considering the present

2004 is zero-ing in on us at warp speed. this very cliché introduction sentence brings me right to the core of the topic i want to discuss: time & present. what is there of me at the moment? what is my life made of?

the worst thing of this is that i am not really certain i know what there is of me at the moment. although i am not really feeling down or blue, i still feel very confused; many things i thought i loved and liked, i don't anymore. same goes for the opposite. i guess time will do it's thing on this. also, the fact that we are still in the holiday period (le temps des fêtes, yay) doesn't help. once january starts and real rangé life starts kicking in, then i guess things will be different.

oh, and, just as a gift to you all, i'll soon write a little something describing the holiday music in québec. y'all will be delighted, i'm sure [side note: RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!]

having a look at the past

my life since 2000 has not been a piece of cake (it wasn't before, but something changed in 2000). by the end of 2001, i became dark, closed, unrecognizable; it turned out i was ill. took me the following two years to recover. since the turn of the century, it constantly felt like i was running around in circles, always falling back to the middle point, square one.

i recovered from being ill in the summer of 2003. just in time for moving out, one might say. true enough, the fact that i was completely back to health helped tons. i wonder in what state i'd be if i had still been ill while going through this four-months-hell.

now, upon looking back, i'm wondering how this time it's different. in the four past years, i quit school twice. two times i left for a term. once because i was studying administration (end of 1999) and it wasn't suiting me at all. the second time (end of 2000) because i was confused and lost... how is it different this time... am i falling back in the same pattern?

after giving some thought to it, i noticed that it is very much a different matter this time around. this time, i'm stopping for a year and half, not a term. this time, i'm stopping because i realised it was foolish to keep on doing something i was so unhappy about. this time, i'm stopping because i want to travel before really engaging in my studies....

so this time around, i have a plan. i might not know yet who i am, what i'm good at or how and why i got this far in the first place, but at least i have something to hold on to.

pick yourself up

yesterday evening, i went to dinner with my dear friend María and her boyfriend. i had not seen them in something like 2 months. it was great. we talked about what had happened in two months, about our lives, about everything. it felt like we were back when we all were living here, seeing each other every other day, creating, talking, being. it's not like that anymore, but it's good to recreate that every now and then. evolution is good, that's for certain.

i noticed that i'm changing, in subtle ways. i'm starting to close myself a bit, not revealing too much to anybody. there are certain things that i'd rather keep to myself, some things some people need not know. i never thought like that before.

i will soon plan a daily schedule for when the holidays are over. i'll be working 20 hours a week, leaving a lot of free time. instating a routine or schedule -- at least instating some discipline -- will help me get through this.

right, well...

i'm a terribly bad blogger. i've had something like 3 blogs in 2 years, never really keeping up with them... i guess i never really had anything to write about except my life, in general and in particular. i think that, this time around, i have something to write about...

last august i moved to another town for university. starting a certificate in visual arts. i was expecting grand things, i was expecting to feel stimulated by my new found freedom, by my courses and the artistic release it would let me have... tackling visual arts instead of the written arts was something i was always lusting after, but never did much about it before because i lacked the technique needed and was always left a bit cold after painting or drawing or sculpting. yet my experiments in those fields made me think i had potential or at least something to develop. even my cégep teachers thought so. so there i was, early september, starting a program in visual arts, full of expectations, humble and open to everything my new life would have brought.

the months have passed and i was getting darker and darker. i felt cold, dark, empty. my classes didn't stimulate me. true, i did gain a lot in the techniques, but lost so much in inspiration and will to live. life at my flat was hell [that's what you get for not listening to your gut feeling when someone asks you to be her flatmate], there was no arts student life at the university (apart from a clan of few art friends) or art life at the university, i didn't like the city. i have never been so solitary in my whole life. it was a comedown, true to form.

so i decided not to go back. what's the point of finishing a program that destroys me, that eats up my bank account and that dries me of all artistic drive? no point at all.

now, i have moved back to hometown. i have a part time job in a bookstore. life is fine. except that i feel confused and sad. like i'm back to the beginning, with no idea whatsoever of what i'm good at and what i want to do.

and that's going to be the topic of this blog. the quest for reconstruction. the need to find myself and to create a strong ground to lay myself on...

let the rebuilding begin.