i pretty much had a mental breakdown that saturday in october. i wrote that early in the morning and proceeded to be a raving madwoman the rest of the day... hysteric crying fits, the whole shhbang. i held out more than a year before the plain old lack of california just beat me over the head... i think that was the day that i really realized what i'd done to myself, coming here. i cried the whole day. for what i'd left and lost, those pieces of me and everything else. i cried for not knowing what took me so long, for not understanding all the things i'd been feeling. i still don't understand everything. of course not. but i understood that day that there was more than just regret hanging over me. it was just pressing the regret down so hard i couldn't see anything else.
right now im trying to deal with it. so i can get it out of the way and get to reality. so i can deal with my sadness, get a handle on my life. i still miss her terribly. but i'm trying to be strong again.
so here are a couple old things, that saturday, and a march entry about a year after my arrival here.
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Saturday, October 28, 2006
Winter Blues
"Depression that arrives with autumn and retreats in spring has a name: seasonal affective disorder. SAD is more prevalent in northern latitudes where daylight dwindles markedly in winter than it is in regions that are closer to the equator, where the length of the day doesn't vary as much. Treatment centers on using bright light to help alleviate symptoms that include increases in sleep time, daytime drowsiness, bigger appetites, carbohydrate cravings, weight gain, anxiety, irritability and sadness."
by Kathleen Donnelly for MSN Health & Fitness
http://health.msn.com/centers/depression/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=10014...
I am glad to find out that I am not crazy! I almost can't believe that there is actually a name for how crappy it is up here in Canada. They should just rename every place that isn't California SAD... maybe its not so bad for people who grew up here and are used to so little natural light, but to a California sun child it's just misery. Yeah, all I want to do here is sleep all day, eat for no reason, get fat, pick fights with my only love, and just wallow in a sadness I couldn't quite explain... at least now I know I'm not insane.
I'm counting down to California... God, get me out of here!
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Saturday, March 18, 2006
Oh, Canada
I'm between classes right now, but I felt like writing, so when I get home later I will dig through all the old Reader's Digests hanging around in the bathroom-stack-of-material-for-the-throne to prove the reliability of my reference for the following statements.
Reader's Digest Canada (touted the most popular magazine in Canada - I found this surprising!) printed that more Americans know their national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner," than Canadians know their anthem, "O Canada" (which exact issue to be pronounced when i find it, lol). I myself can recite at least the first few lines of "The Star Spangled Banner" off the top of my head - O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming, who's broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight... something something something, rockets red blare, the bomb's bursting in air... something something, oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! ...Apparently I know more than even I realized, lol. Here's what i know from "O Canada" - O Canada!......
And here's a little tidbit i found from http://www.challies.com/archives/001228.php, after a quick bit of internet research:
In How To Be A Canadian, Will and Ian Ferguson suggest that a defining characteristic of Canadians is that they do not know their own anthem. Certainly they do not loudly sing it with pride as do our American neighbours. "First lesson as a newcomer to Canada: Whatever you do, do not learn the words to 'O Canada'! Nothing will mark you as an outsider more quickly. Canadians don't know the words to their national anthem, and neither should you."
Now, after spending close to a year in Canada as a student, I can say honestly that from my experience, and at least in this town/province, they do not like Americans very much at all. In many of my classes, before I was too offended to not let on that I'm a California girl, people would discuss issues between the US and Canada and just bash and bash Americans, beyond the issues and into our characters as people, human beings. Now, I have never had an affinity for politics, and I'm not saying that they're wrong on any issue. It's true, America's government is a worldwide political bully, just look at Iraq. Regarding the bashing, however, and the general people, I was always taught to be fair and do my best not to judge or discriminate. And I was never raised with an innate distaste for people unlike me, of other races, religions, or nationalities.
I can say though that I know a good bit (the best parts, perhaps!) of my anthem. I never said America is better, or right, or just or even not screwed up. Only that I was raised to be good to others.
Oh, Canada. Sometimes I feel like that's my only leg to stand on, here.
On a slightly related tangent - don't you find that when people hate you it is so, so easy to hate them right back, and so, so difficult not to?
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