nothing to lose

Today, the furniture man aka kitchen guy hit a deer on the freeway and then hit a wall. His multi-colored volkswagon golf was totalled and luckily he walked way with a just few bruises.

It is an overused clique, but I was reminded once again that we don't live forever. That we don't live long enough to play it safe all the time. The day I met him, I was open enough to the universe to smile and say hi. I didn't know then we are both thirty, have daughters the same age, grew up in PA, are surviving marital breakdowns and even share a set of third cousins. I would never have guessed that a self described woodworker/motorhead/metallica enthousist and an intellectual/vegetarian/pedestrian could become friends.

When he described hitting the sliding off the road, my heart rose in my throat. I was gently surprised by how much I have grown to appreciate his daily calls from the lunch room, meeting at the Roastery, talking laughing and drinking coffee, complaining to each other about our ex's. How I needed someone who simply likes me, thinks I'm awesome and tells me that alot but doesn't expect the moon in return.

We made a deal on day one, neither of us is in a place where we can afford to get too close or involved. I thought I was doing well in practing my detachement until I visualized him getting out of his damaged car and walking home alone in the dark on his 31 th birthday. I couldn't admonish him for not calling me to pick him up, we were to remain completely independant, that was our agreement. That deal was going to keep us safe from get hurt.

The deal didn't keep him safe from a car crash. And didn't keep me wanting to reach thru the phone and put both arms around him.

I'll have wait until tommorow to do just that. Even if caring about each other wasn't part of our deal.

more death

My first cousin, Deshae died at home this morning. No one knows why because she simply collasped and hadn't even been sick. She was only three years old. My daughter Soleil is the same age as her.

It is all too horrible for words. My uncle is a very devoted father and a very senstive man. this could kill him.

last nights dreams

I had a migraine before I went to sleep last night. It's still lingering this morning. When I get a migraine it is my body's way of saying, something isn't not right. I'm noteating well for my diabetis or '[m not exericing or I'm stressed and my hormones are not right. In this case I think it is likely alll of the above.

I took this as an oppurtunity to look inside myself and see what is happening with me on several levels. I went to bed early and dreamnt all night long. One of these dreams spoke volumes about my worries.

I haven't worked since april and I left work because I couldn't handle the risk in my jobs and the extremely toxic work environment. Two years prior to that I had been threatened with a knife by a very distraught client. Ny supervisor and some of my co-workers left that I made too big a deal about the experience.

Lat night I dreamnt that I was working at Shoppers Drug Mart and was held up at with exacto knives by two men . And when they left for no reason, one of the men stabbed my in the ribs.

I hadn't realized how much that experince still haunts me and that maybe part of my stress about finding a new job is that I am still traumatized by experiences at the YWCA of Saskatoon.

a short one since I can't sleep anyway

My grandafather is in a nursing home in PA right now struggling to breathe. He helped raise me and is the main reason that I have any ability to trust men at all.

I feel so alone. I could have gotten laid tonight (a couple of times), but didn't even bother because it probably would have made me feel worse. (thanks for the offer anyway :)

Sometimes I lay in bed and think about paths not taken. I wish I wasn't so afraid to live. I know my fear is paralysing me. There is someone I could love that I keep as far away from me as possible because we both refuse to take the risk. instead I amuse myself with involvments that I know can't go any where but at least they can't break my heart.

can blogging cause insomnia?

I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. First off, I'm going to bed to late. That is caused directly by blogging. I don't ussually get the time for uninterupted thought until after everything is done and everyone else's needs are met. (typical female trap)

SO at a time when I should be in bed, I'm here cataloguing my experiences and framing my thoughts. Which leads to the second reason for my insominia. After all that rumminating, I get on my 'jamas and lay and in bed with my head still spining and rolling. And quickly I've spent an hour pondering such unanswerable quandries such as whether my great garandmothers were happier with their simpler lives and such asinine musing about what to feed non-vegatarian suitors that I might wish to impress with my culnary skillls.

Way more fun was the run-in I had today with my friend the furniture man and DAvid, my "pyschic" former spouse. On the one day theat David should have been out of the picture, he shows up at the Roastry when the kitchen man and I were having coffee. Much male glaring ensued. It is so funny how men need to compare themselves to each other. David commented was "Yah, I loved the flames on his ball cap, Christine you are so much better than a guy who wears a ball cap." Kitchen guy aka furniture man comments was "I can't believe you fed him for years and he's still that skinny" "Obiviously the insomniac foodies rumminations are paying off."

Ephinany! Maybe stress is making it hard for me to sleep?

An old dog tries to teach herself new tricks

The reaction never ceases to amzes me when I bother to let my true self out in the presence of another person. Most of the people I know have watched me fake it for years so they are shocked when it turns out that when the lights are off and no one is looking, I'm a very different person than my public persona.

The public Christine I've created to scare people is a razor sharp, hawk eyed, vocal, opinioned, boiterous territorial veteran of life's battles. The private me is alot softer, fluid, nuturing and actually kind of quiet and intropective. I've been challenged since the beggining of this new decade by those close enough to me to say that they quite frankly are sick and tired of watching me fake my way thru life (Yes, Jaime F. and Denis said it that clearly)

So I've tried to make a real effort to be more genuine with those I feel I can trust, but it is hard partly because my relationship with them is based on the public version of me and they don't what to say when I'm not making rude and yet all to true comments about everything going on around us.

In the middle of this little authenisity quest, has been my new friendship with the furniture man, aka kitchen guy. He doesn't have a decade of history with me to unravel so I tried from the beggining to be myself. I still lose it when he says the words "Walmart or "Stephen Harper", but I don't make myself tougher than I really am. I'm trying out little things, like I don't actively manipulate our conversations so he tells me all his secrets, thus making him more vulnerable than me. I let myself giggle when things are funny and and when we do something together I don't spend more time later analysing it than we did doing it.

He doesn't even know that he's getting a back pass to the Christine Regnier-Gaudet show.

The really weird thing for me is how much I can tell he genuinely likes the person he sees, even if I'm not perfectly comfortable and confident and sometimes I turn my face away because I don't know what to say.

It feels so good not to spend so much energy on trying to be someone I'm really not.

death and motherhood

As some of you might already know, I've been a mom for eleven years next month (if you count the time I was pregnant with manuelle) Being a mother has always been a srtuggle for me. I was so yoing when I had Manuelle that I really hadn't worked out the whole being immature thing and in a way i don't thibk I ever took it as seriuos as I should have. (Regrets to later be discussed in Manuelle therapy, I'm sure) I din't realize until Soleil was born just how important I really was to manuelle. Not having a father make it even more so.

Manuelle has had a crush on the same boy in her class for at least the last two years. Last year I was cleaing her room an dfound a note she had written to herseld about how much she like him, but that he could never like her back bevause she's too fat (ouch, but thats for another blog) Jordan is a really nice kid, very kind and gentle for a ten year old boy, round face, big blue eyes. Manuelle got a call from a classmate after school yesterday, to let her know that Jordan mom had died in a car accident.

Kids are deal with death totatlly diferently then we do. As an adult knowing how terrible a loss his will be for the rest of his life, I couldn't stop thinking about my kids if that happened to me. I tryed to engage Manuelle in a discussion about her feelings (if she was worried that I might die) but she wasn't interested. She was to buzy making him a card!

The card was covered with flowers and the on the inside there was a large heart. Written inside the heart "I'm sorry your mom died" So direct and truly compassionate. what else could she say?

The funny thiong is that they had a class discusion about the death today and how the class will treat Jordan when he returns to school. The only part of the discussion Manuelle remembers was the school cousellor advising then not to give him cards because it might remind him of the death, but Manuelle disagreeing that he probably can't forget it anyway so a card aleast says I know you must be really sad. (who needs an MSW anyway?)

Sone of her mom's inherent counselling skills must of rubbed off.

redefining relationships in the fourth decade

Being divorced is such a emotional rollercoaster ride. Being (commonlaw) married, you've made the decision to put all intimacy eggs in one basket. When i was with DAvid, I gave him all the parts of me and never questioned it because that was the deal. We'll be together forever and I will share myself wholy and only with him. (that sounds so naive now now that I'm 30)

It is a whole new skill set for me to learn what when and how I will share my inner life. My relationship with my friends (you know who you are) has gotten alot more honest and even intimate. I now can't assume that that one person will be there to meet all my needs (obivously that doesn't work anyway) I get the "fun" of figuring out who all the people in my life will be to me (soul sisters, sexual partners, confessors, exercise buddies, cuddle buddies, mentors, acquatainces, co-conspirators) For me being with married was like drawing a circle around David and I and everybody else on the planet wasn't allowed in.

Thanks to few friends who just wouldn't stop asking me if I wanted to come out and play, now I'm back where I belong.

Practicing writing the next great french canadian novel

For years I've kept socially ackward situations from worsening by pulling out hilarious little ancedotes. These stories about being raised like modern day french catholic hillbillies. Stories about "discovering" the sexual revolution, eastern religion, and acid in the early ninties. People have told me for years, you should write a book. Anyone who knows me know I don't have that kind of organization. So I've dabbled with writing by creating some amusing emails. A blog is a natural next step.

If anyone reading this blogs fears that I might use something that has happenned between as comic fodder, your fears are totally justified, for I have used your misfortune to make myself the center of attention at many parties for years and this will be no exception. So if you have a good reason why I let you off the hook, (like your current wife doesn't know you paid me back for getting you out of jail by having sex with my roomate who was having a hard time getting over her old boyfriend and I was SO sick off hearing about him ) let me know.

But don't fear, I won't bore all of you by telling the same old stories that took place when Kurt Cobain was still alive. I have been having whole new host of adventures and disasters to entertain all of you with.