I think

It is late February and it is snowing out. I sit here typing this in front of the fireplace at my boyfriend's condo in Surrey. I have a boyfriend. Last year at this time I had a different boyfriend who was getting up the guts to leave me. Now, I have a boyfriend who rushes home to see me and can't keep his hands off of me. Last year at this time, I hated myself. Today I sit here in front of the fireplace while it snows outside and I am happy. It's all kind of boggling.

I think about Darren who is unable, yet, to let go of his ex. I watch his suffering and I do not judge it because I was there, not so long ago. I remember logging onto Skype just to see HTSNBN pop up on my contact list. He is an addict and she is the drug and he is hitting rock bottom, but at least he knows he is. I would never think of preaching at him that it all gets better and that true love waits for him, like it did for me. Because it is not that simple. Letting go is fucking scary.

I think about how everything is cyclical. Doors open and close, loves begin and end and nothing at all stays the same. I think about how much I miss certain chapters of my life that will never be again. I think about how curious and excited I am to venture into my very uncertain future.

I think everyone should go and see the first part of my Europe Photo Gallery. It is tres fun.

I think about Sara-Jeanne. I sit and laugh with her again and I am well aware that she is one of the great loves of my life inclusive of all the closeness and quarrels. Being around her gives me permission to be as Big as I want, as Loud as I want and to never worry that I am stealing the spotlight...because she can hold her own, she is never put off by my brash craziness and can dish out twice as much as I can. As a woman who is often criticized for being 'too much', being with SJ is like unbuttoning my pants after a large meal. It is sweet relief.

I think about a year ago this day. Instantly all the images that have maimed me for so long start their ever-destructive slide show. The apartment suddenly half empty, filled with boxes screaming of my failure to be enough for him. The letter he left on the coffee table the night he packed those boxes, filled with such anguish that I was given false hope. The couch strewn diagonally across the hardwood floor like an angry scar. For weeks, for months, I saw the world through a smear of tears. I remember not being able to eat and losing tremendous weight. I remember being sure I would not survive. God, how badly it
hurt.

I think about how I did survive. It almost killed me, but not quite.

I think about having a baby. I wonder if I have just met the man that I am supposed to have a baby with. I try to figure out how I could possibly be ready for a baby and then I remember that I am not 18 any more, but 30. Thirty year olds are not too young to be mothers. I question just how much I have grown up.

I think about my friends. The centre of many different social groups, I have tried for so long to weld them together and convince everyone to love each other. Thing is, they do not. Jax says to me 'not everybody has to love everybody else' and my heart hurts because, even though I know he is correct, I hate that truth. Upon returning to Vancouver, it feels like my social network is catawampus and the only thing I know to do about it is Let It Be. Hard for a control freak.

I think about whether or not I should keep subletting my apartment or move out all together. In a good moment with Jax I feel like moving out, letting him use all my stuff while I am gone for the year and then reassessing my living situation in 2008. Of course, that reeks of me already planning to live with him which is very rushy rushy. In a less than good moment with Jax I am once again convinced that It will be empowering to keep my own place and independence and not get myself into a situation where I am beholden. Not sure if this is the one-foot-out-the-door kind of thinking that I use to employ in my younger years or the has-learned-her-lesson-and-knows-that-the-most-important-thing-is-to-not-give-away-any-of-her-power kind of thinking that is simply hard earned wisdom.

I think about Kyle and Dashboard Confessional and the smell of sugared fig and wet cedar. This summer was an amazing summer. I was in pain but fully alive and as deeply happy as I was sad. Now Kyle is planning to have a baby with the love of his life and our twelve hour seawall walk plays in my memory almost like it happened to someone else. I think about a butterfly emerging from her cocoon and I think that that was what was happening to me this summer.

I think about flying now. I think about Europe and all that I learned in those jammed packed seven weeks. I think about how far away Surrey seems to me and I think about whether or not I am going to love my room mates in Chemainus and I sigh at the thought of spending this whole year in a 'long distance relationship'.

I think about what Maurice Atkinson - Jax's dad - said to me in Gloucester...that I think too much.

(there is that 'too much' thing again)

I think I like thinking and feeling too much.

I think I have decided to just commit to being Me from now on. All parts of Me. The thinker, the feeler, the 'too much' and the 'not enough'. For those who can take it, they are invited to stay awhile. For those that wish to edit Me, I hope they have infinite patience 'cause it ain't ever gonna happen.

I think that's what is called a spine.

Good to have it back again.

A Summary Of What I Have Learned So Far This Year

1. It is when you don't really want it all that badly that you get it.
2. If you call yourself KJ, 9 times out of 10 people will ask you what it stands for.
3. When in Europe, think very carefully about where you intend to have a bowel movement. The toliets do not like to flush poo very well and you may be stuck there for hours, staring desperately at the toliet bowl, pumping furiously away at the handle, hoping to God that somehow, someday you will be in a country where even the largest dump is swept away with the flick of a wrist.
4. You DO want to have sex more in your thirties.
5. One can always choose silence, sure, but if one wants to take part in the conversation and still isn't quite sure what to say, the best solution is to ask a question.
6. Falling in love can be fun. Falling out of love can be hell. Letting go and moving on can be the hardest thing you are ever asked to do.
7. You will not have an easy time finding peanut butter over in Europe or the UK. I seperate Europe and the UK because, for some odd reason, the UK does not consider themselves European.
8. When overseas, wear your Canadian flag all the time and in a prominent place. Generally, Americans are not liked.
9. Love who it is you are and make no apologies for it. If your partner can not accept it, thank them for their time and move on. It is not worth selling your self-esteem for companionship.
10. Making a top bunk bed while balancing precariously on a rickety metal ladder with your head smashed into the ceiling is less fun than it sounds.
11. If you are going to be co-dependent, be co-dependent with your MacBook. A MacBook will never let you down.
12. Whenever people tell you that something will be impossible, a line up too long, a train too packed, a dream out of your price range, a show sold out - ignore them. 9 times out of 10 it is all hullabulloo. You'll get in no problem, someone will give you free tickets and the money will show up. Where there is a will, there is a way.
13. First come first serve seating on an airplane is a baaaaaaad idea.
14. If you were hoping that while backpacking through Europe during winter you were going to look pretty, think again. (Unless what I am saying is all just hullabulloo).
15. Kissing a man passionately for an extended period of time who has stubble can cause cold sores.
16. There is no truth, just perception.
17. If they didn't or don't love you enough, can't love you enough and ultimately are choosing to leave you - IT IS THEIR LOSS.
18. The dictionary widget on a a Mac Dashboard is a must have for bad spellers.
19. If your 24 year old boyfriend is saying he is not ready to get married and have children then, well, okay. If your 34 year old boyfriend (or god forbid 44 year old boyfriend) is saying he not ready to get married and have babies, worry.
20. Be prepared that ordering Macdonalds french fries in Rome may cost you just under six Canadian dollars. Then question why you are eating at Macdonalds in the first place.

I am sure there are a few more things that I have learned, but a sampling will have to do...I am off to the Centre which I haven't attended in so long and is missed by me. Check out my new Konkin Question - inspired by a question asked in an Edinburgh newspaper and, of course, Cracker The Crazy Dog.

It is good to be home.

Good to the power of fantastic.

Bonjour

I am back!! Please play (or double click on the screen below) to share in my joy of being back in the best country on earth...



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Finale

Tomorrow I will be home. So, I guess this is it. I guess after all this, the adventure is done. My chest is heavy with emotion.

I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve about seeing Jax. Despite my attempt at the independent I'm-my-own-woman-and-I-will-take-a-walk-on-the-beach-with-Phillipe-if-I-like charade, I have fallen head over heels in love and with every second closer I come to my arrival I realize how deeply I miss him.

I feel empowered from the trip. After everything these past eight weeks have thrown at me, I have come out on top and now feel renewed to the post-Jordan Krista - the girl who could do anything. Now, I am KJ. I have grown back my spine and remembered why I used to like my own company. I like me! After Jo left I thought I would never feel that way again, but I do. I have stood at the top of the Eifle Tower in the middle of a Paris winter after sleeping in a hotel room that had no heat and lived to the tell the story.

I feel sad to be leaving. But I always do feel a little sad as I watch a chapter in my life close. The Atkinson's have been so kind to us and made me feel like I am already part of the family. Plus, with oceans between me and my home, I don't have to worry about paying bills and subletting my apartment and losing weight and unpacking my bags and settling into yet another new home. Here, I can hide and I have always enjoyed hiding.

I feel blessed to have my life. I work in the Arts industry and am still able to have a fabulous flat in Vancouver (the prettiest city in Canada), a great car and fabulous (or at least eventful) trips to Europe. I am about to start a well paying performing contract with a friendly and successful theatre company on my favorite Island in the world. I have a close group of friends that I ache to sit and catch up with and my family is safe and sound and has seemingly just expanded to include all these funny, smart British folk. I am healthy, my heart is strong again and I have an unconditionally loving MacBook waiting for me when I get home. I have been given another chance at love - a life-altering love, a non-confused, totally magical miracle love. Best of all, I feel like I have fallen back in love with myself and my life. That is by far the biggest blessing.

I feel fear. Well, sure I do. I am human and am still run by my ego too much of the time. This leaves me panicking sometimes wondering if 'the other shoe will drop'. But I am learning ways to not choose the fear. I feel it, refuse to feed it and release it as soon as I am able. I even still feel restentment or hurt or anger or frustration about issues I totally wish I could heal, but haven't quite yet.

I feel happy to finally stop lugging around that stupid backpack, that I will soon wear something other than my cranberry zip-up sweater, that I am returning to a country where I will be able to easily flush a toliet without having to pump the handle several times and pray to god it flushes, to go completely off dairy and wheat for awhile, to get to work on my new scripts and roles, that I get to have sex again soon, that I am being granted 18 days of Jax bliss and that In that 18 days I will get to play with all our photos and create new photo galleries, Konkin Questions and KJ's Finds. I might even figure out a way to update my homepage.

I feel exhausted.

I feel jubilant.

I feel satisfied.

Yep.

I am a feeler.

And I am comin' home tomorrow.

Oh Canada:-)

Cotswolds

Rick Steves, the popular American travel writer, describes The Cotswolds as "the inventors of quaint", so I suppose I knew what I was getting into when I got into Maurice and Maggie's Volvo Estate late this morning. After my second sleep in a real bed, my second breakfast in a real kitchen, my second bath in a real bath, I woke up this morning with the intention of taking on these adorable English villages with vim and vigor. Unfortunately, when I awoke, many of my cold symptoms had seemed to return for an encore appearance in my nose and throat. Thoroughly annoyed I promptly ate several oranges and headed out for the infamous Atkinson Cotswolds tour. I am not sure if it was my determination or the sheer sweetness of the English cottages with their stone walls and exposed heritage beams and twinkling white lights, but I forgot all about my stupid cold. At least for awhile.

I had forgotten about England in my excitment of Italy, France, Scotland and Ireland...but this country is lovely. It is the feminine extreme of the masculine Scotland and Ireland. Gentle and soft and always appropriate. In every shop I feel like a bull amongst china and am so much more aware of my aggresive, North American style. Being here also makes me miss my Jax. But of course it would...I am staying in his house, looking at his childhood pictures and hanging out with his family. Every few minutes I come across something that convinces me that we are either desperately different from each other OR so much alike that it is inconsequential that we were raised in different continents. I find that this is a wonderful way to end the trip, especially for me. The stress of having to wake up and solve a million different obstacles just to function is gone. I am even typing this on Maurice's PowerBook and we all know just how much I have missed being around my beloved Mac.

Yesterday was filled with seeing Gloucester and Cheltenham and in the evening eating at this traditional English pub. Leanne got fish and chips and was served this jumbo cod that was the size of an actual fish caught straight out of the lake. There was a house outside of the pub made entirely of thatch and shrubbery and the sound of a babbling brook and the smell of wood smoke in the air and the night sky was filled with a million stars. If you shut your eyes and tried to imagine the quintessential English countryside picture, you would not get a tableau near as perfect as last night. Or today. I overuse the word, I know, but it is all so LOVELY.

Tomorrow I spend more time with the extended Atkinson clan including baby Lily. Currently, Leanne is downstairs cooking dinner for us all - her famous risotto - as I hide away in the room I feel most comfortable, the computer room. I am ready ready ready to come home. My script has been emailed, Denise has joined Andre at 206 and my tap shoes are calling me.

Oh, and the next time I return for a full-on European trip, I intend to be abundantly wealthy.

Ireland

With an air as aggressive as the Scottish and a Sea as dramatic as a young lover refused, Ireland is the country where I lost my will.

I felt it go, like a tendon snapping, as we sat on the bus to the ferry to Belfast. If I were a cell phone, I would have started doing that warning beep that the battery gives off when it is about to die. Don't get me wrong, I was greatly anticipating Ireland, I was, but somehow the cold and the exhaustion and the disappointment in the male gender housed in my cousin's tears just became heavier than even I could carry on my back. Slowly I became bus sick and then ferry sick and by the time I was in Belfast I knew I was coming down with the cold/flu that I successfully avoided pre-Christmas. That is the thing. I didn't even really fight it. Like a wave looming, I have just allowed it to crash down upon my head.

And I now, I can't stop sneezing.

Belfast was intense. Yes, because I was suddenly sick, but also because it carries on its back so many years of political unrest and dis-ease. Still, It will be the location of what might become one of my favorite memories. Friday night lean and I made our way to Fibber McGees, a pub we were told by a local that was located at the back of a restaurant, off a back alley, that would assure us of some real Celtic music. With a balled up Kleenex in my fist, I slung on my rain proof pants and coat - I know, sexy - and braved the weather for this Irish experience.

It did not disappoint. It was packed packed packed and reeking of second hand smoke. Within the first 10 minutes a neighboring table that I had been eavesdropping on (you gotta LOVE those accents) found us some spare stools and invited us to join their table, smack dab in front of the band. We pretended to understand what they were saying to us while accepting free drinks and swayed back and forth to the musical revelry filling the room around us. It was fantastic. It was as stereotypical as one could imagine and I was happy, drippy nose and all. Then, just as we were about to leave the pub, the band played a medley of songs including You Are My Sunshine which I sang at the top of my phlegmy lungs. Suddenly a microphone was shoved in front of my mouth and I obliged, screaming over the din in the room - YOU MAKE ME HAPPPEEEEEEE, WHEN SKIES ARE GRAAAAAAAAY. The band raised their eyebrows because they could hear that I could actually sing and wasn't just a drunken Canadian in a bad wind breaker. After the song ended, they introduced to the packed pub that they were going to get the Canadian girl up to sing a song. I was stunned. The pub was afire. Leanne was laughing and nudging me up to the stage and the next thing I knew, I was standing in front of a pub full of plastered Irish folk. "I don't know what to sing!" I implored and the bass player asked me "What would you sing at kareoke?"

At kareoke, in a room as crazy as this, I would sing I Will Survive. So, ladies and gentlemen, that is what the band started playing. And that is what I sang. I came from Canada to Ireland to sing I Will Survive with a live Celtic band in a pub off a back alley in Belfast. It was unforgettable. Totally. The crowd sang along, so loud you could hardly hear me, but isn't that the whole point? God, the community, god, the alcohol. Lee and I left immediately afterwards and I feel asleep reeking like smoke, sinuses pounding and grinning under my umpteen covers.

The Giant's Causeway must also be noted, as it was breathtaking. As for Dublin yesterday, I spent the day in bed, not moving, allowing Leanne to be entertained by an enamoured James down visiting from Glasgow. Tonight, we are in Galway and It has a lovely, slower energy which I look forward to experiencing tomorrow. By Thursday I will be in the home of Jax's parents in Glouster, allowing their parent-ness to keep me going and soothe my battered self and then, in nine days, I will be home.

Nine Days.

Beep.

Beep.

Beeeeeeeep.

Scotland

I have a raging headache, but I must type while I have a computer in my grasp so here it goes, headache and all...

Scotland is like a bottle of Brute cologne...in a deep forest green glass bottle with an ornate gold cap. It is so masculine here it makes my breasts ache. There are about 19 men for every female. I have spent more time in pubs than the first 30 years of my life combined, walked the world's oldest golf course and watched a football game, a rugby game and a cricket game - none of which I have any interest in at all. The mountains are ragged and bare and the Atlantic trashes about aggressive and full of testosterone. Everything is made of stone, stone and more stone and memorials lay everywhere celebrating bloody battles fought and, sometimes, won. I say this all with a smile, because this is not a complaint. In fact, I am loving Scotland. But then again, I love men, being deeply heterosexual, so it all fits.

The people here are so friendly. There has been Jimmy and Jean who drove us home from the airport and Micheal and Elijah, two American Harvard grads studying in St.Andrews, who we just spent two days hanging out with. In Glasgow there was a laughter filled night with Craig, Allan and James who flirted and drank and gave us a wonderful ego stroking. They were none too impressed when I mentioned the existence of Jax, my English lad back home...a bevy of insults were thrown out toward the English in the best of humour. Tonight, Leanne and I soak in beautiful Edinburgh...the Calgary of Scotland to Glasgow's Edmonton. I shant forget Stewart...our wonderful tour guide who took us up to Loch Lomond and the Glencoe area and wore a kilt and was so wonderful sweet and warm I wanted to bear him a child. He took us to Glencoe Lochlan which was built by Lord Strathcona for his homesick Canadian wife. It is a park that is built to look like Canada and wow does it ever. It was like stepping back into BC without having to take an airplane. Being a little homesick myself, I let the suave of its familiarity heal me.

Oh, my headache. Missing Jax like crazy, missing my home like crazy. Excited to venture over to Ireland next and really curious to meet the Atkinsons back in England. Leanne is having some sad days over here and trying her best to stay 'up', but really I think it was best that we booked our tickets home early. My head is also swimming with pictures of Sharmaine's new baby and Jennie's email about Eddie's proposal. Sometimes you want to be happy for people and all you can feel is ... a raging headache. Especially concerning Jennie...sometimes I am not sure I will ever be able to release my anger towards her...an anger that only hurts me the more I hold onto it. The ghosts of Jo and Jen and 2005 haunt me and all I want to do is stay hidden in Europe or run to the darkness of Jax's bedroom and scribble a new chapter with him so quickly and viciously that I will forget the last couple of years even happened.

I must go. Leanne awaits me at a neighboring pub where I think tonight the tone will be more floundering than flirting. It is up and down and up again on this European adventure...

Perhaps the luck of the Irish will be magically delicious?

Perhaps it ain't about luck at all.