A Mother's Day Message About Being A Mom

Getting Back On The Horse

Tomorrow will mark one month since my last shift at the restaurant. It’s been a relaxing month, but also a bit of a frustrating one. At first I was happy to have the time to relax, then I came down with a flu, and now I’m starting to feel cabin fever. This whole month has been a lot of lying around the house and not doing a whole lot of anything, and after a while that gets boring. The frustrating thing about being down is that I’m not so unwell that I can’t do anything – but when I do things, I get easily overtired. I can go to the bar, but after one beer I start to feel overstimulated. I can go for a walk, but that doesn’t feel especially productive. I can try to write, but after an hour I feel like I just want to lie down.

Last week, I finally got in to see a physiotherapist and then a psychologist to discuss the best way to go about getting back to normal. The physio in particular said some interesting things about how my brain is working. He described it as a car engine that’s worn down and isn’t getting enough gas. It still gets you where you need, but the performance isn’t optimal – when you slam on the gas pedal, it doesn’t reach top speed. He did some tests on me and concluded that while I’m over the worst of things physically, my brain is still a tick slow when it comes to processing, and the extra energy I’m expending is probably tiring me out.

Although he advised me not to dive back into work, in my boredom I’ve begun to putter around with writing a little bit more once again. I’m still not ready to tell any of my editors I can get back to the grind – or tackle this book project in its entirety – but I’ve at least sent out a few stories again. My thinking is that the best way to ramp up to full speed is to start small, with jobs that don’t have specific deadlines or come with a lot of pressure. When the inevitable rejections come back, I can simply file them away in an email folder and forget about them.

It’s productive, but it’s also disorienting. Sometimes hustling as a writer can feel like swimming in the middle of the ocean and searching for land. You know there’s eventually going to be land in almost any direction, but you have no idea where the closest patch of land is – or the best. There might be a tiny island just out of eyesight on one side, but an entire continent a mile in the opposite direction. Firing off stories and pitches for rejection, I’m casting about searching for my identity. Do I make my name in fiction? Sports? Does writing content anonymously for money help get this book published? (Probably not, but it might keep my bank account full until we can.)

None of the doctors I’ve consulted have told me to rush back to work. They say I need to focus on myself and how to get myself in the best place possible to be functional going forward. I agree in theory, but in practice it’s hard. I find myself growing bored and agitated. I don’t have a lot of discipline. I’m not really supposed to be drinking or playing sports, but I want to go out and shoot hoops and muck it up at the bar – just to do something. I’m understanding more and more those scenes in movies where the cancer patient breaks out of the hospital because, damn the doctor, he just wants to have fun again.

But at the same time, I have to find a way to step back and think about how to get better. I want to be able to write and work for a lot of years going forward. I have to figure out a way to throw all my energy into making this book the best book it can possibly be. And I know that actually focusing on things like diet and exercise is what will get me back to normal sooner. But old habits die hard…

On that note, I’m off to see the physio for a follow-up appointment.

-Simon

Learning About Leaps: How An App Saved My Sanity

This week has been one of my hardest yet as a mother. My partner had to leave for work for 4 days and I was left to take care of the baby mostly on my own (though my mother did come over and help me out for one of the days - thank God!). Teo was crying a lot all week and feeding and changing him didn’t seem to be soothing him at all. He wanted to be held all the time and he was eating A LOT. I had to be feeding him almost every hour, day or night, which meant that I wasn’t getting any sleep at all myself. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. It was so stressful and I started to feel like I was failing as a mom. He was just so fussy!

When my partner would call to check in on me I’d be in shambles, feeling like I just didn’t know what to do next. But thank God for one of my friends who gave birth three weeks before me. I finally messaged her to ask her if she’d gone through anything similar to what I was going through with Teo. She told me that it sounded like Teo was going through a leap and it was totally normal. Then she turned me on to an app which helps new mothers understand what’s going on with their newborns.

The app is called The Wonder Weeks and it’s based on a book by a doctor named Frans Plooij. There are apparently ten major leaps that take place in the first 20 months of birth as the baby grows and develops. Teo was going through the leap that takes place around week 5, when babies begin to see greater distances and develop a greater awareness of the world around them. Because of that mental development, he got crankier, started to eat more, and needed to be held more.

I entered Teo’s birth date in the app, and it gave me a sense of how long I should expect this leap to last and when to expect the next big leap for Teo. It has a calendar I can sync up with Teo’s next expected developmental step. It also showed me some cool videos so that I could better understand exactly what Teo was going through. The app also gave me some tips on how to manage Teo and some stimulating exercises that are best suited to a child going through that specific leap. It’s only been a few days and already the app has been heaven-sent.

I no longer feel like I’m failing as a mom. The app was only $3.99 and so far it’s been totally worth it! My partner came back and I felt like I could tell him I’d been successful as a parent while he was gone. I do have to say, though – there are a lot of apps out there which are just meant to take advantage of desperate and sleep-deprived new parents. They try to make a few quick bucks without offering anything of value. So far, I’ve only used apps which have been recommended to me by other girlfriends of mine with new kids, and so far, so good. This app has really helped to give me peace of mind!

-Sarah

Living The Single Life vs Settling Down With A Family

Hitting “Play” On Life (And Writing)

Rest is a dangerous thing. Everyone needs it, but how much do they really need it? At what point does “I’m resting” stop being a statement of fact and start being an excuse?

I’ve spent the past week (since my final shift at the burger joint) resting up. That means sleeping in till 1 or 2, rarely leaving the house except to walk around the neighbourhood, and not doing any writing. But it’s not as if I’m spending this time doing nothing. I’m reading some, I’m staying up to date on the latest sports scores, I’m eating. I even went to a baseball game on Tuesday and went out to the bar last night. Is this stuff better or worse for me than working? As I said to a doctor who called me from the concussion clinic earlier this week – “I’m improved and I’m functional – but I’m certainly not normal.” My head still gets a bit foggy if I stare at a screen too long, drink alcohol, or am surrounded by too much action. It’s a subtle thing – something that can be worked around for a while. But it still exhausts me.

The thing is, there are no goalposts. I'm a sports fan, and often over my years of watching sports I've watched as players struggled to return from injury. Someone will sprain a shoulder and the fans will be given a timeline of four-to-six weeks. After six weeks, fans will start clamouring for the player to come back, and then we'll find out that the recovery has stalled, that it's going to be at least another six weeks. And so it goes until the player finally returns months later. People get healthy when they get healthy; there are no hard and fast parameters when it comes to recovery.

So am I ready to start writing again? I certainly don’t feel like I’m able to take on a full slate, but I'm sure I could bang out an article or two if I took it slow. In trying to force myself to rest up, I'm almost compromising my ability to work. I feel like I’m waiting for the day when I’m going to wake up and feel like there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me, and now I’m realizing that that day may be months away. There’s a delicate balance to be struck between productivity and health. If I do nothing but rest, I feel lazy and unproductive. But if I throw myself into work, I feel unhealthy.

I sent an email to one of my editors today assuring her that I would be getting back to work “within the next couple of weeks.” But that’s, at best, a guess. The main thing at this point is that I don’t know whether putting the time and effort into writing every day has the potential to set me back, or whether engaging my mind will actually help me begin to feel more functional. One thing I have noticed is that sometimes going out and getting out of my head seems to be the best thing for me – as if all I need to do is laugh a little and relax and I’ll be fine. Maybe what I’m feeling is the effects of stress and lack of sleep over the past decade as much as it is a direct impact of the blow to the head.

All of which is to say, I don’t know when I’ll get back on the horse and start pushing this book again. My hope is that this month I can get my sleep cycle into rhythm and get back to writing every morning. Once that happens, I can gradually begin adding things to my plate.

Anyway, those are the goalposts - until they move again.

-Simon

The Beginning Of A New Journey

Well, it’s been a spring full of change and news around these parts, with a new baby for Sarah and health issues for me. Since my injury relapsed, I’ve been working but not writing much – partly on doctor’s orders, partly because it strains my brain to stare at a screen for too long and/or put the time into doing research, and partly because I’ve been generally quite lethargic. It hasn’t been a particularly fun couple of months, so I decided it was time to make a real change. Two weeks ago I put in my notice at my restaurant job. I worked my last day yesterday and am now officially free from my wage-slavery. The notion of total freedom is a pleasant one, but it’s also a little bit scary – especially in light of how unwell I’ve been feeling. Without a steady income, I’m going to need to rely on being able to get back on the horse and start writing before too long, and trying to make some money that way.

As much as I hoped that this would be an exciting time turning a new page in my life, as a worked through my last day yesterday I didn’t feel victorious or excited in the way that maybe I thought I would. I have a recollection of quitting my movie theatre job when I was 19 to go off to university and explore bigger and better things and feeling excited and expectant. Maybe it’s being in my thirties, but my last day yesterday had none of that unfettered joy. It was a day like any other – simply a day where I didn’t have to come back in tomorrow. Certainly I was looser and more relaxed than usual, but more than anything the feeling I have today is relief. I cut my chains, but I still need to find a way to make a living, and that’s no easy feat.

I was contacted by a concussion clinic today, so hopefully in the next few weeks I can rest up, learn to manage my symptoms, and begin to write again. I still have a serious article that I was trying to pitch before my symptoms worsened, and I do hope I can finish it up with a second interview of my subject and get it published somewhere notable. And even though I haven’t done any significant writing in at least a month, it’s kind of nice to look back and see how much I feel like I accomplished between November and February. I hope that without a 30-hour-a-week job to slog through, I can soon redouble my efforts on that front without burning myself out again.

I’m hungover and tired today, so my apologies if this post is a little more sombre than the title would suggest. Quitting my job to do what I love is a major step for me, and I’m especially looking forward to enjoying a full, free summer with all the time in the world to enjoy the weather, take in some local baseball games, and tie up all sorts of loose ends that get pushed aside by the daily grind. I look forward to doing some real cooking at home, to dusting off the bike outside and getting the tires fixed. In fact, even without trying, I can already feel a list of dozens of obligations beginning to fill my head. For now, I’m pushing them aside – R and R (and all the other Rs – relaxation, rehabilitation, recuperation) is far more important at this point. I feel like I need to focus on what’s important in life, and think about – and even dream on – the future. And it goes without saying that this book will be a major part of that process once I’m physically and mentally ready to focus my energies on something.

Working is a grind for anyone. But living is more important than working. I looked in the mirror one day and asked if my work-life balance was where I needed it to be – if I was working to live or living to work. And I concluded that I was living to work far too much for someone working at what, fundamentally, is a shitty service job. I had begun to feel trapped in a routine where my workplace had become my personal jail, but I finally realized that there was nothing keeping me cooped in my cell except for a misplaced sense of loyalty and the desire to see my bank account rise at the end of the month. And that simply wasn’t important to me anymore. My hope by freeing myself is that I can learn to live again - whatever that may mean.


-Simon

What To Expect When Expecting

When Life Intervenes

About four months ago - it was a few days after Halloween - I slipped trying to change the temperature in the shower. I tried to grab onto the curtain as I fell, but it came down with me, and on the way down my head slammed into the bathroom counter. I didn’t hit my head so hard that I blacked out, but I did hit it fully flush. In the moments afterwards, I immediately thought, “Shit. That’s exactly the kind of innocuous injury that could turn out to have major complications.” My brother and two of my aunts have had significant concussions in the last few years, and it seemed like I was destined to be next on the list. 

After I fell, I felt dazed – not pained, but confused enough that when I sat down to start writing a few minutes later I could tell that something wasn’t right. I went to the doctor, and as the week progressed and I continued to feel discombobulated, I went back to the doctor a week later. She acknowledged that I might have suffered a minor concussion.

Concussion symptoms are weird, and hard to describe to someone who hasn’t gone through them. There was no real pain for me (aside from the very occasional pinch). Mainly there was exhaustion and the feeling of a pounding hole in my head – like my thoughts weren’t completely coherent. That’s not to say I couldn’t formulate sentences or understand things, but rather that there was some kind of a gap in my thought process. I was like a computer that still worked fine in spurts but was incredibly laggy and needed a restart every 2 hours. For about nine days I rested up, mostly avoiding the internet and work. When I did go into work, I wore thick clip-on shades to shut out the industrial lighting at my job, and occasionally earplugs to block out the music, conversation, banging doors and utensils – essentially, all the sounds that inevitably come from working in the kitchen. Once I hit my head, it was like my sensory register was turned up to 11 – all the little sights and sounds that I had spent years learning how to block out were coming at me like they were blaring out of movie theatre speakers.

I basically spent a week in bed with the lights out. About nine or ten days after my initial concussion, I got up and tried to take a walk around the neighbourhood at about 9 in the evening. To my surprise, it went well. I wore the shades to shut out car headlights, but other than that I had no real difficulty handling the sights and sounds that come with being in the city at night. It felt good to finally leave my bedroom and experience the world again. Over the following week, I gradually worked myself up to full speed again. By the end of November I felt essentially normal. I still carried the shades to work, but I didn’t wear them. I could watch basketball games without any concern about aggravating my brain. And most of all, I could write again.

Feeling fully recovered, I started to ramp up my workload. I started writing for a Raptors site. I wrote a number of articles in a row for a clickbait site, in order to get a payout reward for writing so many in such a short span. After that, I began hunting around for more writing work. I was focused on building my resume up, all while working four days a week at my restaurant job. I felt newly refreshed, and I put pressure on myself to try to achieve as much as I possibly could as a writer in the shortest possible time frame. And it worked for a while. I learned how to handle multiple assignments a week. I planned my time around writing. I’ve never been a particularly organized person, but my weekly schedule became more regimented.

But then one day about three weeks ago I got to a Thursday morning (which was my first shift of the week – I work in an industry where Thurs-Sun shifts are the norm). I realized that I was feeling more tired than usual. I turned my girlfriend and said, “I’m exhausted. I think I really need to take it easy this weekend.” She pointed out that if I was serious about taking it easy, I shouldn’t be working. I shrugged the comment off, figuring that doing my best to not overly strain myself that weekend would be sufficient. I could rest on Monday. I got through my four days, but by Sunday I was absolutely burnt out. I was asked to stay a couple of hours extra on Sunday to close the store, and I realized I simply couldn’t do it. My head was getting all muddled up. I was too tired to do anything – even the most basic tasks at work. I started making mistakes on the line – little mistakes, like skipping a burger or missing a modification on an order. The other supervisor agreed to close for me and I left early – still thinking that a bit of rest was all I needed.

I rested for three days, but by Wednesday I knew something was wrong – I couldn’t go into work. So it was back to the doctor, and another week spent resting, almost as if the concussion had returned full force. My head began throbbing in exactly the same way it had when I had my initial concussion – just waves of exhaustion and confusion pouring over me. At one point we ordered food for delivery and the trip from the couch to the front door to collect the food was so exhausting that by the time I got back to the living room I needed to lie down. Staring at a computer screen for longer than 5 minutes was overwhelming. After a week, I still felt messed up, so I returned to the doctor and explained my situation. She agreed that I’d been overdoing it, and simply needed to stop working so hard. In short, she told me that I would need to choose between my writing work and the restaurant job that pays the bills, at least in the short term.

Since that doctor visit, I’m feeling a lot better. I’m starting to watch my basketball games instead of listen to them again. I can check the internet when I need to. I’m no longer curled on the couch with my head in my hands. In other words, I’m functional. But I’m still not normal. I still get home from work at 2 AM and sleep till noon. I still need to take fifteen minutes to relax every few hours. I haven’t watched a single movie in probably a month. Going forward, I’ve scaled back my writing commitments – informing two of the sites that I was writing for that I needed to take an indefinite hiatus. Another site I plan to return to tomorrow, but only with a very reduced workload. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the past few months, it’s that head injuries are nothing to take lightly.

Between Sarah’s baby, and my head injury, the progress on this book certainly isn’t what either of us expected it to be a year ago – or even six months ago. Life comes at you fast. Goals are great, but sometimes real life gets in the way, and between both of our physical situations, I don’t think either of us are in a position to push as hard as we’d like on this book right now. But Sleeping With The Material World is our child and it will persevere even if its parents neglect it. We will get this book finished…eventually.

-Simon

Exercising With Other Moms-To-Be

When I got pregnant, I was doing a martial arts class a couple of times a week and working out on top of that. My class was in Jeet Kune Do, a type of martial arts which involves a lot of takedowns, kicks, punches, and sometimes sticks and knives. I would often come home with bruises on my legs and arms. So when I got pregnant, my OB told me I couldn’t do Jeet Kune Do anymore, because the contact was risky for the baby. Around the time I stopped, I generally became extremely tired and seemingly lost all motivation to work out. I was working a lot of hours at work and I was just blah. I began to fall into a rut where I wasn’t participating in any physical activity at all.

The fact that my partner could still go to class and I couldn’t grated on me. I started to get depressed, and jealousy and hormones took over. I realized that I needed to be doing something – just lying at home feeling pathetic wasn’t my thing. One of my pregnant girlfriends told me she was doing Aquafit and I was welcome to join her for a class. I wasn’t convinced at first, but I figured I’d try one class and see what it was all about.

The first half hour of my first class was just a discussion about pregnancy and after-birth topics, and I learned a lot about what to think about when a baby is coming into your life. After the talk we all headed downstairs to the pool and spent an hour doing some exercises. Afterwards, I felt relieved and like I’d accomplished something. Because the whole class was geared towards pregnancy and after birth, I learned a lot. Being around other pregnant women who could understand what I was going through was such a nice change from my everyday life, and pretty soon I was a regular at the class.

Of course, as my body grew, my two-piece bathing suit kept shrinking. Fortunately, I’m small enough that I didn’t grow out of it entirely, It just started to look a little weird – I didn’t have to go out and buy a pregnancy bathing suit (maternity clothes are expensive!).

Whether it’s Aquafit or something slightly different, I’d recommend some kind of communal exercise like this to all moms-to-be. There are lots of reasons for that, but here are just a few:

1. It’s nice to be around other women experiencing the same thing as you 
2. You can make friends 
3. It’s good for you physically 
4. It’s good for you mentally
5. Learning how other moms-to-be are planning ahead can help you make your own choices when it comes to the baby 
6. It’s a refreshing break from work and home life 
7. It’s a time to spend bonding with the baby, even though it’s still growing inside of you 

Being pregnant slows you down a lot – you’re literally carrying around a huge weight inside of you, after all. But while that may be an easy excuse to do nothing, that doesn’t mean that it’s healthy to just lie around the house. Staying physically active is important for a pregnant body.

Dating Diary: Norton the Non-Communicator

It started on OkCupid. I matched with a guy who I’ll refer to as Norton, because he vaguely reminded me of Edward Norton. He seemed strange, mysterious, sexy, and intelligent, plus he was Irish. I have Irish heritage, so I’m always drawn to the Irishmen. After some back and forth on the site over a few weeks, I finally gave him my number and we planned to go out on two dates.

At the time I was dealing with some private family stress, and as I was struggling with that, I got sick. The stress brought it on. I had a serious infection and ended up spending some time in the hospital. I was completely out of commission for a week. Once I recovered from the infection, I got sick for another two weeks, and then I discovered I needed to get my wisdom teeth removed. After a month straight of being laid up in bed, this guy Norton was the last thing on my mind, but we kept chatting through the app as I recovered. I felt like through the sickness I was releasing all of the toxins – all of my negativity that had built up over time. It was awful, but it was also cleansing.

I wound up cancelling both of our original dates. Norton said he wasn’t going to ask me out again because a) I kept cancelling and b) I looked like a snob in my profile pic. (I don’t think I’m a snob!) I felt bad so I invited him out the following Saturday. We met at a French place I knew that had a broad menu and was kind of a bar – it was a good spot because we couldn’t decide if we were meeting for drinks, apps, or dinner. I wasn’t hungry so I ordered a fruit salad and a drink, and he ordered a huge piece of meat. (I was worried that he would think I’m one of those girls who doesn’t eat because of how thin I am. But really I just wasn’t hungry.)

The conversation went well – he gradually progressed from being a bit standoffish to opening up and telling me some things about himself. (Must have been the alcohol.) He told me his roommate was moving out. The night went great and we ended up back at his place. I told him casually during the course of our conversation that I was interested in going on a trip to the state of Goa. Later in the evening he flat-out stated that I was going to move in with him and then he was going to come with me to Goa. I told him he was nuts to say that on a first date, but at the same time I was tickled that he’d suggested it. It made me think that he really liked me. We didn’t end up sleeping together – he was too drunk – but I left his place at five in the morning feeling like things had gone really well.

I was busy with work the next day but we ended up on meeting on Monday. I went over to his place and we watched a few episodes of Sherlock. He lived near my work in the downtown core, and it was easier to go to his house than to go home or invite him over. Then on Tuesday we went out again. We had a drink on a beautiful rooftop patio and then went to a movie where I discovered he had a weird thing for Rachel McAdams. He told me that they worked out at the same gym, had had a couple of conversations, and that she even hired him to clean her basement once. The whole thing seemed kind of weird – people get really weird about celebrities. His obsession with Rachel McAdams should have been a bit of a red flag.

We had lunch again on Wednesday before I went to work, but then I started to notice something weird about the way that he was texting me. It was like he didn’t want to keep seeing me, but was texting me just for fun. We would talk back and forth throughout the day, but he didn’t answer my texts when I got off work. When I told him that, he denied it. He said he was already asleep by the time I finished up at work.

I invited him to a keg party on Friday. One of my girlfriends was throwing it for her brother who was going to be leaving to go touring across Canada and I wanted to bring Norton as my date. Before the party we went for Italian food and I made it clear that I was still talking to other guys because we weren’t official or anything yet. He didn’t like that and said he was jealous. At some point he admitted that he’d only had one serious relationship in the past. He seemed to be a little bit off in the way he thought about things, like he wasn't totally there. I think looking back that maybe he had Aspergers’ or something.

I think he enjoyed himself at the party, but it was a bit weird for me to be going to a kegger. I hadn’t been to one in years, I walked Norton home and took a cab back to my place. I was a bit annoyed that he had never attempted to venture into the west end where I lived. The next day we were planning our first official sleepover, and he made a big deal about popcorn. He said he had to get some and then asked me if I had any. When I got to his place he had to run out and buy some because neither of us had any popcorn. It was totally ridiculous. Then he promised me breakfast in the morning.

We didn’t do it that night – it was my time of the month and I didn’t want to do anything. The next morning I woke up before he did and asked him if he had any tea. He said he didn’t. I told him I had to go, and he walked me to the bus stop. I still hadn’t eaten anything and now I had no time to eat any breakfast, so I just grabbed some shitty Starbucks on the way to work. It wasn’t great.

I texted him a few times over the next couple of days, but our schedules didn’t line up so we didn’t see each other. On the following Monday I had my surgery for my wisdom teeth, and Norton asked if I wanted him to come over on Monday night for emotional support. I knew I was going to need some help, but my Mom was coming over to take care of me so I told him I’d be fine. I didn’t want him to see me all drugged up and swollen. The surgery was very unpleasant and my mouth bled for about three days afterwards. It’s not an experience I would recommend to anyone. As I lay in bed recovering, with my Mom taking care of me, I got all sorts of messages from friends and other guys who were flirting with me, all wishing me well. But nothing from Norton. Finally I messaged him to ask how his day was going. I was upset – I had thought he really liked me.

This is the reason you're single and why you've only had one serious relationship, I told him.

I said that I wanted to be with someone who showed me he could fit me into his life, not one that just says he wants me in his life. It takes effort to make a relationship work – a guy has to cater to a girls’ needs sometimes. He told me he had been golfing all day and went to dinner afterwards with work friends and was too busy to text me. It didn’t seem good enough. I was done with him.

It was a good-bye fight, an I’m-going-to-move-on-with-my-life fight, but that wasn’t quite the end of Norton. In the end he won me back and we started dating for real. I even moved in with him for a few months. But after a while, the Aspergers and the inability to communicate just got to be too much. I broke it off with him and found my own condo downtown.

Life Changes

2016 was probably one of the worst years I ever had. I moved in with a boyfriend and it turned out to be one of the worst decisions I ever made. Before moving in with him, I was in a nice condo downtown with a job where I made decent money and lived with my dog that I loved. I loved living downtown as a single female because it allowed me to be social and I felt extremely healthy. My ex lived very far out of the city and I had to quit my job to move in with him. Once I got there, he stopped talking to me for two days and told me I couldn’t drive his car like he had promised I could. He had asked me to move in, but once I did he transformed into a completely different person. He became very controlling and a complete douchebag. The stress of the relationship brought back my smoking habit, which I had kicked 6 years before, and I almost completely stopped sleeping. I was only there for about two months before I moved out one day while he was out at work - I just couldn’t handle him at all. 

I moved back in with my mother. I knew I had to make some changes. My whole life was upside down. I ended up joining a martial arts class. I had recently started therapy and I knew that I needed some physical exercise - a nice place to release things and learn something new.

It was at that class that I met my current boyfriend. At the time he was secretly going through a separation with his wife. When I met him I figured he was married and therefore did not make any effort in pursuing him (not that I make that much effort at pursuing anyone). But I was so attracted to him. If I’d known, I probably would have chased after him from the jump. He was pretty closed off in class, but any time that I got to spar with him I was happy to do so and slowly I began to learn a tiny bit about him. As time went on, I began to have feelings, but his separation was still a secret and no one in the class knew that he wasn’t happy in his old relationship. So for a while I kept my mouth shut.

Fast-forward to now. Things have changed! I have a (semi-)new relationship with a wonderful person whom I love very much. He truly is what I’ve been looking for all these years - with some added, let’s say, quirks (that are for the most part tolerable). I know he thinks the same about me. Our relationship has been pretty much a whirlwind since it started. As soon as we both realized that we liked each other we basically started dating immediately. We quickly found out that we have a lot in common and we have a lot of fun together. I feel like he teaches me something every day.

We had only been dating for a few months when - surprise! - I got pregnant. I have never been pregnant nor have I ever even had a scare with pregnancy. And I have not always used birth control. In all honesty, I thought I might not be able to have children. But I guess when things are meant to be, they’re meant to be.

When we first found out we were pregnant, we both freaked out. We were both in severe shock. He was still going through a divorce and I was still trying to get my life back together. But I didn’t for one second think I didn’t want the baby. I did, however, have the thought: how the fuck are we going to do this? I told my boyfriend if he wasn’t ready to have a child or spend his life with me then that was okay and I would do this alone because I understood it was my choice to keep the child. Although he was unsure at the beginning the more we both thought about it the more exciting it became. Within the first year of our relationship we had to discuss massive future plans, like how many children we wanted. The least fun of all the talks was finances. We had to talk about if we were going to live together, where we would raise a child, did we want to get married, and all the fun things that come along with a long-term relationship. The only difference was we had only been together for a few months. I had only met his parents once! It almost seemed similar to a arranged marriage (but who am kidding? I have no idea what that would be like). In the end, we decided to be together for what we hope is life, and raise this little bundle of joy as a family.

Am I scared? Yes! These are all huge life changes and they’re kind of coming on a whim. As for being a Mom, I have to say I’m excited and a little nervous but I feel like I’ll be good at it. Don’t get me wrong - my mother did the best she could and so did my father. But I learned a lot about what not to do from them. I am generally a pretty down-to-earth, fun, responsible person - at least right now (keyword: now. We’ll see if that changes once the baby arrives.) I’m also, like my boyfriend, a jack-of-all-trades. We both know a lot about many different things and are talented in many different ways. So I hope that we can raise a child well.

I do have to say I’m afraid of giving birth, though. That scares me the most - the pregnancy not so much, the being a mother not so much. But the splitting open and everything coming out including the baby is scary. I just hope it goes by fast and it’s quick. I also hope my boyfriend is there for it because he travels for work and I would like him to witness it.

As for my career or going back to school, I’m not too sure. I know I want this book to be published and that’s all I’ll be working on for myself for this next year pretty intensely. School I would still love to do but I have to see if that’s an option in a couple years, or if I even want to go that route again.

I’m holding on with faith and love, and I can only hope it all works out. I know this will be the thing I work hardest on and not ever give up on.

New Year's Resolutions - Simon

Happy New Year, readers! (And Merry Christmas as well since we didn’t put a post up last week. We were too busy eating turkey and opening presents!) For today, Sarah and I thought we wouldn’t focus so much on the book, but rather would devote a double-post to discussing our hopes, goals and dreams for 2018. This post discusses Simon's New Year's Resolutions. Here's Sarah's.

***

I took a little bit of a different tack with this exercise than Sarah did. Instead of focusing on improving my internal, personal well-bring, I focused a little more on concrete goals. These are things that I think I can get done this year.

1. I want find a steady writing gig. I currently have this blog which I edit and two other websites I contribute to. One is unpaid and the other pays okay, but not reliably. By the end of this year I would like to find a second reliable paid contract (or, y’know, an actual full-time job would be great!). My goal is to be self-sufficient and have time to work at honing my craft every day, as well as building a profile that allows me to further my writing career, and... 
2. I hope to quit my restaurant job. I have been thinking about quitting my job in the restaurant industry for a while, but I never knew how to support myself enough to actually consider doing it. Just from the writing work I’ve picked up in the last few months, I’ve started to see a light at the end of that tunnel. I certainly haven’t made enough to support myself full-time yet, but I feel like I’m finally in a position to start saving a few pennies for when I’m ready to take that leap.
3. I want to get this book in the hands of a publisher. Sarah’s been working on this book for several years, but this New Year marks the the third calendar year where I’m involved with this project. Even if we’re unable to get this book on shelves by the end of 2018, by the end of the year I’d like to find a publisher who is willing to work with us as we build this book up. My goal is to build a profile and contact list to the point where I can engage with publishers and get this book serious consideration.
4. I want to eat better. I’ve been working in the dregs of the restaurant industry for the last seven years – flipping burgers at low-end fast-casual chains. Scraping things together to make ends meet means I’ve taken full advantage of my employee meals, which is good on my wallet but not so great on my body, since it means eating way too many hamburgers and fries. Since my girlfriend moved in this past year, we’ve been making an effort to cook at home and eat healthy, and I would like to continue moving towards a semi-healthy lifestyle in 2018. (This seems exactly like one of those New Year’s resolutions that everyone has and breaks within a month, but I think with the changes in my lifestyle it’s attainable, especially if/as I move away from the restaurant industry.) 
5. I want to spend more time with friends. One of the consequences of living in another province (British Columbia) for eight years in my 20s and then working nights for the three years since I’ve been back in Toronto is that I’ve lost touch with a lot of old friends. Some of this is just growing up and drifting away from people, some of it is my lack of a social life to begin with, but a lot of it is just being to busy to fit people in. I hope that potentially freeing up my nights from work will allow me to make time for friends on a regular basis - whether it’s hitting the bars once in a while, playing some poker home games, or just being free on weekends to see my friends’ kids.

It really feels like for both Sarah and I, 2018 is a year of growth and new beginnings. Here’s to a healthy, happy, successful New Year!

-Simon

New Year's Resolutions - Sarah

Happy New Year, readers! (And Merry Christmas as well since we didn’t put a post up last week. We were too busy eating turkey and opening presents!) For today, Sarah and I thought we wouldn’t focus so much on the book, but rather would devote a double-post to discussing our hopes, goals and dreams for 2018. This post discusses Sarah's New Year's Resolutions. Here's Simon's.

***

I believe to be whole you need to be spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically strong. I really slacked in many of these areas in 2017 - in other words, I know what not to do for this coming year. These are my goals for each quadrant of my life in 2018:

1. Spiritually – I want to be able to meditate for at least half an hour everyday. I have been slacking big time. I used to meditate at least a half an hour a day, but I’ve almost completely stopped. I think I was going through some stuff and just forgot about meditating and somewhat turned my back on it during some tough times. But I have to remember that it’s during these tough times that meditation is important. Following through on this resolution will centre me as a person and generally make me a happier person - I know this from experience.
2. Emotionally – I need to embrace my emotions and remember that it’s okay if I want to cry sometimes. It’s needed. And I should be okay with that. This one I know I will naturally do right now since I’m super hormonal - but accepting it rather than fighting it is the key. I should also express if I don’t like how someone is treating me and voice my opinions more often. Sometimes I can be passive to avoid a fight, but sometimes you need to stand up for yourself. (And it feels good to be expressive, of course!)
3. Mentally – I have to make sure to write a half an hour to an hour a day as well as try and read a bit everyday. It will keep my mind sharp and active. In all honesty, my mental state is probably the only thing I have been working on in 2017. I have been going to therapy for about year now and it’s helping so much. It’s nice to talk to someone about how I’m truly feeling and gain perspective on my past as well as why I do things and why things happen. But I think taking care of my mental state also means staying mentally stimulated, which is why I want to do more reading and writing.
4. Physically – I want to step up my workout game. I haven't been working out since I got pregnant. Before it happened, I was working out every week and going to my Jeet Kune Do class 1-2 times a week. Now I’m not with a gym and I have been barely going to class. I have been doing some Aqua Fit classes with other pregnant women but that’s not really too much. I find it hard to work out now since I always feel tired. I plan to go hard for the first few months after giving birth to get back to what I was.

I hope this coming year is better than the last one. I feel like it will be. So much is changing for the better. I’m having a baby, after all! I just try to have faith and trust that things will work out if I try. And that’s what 2018 will be about for me - trying my very best every single day.

-Sarah

My Life: Then and Now

Modelling is not a normal job. I don’t think you could really even call it a job. As a model I was wild and free and caught in the cycle of loving/hating the fashion industry. I had no commitments other than to be beautiful and to show up to jobs and countries. I made pretty great money, travelled all over the world, stayed in (mostly) nice places, got to (or was made to) socialize with the VIPs in the cities I was visiting. I was around beauty in every way. It’s like most high school movies where the geeky girl gets accepted into the cool crowd and then feels like a million bucks, then while enjoying the natural high of being a “someone" gets swept up into it and begins to change her outlook on life. I started seeing the world in a different way. I started thinking I could actually become someone. It was doable.

But looking back, I realize I was living a bit of a lie. When you get greedy and only start thinking of the money, it clouds your judgement. My life seemed so grand but in a way it all felt so superficial. Eventually reality hits. Currently I’m working at a job that pays very little money, where I wear a horrible uniform and get dirty everyday driving and cleaning trucks. It has great benefits but that’s about it. It’s so different from the glamorous life I had before. Now when I’m cleaning up shit (literally, sometimes), it feels like I really could only go up from here. I’m at such a low point career-wise. It is in no way to do with my career aspirations and is not even close to anything I’m interested in. But sometimes you got to do what you got to do. Maybe that’s growing up.

I’m six-and-a-half months pregnant. That might not sound like too far along, but believe me - it’s a lot of work growing a child inside you! My new (and hopefully forever) life partner and I have started a committed relationship. I have never really been in one before this - or even wanted to be, if I’m being completely honest. He truly is everything I have been looking for. You really do need to kiss a lot of toads before getting your Prince. I thank God everyday for him and my new family. I’m also doing an online course for financial accounting (which I completely should not have done at this moment in time since I already have too much stuff going on). My exam is tomorrow and I hope to God I pass. That’s not to mention that I am working on finishing this book and keeping up with this blog.

My life now is a total 360. I’ve transformed from this immature, wild, young female into a committed mom-to-be. We just moved into a new place to prepare for our new child. It feels like I have been unpacking for weeks. I have been organizing a baby shower as well. It has been a lot of work, but my mom and best girlfriend have been helping as well. All in all it’s been tough. I never have time to just chill at home. It’s such a huge change from my old life where I could relax when I needed and was able to sleep in at least twice a week. That never happens anymore. Do I wish sometimes I could just get up and leave it all behind? Yes. I miss the way that back then I was able to just pick up and leave the moment I didn’t like my situation. But then I think there’s no way I want to leave this family I’m starting to create. This - this - is what I have so desperately wanted my whole life. In a way this is what I was searching for during all those years of globetrotting. For my whole life, I have been praying for a family and then success. In that order.

Now I have faith. That’s the only advice I can give to anyone else out there - just have faith and work your ass off. Don’t stop till you get there - wherever your “there” is - and then enjoy the hell out it!


-Sarah

How International Modelling Changed Me As A Person

Like any major life experience, going into international modelling changes you as a person. Some of these changes are for the better, while others are more negative. I’ve grown up a lot in the five years since I got out of the industry, but many of these changes influence the kind of person I am today.

PROS:

It made me comfortable with my body, both naked and clothed: This is a big one. Growing up I was always uncomfortable with my body, especially my super-skinny long legs. In middle school the kids called me "daddy long-legs" and I hated it. I was also very flat-chested until about the age of 16. When I got into the industry, I learned to transform my unique body into a feature rather than a bug, and my self-consciousness disappeared.

I learned how to tap into my feminine side: I was a tomboy growing up and I hated wearing dresses. Once I got into the business I learned how to wear nice makeup and present myself in a more classically feminine way, with a hint of my own flair. Once after a shoot a client gave me a shiny gold dress and I thought, "my God, I would never wear this!" But I did wear it out one day and I got so many compliments on it that I started to like it. Being a girly-girl suddenly didn't seem so bad.

I became more fashionable: While travelling I was exposed to a ton of different cultures and fashions. I followed everything from what was in style at a certain time to what was kind of weird or funky to the trends that were so horrible that they kind of worked. It really changed the way I dressed.

I made friends all over the world: I met some amazing people that I still talk to today. I feel blessed to know that if I ever want to travel to a major foreign city in the future, I will more than likely know at least one person there. One thing that's wonderful about the industry is that eventually you learn how small it actually is.

I became comfortable travelling alone: The first time I went overseas by myself I was terrified that I wouldn't know anyone or make any friends. But I've done it so much now that the idea of going out and meeting a bunch of new people is kind of appealing. Plus I've learn how to just be alone sometimes.

I became open to trying anything once: I've tried lots of food I wasn't so sure about at the time. I've also seen sights that I never thought I'd see - for example, I met a racecar driver once and he let me go down to track level and sit in his car. Travelling the world made me open to just going with the flow and trying something new.

I learned how to use my street smarts to negotiate out of sticky situations: Growing up in North America around a pretty rough-and-tumble crowd, I learned how to speak my mind if something didn't seem right to me. Once I started modelling, early on I learned how to talk back if something didn't seem fair or I really didn't want to do something. The clients, especially in Asia, were usually taken aback by a woman speaking her mind and often didn't know how to react.

CONS

It became very hard for me to trust people, especially men: I started thinking everyone always wanted something from me, and that people were only hanging around because I was a model and not because of who I was as a person. I started repping my character a little too much because I wanted people to see that I wasn’t just another pretty face and that I had something to offer. I didn’t think any of the men in my life cared about me, and I never stayed with anyone for longer than four months (and four months was if I REALLY liked a guy). I kept myself distant so that I wouldn’t get hurt, and of course I got hurt anyways.

It made me ONLY comfortable if I was wearing the right outfit: As a model, I became overly aware of what fashion choices were being made around me. Nowadays, I have to be overdressed or at the very least appropriately dressed for every event I go to. If I feel underdressed it will affect my ability to have a good time and might actually make me leave early.

I became addicted to change: My childhood was very turbulent and the industry is ever-changing, so I never learned to slow things down. For me every season was a new world – new place, new experience, new guy (or guys). I would get cabin fever if I stayed home longer than one month at a time – Canada was just a pit stop until I could get the fuck out of Canada again. I couldn’t hang onto anything for a long period of time, and it’s something I still struggle with to this day.

I stopped being able to be told what to do: I was told how to look by somebody else for sixteen years. Once it stopped being my job to shut up and listen, I became resistant to anyone telling me how to do anything. Whenever anyone tries it on me now, I think to myself, “do I really have to listen to this person?” I have tried to work on being more open-minded in past couple of years, but I still have my rebellious side.

I became very lonely: I would be in a club filled with hundreds or thousands of people and just feel like a single grain of sand on a massive beach. I started feeling like nobody could relate to me as a model – they all had their own friends and crowds to go back to. And back home, everyone was growing up in their own way, and had no idea what my life was like overseas. And since my friend group was constantly changing, there was never any time to get close with anyone.

-Sarah

10 Tips On Surviving As An International Model

Keep track of your money. You need to be your own accountant if you don't want to hire one. The industry is rife with sharks and if you don't know what you're getting paid or who you owe money to, the money you think you're making can disappear in an instant.

Always make sure you have a mother agency you can trust. Some of the international agencies will try to take advantage of you as a young person and it's important to check with your mother agency if you suspect that something is off.

Don't get sucked into unhealthy diets or routines. The first thing a lot of people think about when they hear the word "model" is "anorexia." Don't fall down that wormhole. Eating healthy is important, but not eating is very bad for you. If you overdo it, your body will react in ways you don't expect - you might stop having your period, for example. Watch your weight, but do what's right for you.

Don't drink and do drugs alone in foreign countries. Doing drugs in general is a bad idea but the dangers are magnified if you don't know where you are or where to go if things go wrong. Other models may be rivals, but they're also your safety net against what may be out there lurking in cities you're unfamiliar with.

Sleep well at least sometimes. All but the most committed models are going to pull the odd all-nighter, but too many drugs and too many parties will burn you out eventually. Remember that as important as socialising is in the industry, taking care of yourself should come first.

Always shower before going out to a job. It's easy to get caught up in the 24-hour club life and rush from jobs to parties to more jobs without a moment to sleep or shower, but it will eventually catch up to you. No one wants to work on a model who smells like the alleyway behind the bar. It's rude - but worse, it's unprofessional.

Learn how to exercise at home. Pull-ups, push-ups, jogs around the block - you don't need a gym membership to stay in shape. 

Don't take things personally. It's a business, and people aren't getting paid to tell you what you want to hear. Just because you don't get along with the handlers on one shoot, or because you don't have the right look for something, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you.

Only do things you're comfortable with. For my very first test shoot at age 14 I was asked to do a no-bra look. When I balked, the photographer assured me that if I wasn't sure about it, we could do the shoot with the bra on. In the end I chose to do what was right for the shot, but only once I was comfortable with it. This industry is all about subjecting your body to what other people want, but if it they are ever asking you to do things beyond your comfort level, you should always maintain your right to walk away. If you sign up for underwear and arrive to a photographer asking for nudes, that's not cool. There may be consequences (an unhappy agency, a complaint from the client) but remember that your well-being comes before the job.

Be true to yourself. If you're naturally a size 7 and you're trying to fit into a size 0, you're not being yourself. You can transform yourselves for as many looks as you want, but always stay true to the human being you were when you came into the industry.

Just a few tips from my years in the industry!

-Sarah