreciate and even feel like I “need” some of these things, but I don’t take them for granted like I used to. Everything else that I own, I see as unnecessary material things. I wish that I could sell 70% of my possessions and hit the road.

In the last week before I left for my trip, I confided to a friend that I hoped that I would have a life changing experience, and then I quickly retracted that statement, because I knew that if I expected too much from the start, I would only be disappointed. Then, in the confusion and excitement of being away from home, I forgot about trying to have a good experience, and I just experienced things as they came. I’ve been home for 2 weeks and I feel like I am still trying to come back down to earth, but maybe my reality has changed for good (for the better) because the way that I think has changed. In this way, I realized only recently that I did have a life changing experience after all.

When I look back on this past year, I conclude that while it’s true that we may grow a lot in relationships, we can grow even more after they end.

(And if you feel more like yourself after the relationship ends, then it was never meant to be. Don’t grieve for what shouldn’t be.)

 

…it’s nice to remind oneself of one’s beliefs. I hope my future travels will continue in the same vein of self-discovery and growth as I have experienced over the last few years. It’s hard to believe that it’s already September, and I will be leaving in just under two weeks for the next small (but not trivial) chapter of my life!