Erin's Journals

Just a thought… Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope. [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

We had a very special treat outside our windows (off the deck, actually) the other day and I just had to share it with you.

Please do make a point of watching this video of the gorgeous diamond formation of the Snowbirds and their #OperationInspiration. Notice the 1:30 mark; it’s at that point that they turn over Sidney by the Sea, and it was breathtaking.

Hey – I also managed to kick a planter while shooting (within the first minute or so) and not even swear! Is there an Oscar for cinematography in my future? Or just a planter’s (sic) wart?

Do enjoy these moments of zen: the blue sky, the majesty of the mountains, strait and islands beyond and, of course, Canada’s Snowbirds.

Have a lovely weekend and my journal returns on Monday. Thanks for the fly-by, my friend!

Just a thought… Sexism goes so deep that at first it’s hard to see; you think it’s just reality. [Alix Kates Shulman]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Oh, I hope you had a good few days. Here, it was an amazing weekend – we had Colin with us for a double over-nighter and our place turned into Banana Camp for a young boy with a love of games and sports.

On Friday night, although he and his Grandude just went to Canadian Tire for batteries, I think somehow they stumbled into Sporting Goods; by the time they got home, Colin had leg pads, a trapper and glove for street hockey (and perhaps to prepare him to be a goalie on the ice), as well as a soccer ball (which he persuaded Grandude to buy by telling him it was a “good value”) and a basketball, which was also on sale.

When it came time to play outside, we took the ball out of the cardboard packaging. And that’s when this struck me. Right here on the box.

Okay, Spalding, I don’t get this in 19 different ways, but let’s start with the first two and I’ll do the less obvious one first. Age 13+? I’m sorry, but I had a six-year-old who was dribbling, passing, dunking and sinking shots with this basketball, so…yeah, a hard “no” to the age limit.

And an even harder “aw hell no!” to the “Males” on the box.

What on earth makes THIS ball for males? Because it’s blue and black and not, I don’t know, pink? Yeah, Spalding sells a pink and purple one; I looked it up.

In fact, I went on the Canadian Tire website for our local store (lovely, lovely people, by the way, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart) and there are other basketballs. The Raptors’ “courtside” edition in red and black also has ages Youth and Adult. And gender? Says right there: Male.

I know it’s picky, some would say pedantic – even for me – to get my court shorts in a twist. I don’t care. It’s all ridiculous.

Hey, Spalding, it’s 2021. Why are you selling basketballs and assigning their users a gender?

And if you’re going to call them male, shouldn’t you sell ’em in pairs?

Have a good day and I’ll back with you on Thursday.

Just a thought… Honesty is the fastest way to prevent a mistake from turning into a failure. [James Altucher]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

First off – sore arm after getting my second shot on Monday, but felt 100% the next day and the next and today, too. I told you Rob felt flu-ish for a week or so and different people have different reactions, but I sailed through, except for…needing to be near a bathroom fairly often. Anyone else get that side effect?

Now to today, July 15. 700 days. Do you know what you were doing 700 days ago? I do – very clearly, in fact. I was getting out of rehab. My sister was visiting from Mexico; she and Rob came to get me, freshly signed out, bags in hand, to bring me home.

I know that it was just two weeks ago that I told you I had hit the two-year mark for sobriety (this time around) and it may seem that the math doesn’t work, but it does: 772 days (give or take) of sobriety plus rehab; this is the day I got out and started keeping count, checking in morning and night on a free app on my phone called I Am Sober. So yeah, 700 days.

In that time, have I wanted to drink? Oh, I have – especially in times of conflict when I would have escaped into a bottle of wine in the past. Like that helped. Or when I felt celebratory for a job well done. Nope.

But perhaps worse than that, I started up another addiction in its absence: vaping. Can I tell you that having a Juul vape, a tiny subtle little device hardly bigger than a lighter that I could tuck into my bra and just take a haul off in almost any location was the hardest thing I’ve quit?

I think it is! I stopped it in mid-June, right after the Leafs were bounced from the Stanley Cup playoffs. I’d tried a month earlier and no-go. Honestly, it’s not just the nicotine I’d gotten hooked on while I was in rehab(!!!) but the convenience. The instant gratification, calming, rewarding feel that used to come with a cigarette in my younger years, without the cloying smell, the side-eyes from non-smokers, the coughing and wheezing and all of the awfulness that comes with smoking. The cost? About the same; I’d order it online. But flavours that I could get in these little pods that fit into that pen-like device gave me satisfaction and enjoyment: a little hit and somehow a feeling like I wasn’t being deprived after all.

So how did I get hooked in rehab? Good question! This place was one of the few anywhere that allowed smoking on its grounds, the logic being that patients were already going through a huge jolt giving up their drink or drugs. When I got there on that July day 2 years ago, I thought, Well, smoking will make me feel less afraid plus it’s where people go to hang out and chat, so it gives me a reason to be a little more sociable, despite all my fear. 

So I brought smokes with me. Yeah, smart eh? Anyway…when I saw people vaping in the smoking area – those massive clouds of mist or whatever forming above their head like mango-scented cartoon thought bubbles – I wondered…but knew that stuff wasn’t for me. Then I saw the compact little Juul thingies and my roomie knew all about them, so off to the tuck shop we went and I got started. Like a teen learning to smoke, she schooled me. And I got hooked. SO hooked.

I still miss it and have my nicotine gum while I’m weaning off that stuff. An addict is gonna be addicted – it just is who we are. But let me tell you: if you think it’s somehow better than smoking, I’ll warn you that vaping is insidious. Like I say, anywhere, anytime, this little guy just comes out of the bra or the pocket or the purse and is there for you. The worst kind of addiction: right at your fingertips.

I like to think in so many ways I have it all together, like that CEO who needs to fire herself, as I was told when I first went into rehab, but this dirty secret is one I’ve been keeping from you for two years. Poor Rob has had to deal with my withdrawal – ongoing, relentless, challenging – for a month now and I’m going to say it again: it’s the hardest thing I’ve had to quit, maybe ever.

But fair warning: if you take my coffee away from me, there’s going to be a fight. ‘Cause like one of my daughter-in-law’s favourite mugs says, “I survive on coffee and cuss words.” Don’t make me bring out the latter – have a good weekend and I’ll talk to you here on Monday!

Just a thought… Toxic positivity: the overgeneralization of happy, optimistic state that results in the denial, minimization and invalidation of the authentic human emotional experience. [ThePsychologyGroup.com]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Thanks for starting a new week here! You may or may not have noticed I didn’t post here on Thursday and I apologize again for that, ’cause I want this to be reliable. I just got to Wednesday, when I would normally write and shoot a journal, and couldn’t. I didn’t have it in me – feeling “bluer than blue, sadder than sad,” as the old song goes.

I know full well that a lot of people have it worse than I do, and that makes feeling sad a bit of a guilt trip. But I realize on a conscious level that you and I don’t compare loss or gifts or sadness or joy; we just feel what we feel and get through it, and get on with it.

It’s the strange magic (ooh, another oldies reference) of having something in your calendar that you’re so looking forward to and then…it’s over. Yes, the “don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened” looks great on a fridge magnet, but it’s easier said than done.

I can tell you that our time at a resort north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island in a place called Parksville was everything Rob, Colin and I hoped it would be. From splashing in the warmest ocean waters in Canada (or so I’m told), to “lights out” at 9:30 because my two boys were exhausted, to so many other adventures of a small kind, were the stuff that phone cameras are filled with and of which memories are made.

And then it’s done and you’re smelling the burnt sadness of birthday candles that have been blown out. You know – or hope – the party will come again, but for now, it’s over and you weren’t ready for it to end.

With the Covid variants, it’s hard not to worry that there’s a lot more where the first virus came from in terms of closures and limitations. But, on this very day, I’m getting my second shot. Rob felt sluggish and not himself for days after his (I talked to some friends yesterday who were just fine), but we’ll see how I fare, being so much younger and all (wink!).

So that’s where we are right now. As we look out, our grass is parched and golden brown and much of the island is in a state of drought. While for many folks who share this in the Ontario area, I know you’re in for a lot of days of rain. It’s all about perspective and balance and it’s not always fair, is it? In the meantime, I’m probably like you today: grateful for the good things, getting through the not-so-great and still counting blessings because, of course, I know it could be so much worse. It could always be worse!

But if you ever get the impression that everything is just peachy here and that I never have those same days you do, then I do us both a disservice, because acknowledging them is part of vulnerability, too. And we can’t get better, get through (not over), without saying, “Yeah, this isn’t a good time and I just need to sit this one out.”

That toxic positivity I mention off the top? It’s real and it’s dangerous and I try to avoid spreading it here if I can. I mean, my positivity is real, just so long as it doesn’t say you have to feel the same way. Right?

Talk to you Thursday.

In the meantime, this is a chart that outlines what is toxic, and what is helpful, in case you’re thinking a little more deeply about the subject.