If I had been born a few decades earlier I would probably have learned much sooner in my life about the long term effects of childhood neglect and trauma. How being left alone to deal with fear, loneliness, and grief teaches a child that they have to be strong no matter what. So now that I’m nearing the end of my life in isolation, I understand that it didn’t have to be so lonely and difficult. If I’d known how to ask for help when I needed it, in a direct way, not with subtle hints that were dropped in the hopes that someone would understand and help me, I might have chosen partners who weren’t emotionally unavailable. Now I know that creating a suit of emotional armour might help in times of trauma to get you through it, but if you don’t learn how and when to take it off it becomes too effective at keeping other people from getting close enough to help you. I don’t even have the words anymore to express my pain to another soul, because it’s so overwhelming and I’m afraid I’d drown them. I long to be vulnerable but I’m terrified at the prospect because I feel like I’d start crying and never stop. My advice to young people is to do the work to unpack all that baggage before it’s too late. The information is all over the internet, so get going.

Dear future husband, When you meet me for the first time, please understand I’ve been through a lot and be soft. Understand my heart has been broken into a million little pieces that I’ve had to put back together. Alone. I’ve had to constantly tell myself that I am worthy, that I am deserving, that I am funny, charming, beautiful, kind, generous, thoughtful, intelligent, strong, brave, emotional, loving and I’m enough. That I am perfect the way I am, and I’m not sorry that I love too much, or if I other think too much or if I get upset too much. It’s cause I feel everything, I feel everyone’s heart and I try to make sure they never feel what I’ve felt. I’ll explain something to the sun comes up till you get it, I’ll ask questions to understand every bit of you. I’ll ask you if I’ve upset you, I’ll tell you when you’ve upset me. I’ll laugh at every joke, and I’ll sometimes cry at every minor convinces. I’ll be strong and hold you up and me up, when we’re struggling. I’ll make you feel comfortable in every room I’m in. I’ll make you proud to call me your wife. So please be soft gentle and patient with me, cause I am painfully and patiently waiting for you to come. And when you do I know you’ll tell me everything I need to hear, reassure every fear I have and I know you’ll love me with all your heart like the way I’ll love you. -your future wife

Some coworkers have no respect and the ones that try to bother you outside of work really need to get a life. I work with someone at various sites and he’s not the most pleasant person to deal with. Very intrusive, ignorant, disrespectful, and aggressive. All he ever does is gossip and give people input on how they should live their lives when he should look after his own life. He kept texting me useless links to some weird sites and I had to squash it. I put my foot down by telling him not to contact me anymore unless if he actually needs coverage for a shift. Don’t bother your colleagues outside of work unless you have something important to say that’s actually work related. In other words, stop wasting my time and yours. Simple as that. Hopefully, he’ll smarten up and get the message. If not, I'm calling the Union.

I look at myself in the mirror, I see what I hold. I see my blue eyes, full of kindness and strength. I see my lips natural soft, just like the words they produce. I see my body, how it carries me through out my life. I look at myself every morning and I know I am beautiful. I know I have a beauty many others don’t have within them and outside of them. I’m a kind good person, I love too much and I think too much. I feel peoples feelings without them needing to speak of them. I see myself at night. Standing in the mirror thinking why. Why can’t someone love me? I love everything about me and I know am beautiful. I see the way men stare at me, how strangers approach me and tell me what they need to say cause I have that soul. I have the soul of holding broken hearts and making them feel whole, even if it’s for a brief second. So why can’t someone love me the way I love others, the world, myself. I just want to be whole heartedly loved.

A crush at my work asked me out a few months ago, and after a few dates things have been seemingly good. The thing is, I worked with her for years. I always defined her as out of my league by a long shot. For the most part, working with her lived up to that. She's had two finances in the time I've known her and both were dudes way better than me. Coming straight from the gym, jacked up, perfectly groomed, expensive trucks, etc. Over the pandemic and after it ended our employment went through a lot of purging and deficits and lot of people who were higher up than me have spent years bitching and been depressed. I am a bottom rung type of employee. I am chipper as hell, and genuine. That's never mattered in my 40+ years. I assumed I was just a rebound or fling for this woman, and I'd have been happy with that, but apparently a relentless positive attitude for a decade plus has made more of an impact on her. I have had addiction issues more than once, owned them and kept going. She mentioned on our last date, she knows my f*ck ups and addictions, and she knows when I fall how I am. Her phone kept going off the last date and rather than look at it privately she stated point "I like you," she then put the phone on the table and slid it over and said "you can read what my clingy ex is saying." I didn't bother to read it. I slid the phone back. She smiled and we went about our dinner.

Due in large part to exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke. I don't smoke, but there are some stupid, morally unevolved humans that do: my neighbour living in the next suite of our non-smoking apartment; a few of the regular passengers on my bus commute that inconsiderately empty their smoke-filled lungs inside the transit vehicle; and, a few of the contractors that come into my workplace, that do the same thing. Lung cancer is a bad way to go, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but sometimes I feel like they should suffer, like I'm suffering right now.

I confess that I don’t have time for veiled hints or subtle gestures designed to keep me guessing about true intentions. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. If you want me in your life say so. If you’re too afraid of rejection to risk it then you’re not my kind of man.

Did you ever encounter someone who was so thoroughly obnoxious in their routine behaviour that it defied credulity? I have such a person as my neighbour. Everything they do is obnoxious. They can’t go out of or into a door without slamming it. They are totally inconsiderate of others in the building by monopolizing the laundry room, holding loud drunken smoke-filled conversations right outside the windows of other residents, leaving their garbage in the hallways, etc. Every time I think they’ve reached a peak of rudeness, they top it with something else. The last thing I want is to have to complain to the property manager because that rarely ends well. I just live in hope now that they will move out before I’m driven to enact some kind of revenge. I’m a peaceful person and a considerate neighbour and I just want to live in peace. What is wrong with people like this? .

So I hear Tim Horton’s now has a retro collection with their old school logo marked on merchandise. If Timmy’s wanted to impress me, then all they have to do is bring back good stuff that they had in back in the day like the garden vegetable sandwich, The blueberry bran muffin, and chilli in a bread bowl. I stopped going there a long time ago ever since the Company was bought by an American corporation.

is an issue these days ie. the controversy of the John A. MacDonald statue. I sympathize with those who are suffering the intergenerational traumas of colonization. I am one myself. However, the 'me versus them' mentality most often only makes things worse. How about we leave the statues where they are and put up our own statues in the same location with a plaque explaining what really historically happened and our prayers for a better future. OCM - Coast Salish Sto:lo affirmations of positive love.