Maybe Not All Abrupt Change is Bad???
- Raine McLeod
- Feb 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 27
Well, we got through a bunch of The Firsts.
The First birthdays, First Christmas, First New Years. Now we're into the Seconds and shortly (in 45 days in fact) we will be onto the thirds. Lower-case "thirds" because after two, it's normal-ish. It's not easier necessarily, but slightly more normal.
My First Christmas (2023) was spent on Vancouver Island with long-time family friends. The kind where the parents and kids visit at one house or another and ultimately there is a stowaway in the back of the van to go home because we weren't done hanging out yet. (We thought we were sneaky, but I have been informed that the parents always knew and occasionally let us get away with it because why the hell not?)
And when I say "long-time" I very sincerely mean it, as in since Day One. The kid on the left is me and the one on the right is the island friend. (The one in the middle is still incredibly important too, for the record.)
The actual Christmas was fine, it's never been a favourite holiday of mine, I have never cared much for it (or the dreadful music), and the only thing I really like is giving gifts because I'm REALLY good at gift giving.
New Years though, that was rough. My mom used to stay up until exactly midnight to text me and my sister a bunch of gifs and emojis, saying "Happy New Year!" so our iPhones would set off the on-screen fireworks and she would tell us that now that that job was done, she was going immediately to bed. She always wanted to be the first text we got, she wanted to be the first person of the year to say she loved us, to make sure we started off right.
The First New Years was a trip into grief that snuck up me completely. I was fine, we were standing in a circle holding hands and singing Auld Lang Syne (as has been the tradition for decades), and suddenly I had a lump in my throat. The party carried on but I had to sit with it for a second. I didn't realize how much those fucking texts meant to me until I couldn't have them anymore and I was confronted with that fact in a room full of laughter and lights and celebration and people, some of whom knew my parents.
No one felt the need to Do Comforting though. They were nearby and had I needed them, it would have been instant but I just had to sit in the "oof" of it until I could move again.
The island was exactly what I needed.
2023 had been stressful and complicated (not to mention emotional, as we spread some of our parents' remains in our hometown that summer), but tying it up the way I did was perfect.
By the way, here are the views from the places we chose to leave some of the cremains:
The first few months of 2024 were...I don't want to say disruptive, but impactful one way or another.
I traveled to Toronto in March to emcee the inaugural Reality Based Women Unite! event on International Women's Day. I met some amazing women, heard some incredible speeches, and had a fantastic time.
I left the job I'd had for 15 years at the end of April.
My sister and I went to California for 2 weeks for my birthday in May.
We went camping in June at Takakkaw Falls.
I watched a wonderful woman (Eva) marry a wonderful woman, and I got to meet their brand new baby when she was born.
I helped organize a thank you and farewell party for the incomparable Dr. Linda Blade in September, in advance of her moving to India.
In October I drove out to Vancouver for Fright Nights (coincidentally we went on my mom's birthday).
I basically worked my part time job and had a great summer, visiting/hosting friends, meeting online friends IRL, and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
Island Friend and I started cheerleading each other into weekly physical activity and meditation challenges, which has been paying dividends as far as energy, rest, and Millennial Back Pain are concerned.
I was invited to participate in an online reading of a very cool play and got to dig into my long-dormant acting skills. (The live online performance itself was last night and was recorded; I can't wait to watch and share it!)
I finished my 2024 reading challenge!
I worked over the holidays and it was very low-key, but I did host an Orphan Christmas Party on the 25th where I made everyone who came Eggs Benny and mulled wine for breakfast. I get to host and feed people and experience the gratification of them loving my cooking (because I'm really good at it) and I get to be distracted for the morning? Sold. 10/10, will do that again.
OH, and I enrolled in University. (Is that burying the lede?)
I first went to university right out of high school and to say it was a catastrophe is to significantly understate how bad it truly was. I had to write a letter of academic intent to the university to summarize wtf happened the first time and it was really cathartic, but they only make you write one of those as a condition of your acceptance if something went horribly wrong the first time.
The encouragement I received from Island Friend (who is the one who convinced me to do it at all), her parents, and my best friend has turned out to be literally life-changing. Nothing but "YES DO IT YOU'RE GOING TO KILL IT" from start to finish, and I think my mom would also have been on Team Me.
Not everyone in my life has been supportive of this venture. In fact, when I told someone I was thinking about applying, I was explicitly told that it was a "stupid idea" and that an English degree (which is what I'm ultimately after) is "useless" and that I'd be wasting my time. I still haven't told this person that not only did I apply and get accepted, I enrolled and have been attending classes since the beginning of the year and I'm actually incredibly happy. Like truly, really happy, for the first time in a really long time. I love my classes, I love my profs, I feel great. So, if they read this post, it's how they're finding out. Surprise!
For the record, I'm not ~committing~ to getting a degree. I'm committing to go to school until April. And then maybe I'll commit to go to school from September to December, and so on. Who knows? Little chunky decisions feel a lot more approachable than multi-year commitments made essentially on a whim.
All of this is to say, 2025 is going to be the year of "no thank you, I'm not accepting unsolicited feedback or criticism at this time."
It's my life, I get to pick it. Get on board or get out of the way.
I guess that whole leap of faith thing is not a terrible idea (even if it's possibly sourced not from faith but from "fuck it, what do I have to lose?") and when you have people in your corner, particularly when your corner got emptied by surprise relatively recently, deciding to make use of the time that's going to pass anyway is really liberating.
So yeah, thank you for being in my corner.
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