I grew up with a large extended family that I feel so blessed to have.  There is, however, one aspect of family life I felt I missed out on …grandparents.  I didn’t get a chance to even meet my father’s parents. They never left Italy and my Nono passed away before I was born. My Nona followed suit not long after, before my first birthday. With the exception of a few photos, and my brother’s middle name, there isn’t much I have to remember them by.

My mother’s parents are a slightly different story. They were very much involved in my early years.  Big, boisterous family gatherings were hosted at their tiny home. Bursting at the seams, it didn’t matter. As long as there was floor space, everyone wanted to be there.  Unfortunately, those huge get-togethers were short lived. My Poppy passed away when I was only 3 and a year later, my Nana said her final goodbyes.  My Poppy’s passing was the first time I truly faced mortality and I didn’t like it one bit. I had my face pressed into my mother’s arm during the funeral mass, desperately trying to contain my tears. How could he just be gone?

I don’t recall how my parents explained death to me… I’m not sure that they had to. One look at my broken hearted mother had already told me everything I needed to know on the subject. I have only a few memories of my mother’s parents. Their funerals are actually the most vivid memories I have of them.  Despite that, I mourned them incessantly. When I was in my early 20’s, an elderly man walked past me while I stood at the foot of their graves, crying softly. He looked at the headstone and looked at me, connecting the dots silently. He smiled at my tear streaked face and said, “ I knew your grandparents. They were good people…but honey…they’ve been gone a long time!”  I laughed and assured him I wasn’t crazy. I had just graduated from university that day and I was a bit caught up in a whirlwind of emotions. The sentiment I shared with him was true. I wasn’t crying because I was missing the people my grandparents were. I was crying because I knew I had missed out on having grandparents in my life. I saw the way all of my friend’s grandparents doted on them.  Parents love you.. .but GRANDparents…they adore you.  They believe you’re the best at EVERYTHING. No boyfriend or girlfriend is ever good enough for you. You can never have too much to eat. No toy or trinket is a waste of money. Failures are just minor set backs on the path to your sparkling future.

Of course, they’re more than just an endless source of support. Grandparents are the link to the lives our parents often fail to mention. They provide a rare glimpse at the relatable side of our parents. Mom isn’t going to voluntarily tell you about the time she got so drunk she passed out in a rose bush… but Grandpa will gladly recount how he had to carry her home.

Consider the definition of ‘grand’ for a moment:

For those of you fortunate enough to have known your grandparents, could their be any more perfect a definition? Grandparents are larger than life. The love they have for their grandchildren is unlike the love shared in any other relationship. Perhaps its value is amplified by the fact that time is of the essence. Grandparents know they need to pack an entire lifetimes worth of love and admiration into the time they’re given.  In the few short years I had my grandparents, they left a mark on me that brings me happiness to this day.

Cherish the moments you have with them. Revel in the way you can do no wrong. See yourself through their eyes, and pray that one day you’ll grow up to be everything they knew you could be.

Ernest Hemingway said, ‘There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’

The medium may have changed, but the sentiment hasn’t. I haven’t felt able to regularly document the last year of my life with my blog because I haven’t been prepared to open my wounds . I don’t dare to compare myself to a great writer like Hemingway, but any artist who bares their soul knows how daunting it can be to expose yourself at your most vulnerable.

What’s been on my mind that I’ve been so afraid to face?

Falling in love is easy. It happens so quickly, we don’t even notice it. Falling out is the hard part. It doesn’t happen overnight. It happens slowly. Each blow dealt with excruciating poignancy.. .every hurt robbing you of your ability to focus on the positive. The good times play like films in your mind, taunting you with previews of what your life could have looked like, of what you thought your life would look like.  You try so hard to get it back that you lose sight of who you’re even doing it for. It isn’t simple.  It would be undignified if it were. Uncertainty and fear are powerful motivators and the darkest clouds of judgement. There are those who want to offer a band-aid to stop the bleeding, and those who take pleasure in seeing the pages stained crimson. Distinguishing the two is impossibly unfair.

In conclusion, I’ll steal another page from Hemingway, ‘All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’

Love is endless.

No matter how far I fall or what lines get blurred, the tears that I cry are entirely worth the excruciating misery of being in love.

I’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions. Mind you, I’ve set many of my own over the years. Gems such as;

• Lose 15 pounds
• Learn a new language
• Change careers
• Give up junk food

You get the idea. All were very specific… and, unfortunately, all failed.
A few weeks before the end of the 2016, one of my girlfriends forwarded me an article written by a blogger who, like me, hadn’t been able to stick to past resolutions.  She described how rather than continue to set herself up for failure, for the last several years she had instead been choosing a word to represent her goal for the year. At first I scoffed at the idea. How can one single word accurately describe what I wish to achieve with 365 days?

“Growth”

As the only daughter of a first generation Italian immigrant, I was raised with a solid mix of parental adoration and the impression that I would never be good enough. Those of you who grew up in European households know the feeling… There is NO excuse for failure and certainly no reason why you can’t do better than literally everyone else in the world. I’m not complaining, honest. Striving to achieve more because my father believed I could, hasn’t hindered my progress in life. In fact, just the opposite. Looking back, however, I can see that while there were many things my father was the authority on, there were also certain instances where I shouldn’t have sweat what he was saying.

Things my father was right about:

1) I shouldn’t eat spaghetti on a date. Okay, to be honest, I shouldn’t eat anything on a date. Notoriously messy, my enjoyment of good food has always surpassed my desire to be attractive.

2) The training wheels had to come off. I could have sworn to you that riding a bicycle was not a skill that every child had to master, but Dad, you were right. It’s come in handy. Thank you for pretending to hold on to the back of my seat the entire time!

3) Every girl should know how to throw a proper punch. Actually my father insisted on more than just that. Though I refused to join tae kwon do with my brother, I was a permanent practice fixture for him. Beyond learning to kick, bite, scratch and scream bloody murder, I also discovered my shoulders are double jointed, giving me quite the advantage in a struggle.

4) Some men aren’t worthy of my love. I’d like to think my father was lucky enough not to have had to deal with too many losers vying for my affection. Those that did dare show their faces, were cut to their soul within minutes of meeting my father. Though completely justified, did you have to berate them in front of me!?

Things my father was wrong about:

1) The amount of makeup that should be worn on a date. A smoky eye look may have been over the top for a movie rental in a basement but… I had to skip dinner to comply with your initial advice so the effort had to be made up somewhere!

2) Hoop earrings make you look promiscuous. It was just a trend! The bigger the better, right?

3) Sleepovers should involve sleeping. Unfortunately Dad, not past the age of sixteen. Sleepovers became an entirely different event. I’m sorry for not being where I said I’d be at 6am. I swear I was there by 7! Xoxo

4) You shouldn’t date until you’re 30. Alright, maybe you were on to something with that… BUT something tells me it was less about ensuring maturity and more about maintaining chastity.

For the wrong, and for the right, thank you Dad. I think you’d be happy to know that I’m still aiming higher, working harder, and cutting through other people’s bullshit on the daily. For the record, I’ve even retired the hoops.

Having always had an interest in psychology, the difference between introverts and extroverts has been something I’ve contemplated more than once over the years. Defined by Meyer’s Briggs personality testing as an INFP type, an introvert to the core, my idea of a great night is a good book, a hot bath, and a truckload of chocolate I don’t have to share with anyone. Every activity I participated in growing up were solo missions. In high school, my choice Friday night event was a movie rental watched from the comfort of my own bed. The older I got, the more difficult it became to find time to myself. Parties and hangouts became the norm and this particular introvert was forced to find a new way to recharge…. And so, I became an early bird. Being alone to recharge feels like the only option I really have. Always up before the sun, those two hours before the rest of the world stirs is the time where you’ll find me at my finest. I write, I read, and most importantly… I think.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t enjoy spending time with friends. I love a good party almost as much as any extrovert. The difference being, that not only do I have to spend time and energy psyching myself up for it, during the event itself, I’m also hyperaware of how I’m being perceived. I’m monitoring the situation and gauging the responses to my actions. All you introverts out there know how exhausting that can be! Factor in the early morning wake up, and by the time midnight rolls around, I’ve pretty much given all I can and I’m forced to turn the party over to the extroverts, aka the night owls.

I’m envious of the extroverts in my life, truly I am. They engage in the late hours as though they don’t have a care in the world. They’re living in the moment. They’re enjoying the drink in their hand, the song they’re listening to, and the company they keep. They aren’t thinking about tomorrow. So even though the early birds may catch all the worms, those night owls sure look like they’re having more fun!

It’s a well known fact that the sense most closely linked to memory is smell. I can’t dispute that. There are certain scents that trigger long forgotten moments of my childhood. Memories of people. Memories of places. They catch me off guard when they happen, flood gates open, and clear as day, a piece of the past I didn’t realize even existed is revealed.

For me, a close second is sound…music in particular. I’m not only referring to the romantic, “our song” scenario. Though, those can be pretty special!  Nearly every song I hear is associated with a person or situation that has impacted me in some way.

For instance, my Grade 6 talent show,  I can tell you what  song everyone in my class performed. In fact, given the opportunity, I could likely perform all of their dance moves too.  Shania Twain’s Any Man of Mine still makes me want to shimmy and shake my way across a stage.  Don’t play it for me — it won’t actually happen. ( k, maybe).

Listening to Extreme’s  More than Words ( perfect band and song title choice for such an epic ballad), I picture an out of control karaoke Christmas party with my oldest friends at the apartment my husband and I rented when we first moved in together. It was also the party that marked the introduction of SHOTLUCK, a tradition which has lived on, and continues to get messier each year.

Under the Boardwalk transports me back to a New Year’s party where I was 7 or 8 years old. It was an adults only event, but , as my parents were hosting, I had been allowed down in my jammies to check things out.  The Drifters came on, and my parent’s started dancing together. I’m not sure why that moment stuck with me. I had seen them dance countless of times before that. A sentimental sap even then, it struck a chord with me. I couldn’t imagine a better example of what love looked like.

The moment doesn’t have to be monumental. It can be something simple.

When I hear Justin Timberlake’s,  Sexy Back, I immediately feel rattled! I ruined that one for myself; it was the alarm on my cell phone for far too many months. Whenever I hear it, I experience that awful, ‘I’m late for life’ feeling .

Brandy’s, Full Moon brings me back to the hip hop class I so desperately wanted to love but only survived 5 or 6 weeks of because I couldn’t feel myself up in a mirror without bursting out laughing. Trust me, you would have laughed too had you witnessed my take on ‘seduction’.

No matter where I am, or how shit of a day I’m having, when I hear Chris Brown’s Forever, I feel like I’m on a sunny vacation, two to… eeee… ten drinks in, tearing up the dance floor with my best friends, and my mood instantly improves!

As long as there’s music in the world, no feeling is ever truly gone for good. Given that, I think we owe a debt of gratitude to the all the artists out there.  Not only does their music live on long after they’re gone,  they help us hold onto memories long after the moments have passed. So thank you to the rockers, the rappers, the pop princesses, and even the country superstars … for creating the soundtrack to our lives.

Certain things lose their meaning as we get older. Unfortunately, things that used to excite us can become lack lustre in comparison to the joy they once brought. For me, the meaning of one particular event falls perfectly under that category… Sick Days.

Only slightly less appealing than a snow day, a sick day held all the promise of a spoiled day spent in my parents’ bed, with my mother acting as my own personal nurse. Propped up among countless fluffy pillows, I’d have the rare opportunity to not only watch TV in bed, but to play whatever gaming system was popular at the time (courtesy of my brother, who would begrudgingly set it up for me before leaving for the day).

A sick day from school didn’t always mean I was sick enough that I couldn’t properly function. I just had to be sick enough to convince my mother that it was unwise to send me out into the world. Once I had received the final verdict that school indeed could wait until tomorrow, I’d immediately begin planning my day. Between the scandalous talk shows and soap operas I wasn’t, “technically” allowed to watch, and the constant check-ins by my mother punctuated with soup, flat ginger ale, and soda crackers, the time would fly by.

These days, sick days mean something else entirely. A sick day now can only be taken when you’re absolutely incapable of doing anything, and, worse yet, they’re limited! Using a sick day to get caught up on ‘Days of Our Lives’ is no longer an option. Sick days are ACTUAL sick days, where I lay in bed, motionless, until the undeniable urge to vomit forces me to race for the bathroom. The sad part is, when you return from a sick day, the pile of work you left from the day before has gotten even bigger, and your inbox is full of messages from people who have been impacted by your absence.

What I wouldn’t give to spend a sick day the way I did when I was 10 years old! Fortunately for me, some things never change. When I’m sick, my mother still brings me soup, and fluffs my pillows. I’m pretty sure she’d even still hold my hair back while I throw up if I asked her to. Now, if only something could be done about that pesky little thing called a career…

On my 11^th birthday I received a diary as one of my many gifts. Labelled with, “My Diary” in gold script across the cover and shut tight with a false lock, the bright red book wasn’t exactly winning any points for discretion. Intrigued by the idea of writing down my deepest, darkest secrets, I instantly vowed to record my thoughts on a daily basis.

Over the years I’ve kept many journals. At times I’ve gone months, or even years without so much as an entry… but I’ve always returned to the habit.

The process of keeping a journal is twofold; release and reflect. The cycle isn’t complete without both parts so if you’ve been keeping a journal forever and have never re-read what you’ve written, it’s time to change that!

Part One: The Release

For me, writing down my feelings became the perfect release. Over the years, my journal entries have saved me from picking fights with friends, announcing irrational fears, and confessing undying love to complete strangers. If proclaiming a thought to the world makes it real to everyone who hears it, writing it down makes it real only to the author. In so many cases, that’s all I needed…. to legitimize my feelings, even if only for a split second.

Part Two: Reflection

The release provided by writing my thoughts down is undeniably helpful, but the reflection phase is even more cathartic. It may take months, or even years… but nearly every entry has given me insight into another situation in my life.

A journal is like a friend who knows you better than you know yourself. Or perhaps it’s like an extension of yourself that speaks with clarity. I’ve read pieces of my life on pages and hardly recognized my own thoughts. It’s almost as though it came from someone else entirely. Someone who at times may have overreacted and overanalyzed! Nonetheless, my own writing has often helped me see the bigger picture. True to the, “this too shall pass” sentiment when I read the thoughts of a heartbroken teenager, or a terrified 20 year old, I take some comfort in how huge those problems seemed at the time, and how very far away they are now. There are also moments of reflection on truly important things… things that still matter today as much as they did then. Revisiting those memories on paper somehow gives me the strength I need to deal with the continued fallout they’ve caused, and the courage to accept the fact that I don’t have to have it all figured out today.

With only a couple of weeks left to go until Christmas, the shopping crunch has begun. In a world where everyone seems to purchase whatever they  want, when they want it, gift giving has become increasingly difficult. The influx of gift cards and cash as gifts surely validates that point… and while I myself appreciate a gift of any sort, nothing excites me more than finding someone else the PERFECT gift.

What makes it perfect?

 It holds a memory. A gift that transports the receiver back to a fantastic moment in time is always a sure winner. Undoubtedly this is the  reason photo gifts are so popular. You can personalize just about anything these days, and while a life size photo blanket of your boyfriend isn’t for everyone, more subtle options are available.

It’s something they wouldn’t buy for themselves. The perfect gift shouldn’t be something  they almost purchased for themselves at the mall last week.  Part of the novelty of the perfect gift is that the receiver didn’t even realize they wanted it, until it was in their hands.

It screams, ” you weren’t here, and I was still thinking of you “. This guideline should apply to every item you select for someone you care about. From a cup of coffee, to a diamond ring, the message should always be clear.

It wouldn’t be as perfect if it were gifted by someone else.  The perfect gift should speak to the unique relationship you have with that person. So much so, that if they were to receive the gift from someone else, it may not even make sense.

Hands down, the most perfect gift I ever received  was a wedding present from my mother.  The night before my big day, she handed me a small, colourful box. I could tell from the weight and shape that it had to be a piece of jewellery . Having already carefully selected items to wear on my walk down the aisle, I was surprised that she had ventured to purchase another.  Nestled on white cotton was a beautiful yellow gold cross  with  three diamonds. She asked me if I recognized it. I said I didn’t… I had never seen anything like it. She told me she had taken my father’s diamond ring and had it remade into a pendant for me.  While I may have blamed her for my puffy eyes the next day, only my mother would understand how badly I needed to have a piece of my father at that moment.

Epic gifts like that don’t come around often, and I certainly don’t envy any of you who are still on the hunt. Best of luck ,and remember, perfection is only an opinion!