Spring: I can smell it coming

The thermometer outside our kitchen window soared above freezing today, probably for the first time since October.  It was wonderful to see the snow melting and the sun shining, but what really got me was the smell.  In the midst of a Canadian winter, your nose is virtually useless. Everything is frozen solid-the soil, the trees, the grass-and it’s all covered in this thick blanket of snow.  Today it all started to melt, and all of those smells that had been locked up all winter started coming at me from every angle.

It was like taking off a blindfold.  With my sense of smell finally unlocked, a million memories from so many past springs came rushing back.

Sailing the high seas of the suburban gutter is tricky.

The smell of mud and soggy grass immediately made my mind jump to the image of my soccer cleats caked in the the stuff, as they are almost every day in the spring and summer.  And that heavy, damp smell that always accompanies melting reminded me of the many afternoons that I walked home from school in my childhood. My brother and I would make bottle cap sailboats with paper sails and toothpick masts, and we’d race them down the gutters on our way home.  Melty snow is the best for snowballs, so we’d make big ones and drop kick them so that they would explode everywhere.

Even the smell of melting dog poop brings back memories.  For most of elementary and junior high school I lived next to a girl about my age who owned a big German Shepherd.  We were very nearly inseparable for most of those years, and entwined with the smell of dog are so many memories of playing with Groovy Girls in her backyard in the springtime.

I’ve lived in Canada my whole life, so I know that there is far more winter still to come. It’s only a matter of time before another round of snow lands on us and my nose goes back into hibernation.  However, the sights and smells of today give me hope.  It’s a reminder that winter will end, and spring will come soon enough, along with all the activities that I associate with it.  Because I believe that no one is too old for a good ‘ole bottle cap boat race.

What do you consider the “smell of spring”? What reminds you of springtime?

If I can’t have the happily ever after…

…at least I can have the fairytale dress. It’s a BCBC Max Azria dress that I first tried on about a year ago.  It’s a little early to be shopping for a grad dress, seeing as I don’t graduate until 2013, but just look!

I love the little details like the gathering in the middle and the foldover at the top.

A word about break-ups

My brother, Pal, broke up with his girlfriend of two years about a month ago.  Since then, he has found a new girlfriend, and she has written about a hundred posts on Tumblr about her general loneliness and depression. 

The Ex and I have always been good friends. We share a mutual love for Forever XXI, chocolate, and blogging. However, I just cannot understand her right now. It appears that she thinks about Pal 24/7 and ignores all of her friends’ attempts to cheer her up.  She’s started quoting Sex and the City, “It should take half the time you were dating to get over someone.”

Now I’ve never been in a serious relationship, and I’ve never been in love, so maybe that’s why I can’t see this from her point of view.  I can’t understand why she is wasting away months crying over a boy (and my brother for that matter).  She’s got so much going for her: she’s taking graphic design and she’s really talented at it, she has, like, hundreds of followers on Tumblr, and she is so petite and adorable that she can pull off wearing absolutely gorgeous dresses all the time without looking overdressed. 

She calls the break-up a “plot twist” and claims that it was completely out of the blue, even though anyone could tell that it was not working out between them, particularly because they were living in two different cities. 

If I ever got like this about a guy, I think I would honestly hate myself.. To me it just feels like a betrayal of yourself, basing so much of your hapiness on one other person.  I certainly want to fall in love, but I don’t want to lose myself the way it seems the Ex is.  My confidence and self-sufficiency are qualities that I take pride in, and if I lost that over a guy, I don’t know who I would be anymore.

That guy I used to live with…

I’m talking about my brother, of course. He messaged me the other day and it was one sentence: “Here’s some bands you might like: (and I don’t even remember the bands”

That’s when I realized that I literally haven’t talked to my brother since January 2nd when he went  back to university.  To me, that seems like the strangest thing ever.  How is it that someone who I lived with for the first fifteen years of my life can *poof* disappear out of it completely?

Pal and I have always been close, but we’re opposites. He’s the musician, I’m the athlete. He’s the sciencey one, and I’m the writer. We don’t even look alike. While he got my parent’s brown hair and hazel eyes, I am the genetic freak with blonde hair and blue eyes.  Somehow, however, we always talked about everything. He knew about all of the mean girls and cliques in my 6th grade class, the boys I crushed on in junior high, and my fights with my best friend.  And he told me about being bullied in elementary, how much he secretly hated his clarinet teacher because she put so much pressure on him, and his first girlfriend who would only see him outside of school when her friends couldn’t see.

We did have our fights, although I don’t specifically remember what they were about. Pal would go weeks being moody and distant, but he would always end up wanted to talk to me about something or other, so he’d break his silence.  Pal once said that I was “the one constant thing in his life.”

That’s why when I got his message the other day, it hit a nerve.  I’m afraid that this is what growing up is going to be like.  Do you eventually outgrow the people of your childhood? If you move away does it mean that you just stop talking?  The truth is that I don’t know how to stay in touch with my brother because I’ve never had to put any effort into our relationship before this; he’s just always been there.  He was such a big part of my past, but  I don’t know where he fits in my future. I don’t want him to be the kind of brother that I only see on stat holidays.  There’s got to be another way. Isn’t there?

What does one do with a boyfriend?

Okay, get your mind out of the gutter.

I just mean what does one do once you have a boyfriend? I feel like I have spent most of my teenage life chasing boys, but somehow I had never considered what you do once you catch said boy.

Not that I really had to catch Patt.  In fact, there wasn’t much drama at all.  We have the same friends, and we go to the same parties, and so it was only natural that we met.  The thing about Patt is that he’s like me at parties; he gets a high off just being around all of our friends and having fun.  Patt’s the guy who will start a nerf gun battle, or a who-can-bounce-this-mint-the-most-times-with-a-red-Solo-cup  contest.  That is so me.  One time we put a piece of brocolli on a hook on the ceiling and went around telling people “look, there’s broccoli on the ceiling!”. Everyone was like, “I’m not that gullible, there’s obviously not broccoli on the ceiling,” and Patt and I could not stop laughing.

Wow, I read this and it sounds really silly and childish.  I could keep describing the random things we do, but it’s not even that.  It’s that smile he gives me as if we’re sharing a private joke.  It’s those nights when the party starts to wind down and he strokes my hair and I lay my head on his shoulder and he whispers to me, “It’s okay, just close your eyes.”  It’s the poem he wrote me for Valentine’s day; a little cheesy but so sweet, and the way he nervously wrung his hands when he asked me to be his girlfriend.

It was all so easy, but now I don’t know where we go from here.  I don’t want to be one of those girls who spends all her time with her boyfriend, and honestly I have so much going on that I don’t have a lot of free time to spend with him.  Right now it’s mostly a few minutes here and there in the hallways, nothing more.  I don’t want this to feel like another commitment I have to fulfill.

I don’t know how to be a girlfriend. I can kiss him, I can goof around with him, but is that it? Maybe it’s too soon to say.

I just don’t want to screw this up.

So, I bought a prom dress.

Actually, in Canadaland, we call it “grad”, but I digress.

When I told my friends I bought this, they kind of tilted their heads, a few snickered, and Al, the most straight-forward of the lot, asked the obvious question:

“Why the hell did you buy a grad dress? We don’t graduate for another year and a half!”

And of course, Lyd felt obligated to mention:

“What if you get fat and you don’t fit it next year?”

Okay, so they’re probably right to think I’m crazy. But this dress-I can feel the drool dripping down my chin just thinking about it-this dress is my fairytale dress. I can see myself gliding down a staircase in it, turning heads in the crowd, and dominating the dance floor. I never really saw myself in a short dress, and I really had ruled out white, but there is something so right about this one. It’s like Mr. Max Azria was thinking of me personally when he sewed it.

Plus, it was on sale. (pictures to come!)

So hooray for the class of 2013! And hooray for my fairytale dress for my fairytale grad with my fairytale boyfriend!

What’s that? Yes, I said boyfriend. More to come on that.

I’m a working gal

So in the middle of all my soccer madness I’ve managed to injure myself. Torn MCL the doc says. No soccer for a month. No weight on it for at least a week.  So I’ve been forced to crutch my way around school and home and sit on the sidelines at soccer practice. Not so much fun.

The other thing that I’m not allowed to do till I get off my crutches is work.  Waitressing doesn’t really work on one leg. And since I’ve had the week off of work, it’s started to make me realize what my life would be like if I didn’t work.  I have free afternoons to put my feet up and get caught up on Doctor Who.  I have an extra couple evenings a week to make cookies or blog or watch How I Met Your Mother on dvd with Lis.  I can surf iTunes for new music, or message my bro in Universityland,  or stay late at school to work on our school newspaper.  It feels like freedom.

However, I’ve realized that I’ve become accustomed to being a working gal.  The money is great to have, obviously, and I make a lot of tips waitressing.  But it’s more than that. I like my job. I like the people I work with, like Kath, who’s nineteen and has cool tatoos and likes to listen to my rants about school. And there’s Abi, who is from the Phillipines and shows me pictures of her two kids to whom she sends money every month.  My boss is also part of what I like about my job; he’s business-like, but he knows how to take a joke.  Every time I come into work he asks if I’ve been away in juvie, and how did I like it?  When we close up the restaurant, he makes a game of sneaking up behind Abi and shouting, “boo!”. He gets her every time and it’s always good for a laugh.

My job also makes me feel grown up.  Customers rarely realize that I’m only sixteen; parents tell their kids to follow “the nice lady” and it’s always a thrill to realize that they’re talking about me!  I’ve had customers ask me for advice about speeding tickets (I’ve only had my license for six months),  job security (I work about eight hours a week), and mortgages (I hear those are expensive).  The best part is knowing that people tip me because I do good work.  It’s so satisfying to make a connection with a parade of strangers and know that you possibly just made their day better. When else do you get that opportunity throughout your week?

My job isn’t easy, and it takes up a lot of my time.  But I feel so lucky having a first job that I actually like doing.  Yeah, it makes my life a little more hectic, but it like it’s a part of me now, like the soccer-playing part and the Mustard High part.  It’s weird being without it. I think I miss it already.

Me being childish and stuff.

School is in again and I am…feeling like having a temper tantrum like a five year old.  The thing is, I don’t have any reason to complain. I like my classes and my teachers and I have lots of friends to hang out with.  What’s bugging me is that, well, everything isn’t exactly the same as last year.

I loved last year.  I had friends in all my classes. We had inside jokes and a table in the cafeteria where we met everyday.  School was a safe place; it was happy and easy.  Why did the year have to end? Why did everything have to go and change?

I have journalism class again this year,  but our old journalism crew is split up.  Some have graduated, and others have the course in a different semester.  On top of it, now all of a sudden I’m one of the older kids in the class and I’m expected to be some kind of leader for the new grade tens.  I don’t even know how to begin to help them. I’m hardly an expert! I want to go back to being one the young kids, goofing off with my friends and being bossed around by the grade elevens and twelves. 

There’s so many other changes:

-Admin switched me to a different homeroom, so everyone in my new homeroom pretty much thinks I’m an alien that just landed.

-My soccer class got cancelled because they didn’t have enough students enrolled.

-Because soccer class got cancelled, I have no classes with my closest friend at Mustard High, Lyd

-The only person I know in Physics and Social Studies is Zin, who I’ve never been super close with

All of this together makes me want to roll around on the ground pounding my fists, like I did when I was six and my mom wouldn’t buy me a cookie from the bakery at the grocery store.  Instead, I have to act like an almost-grown-up and try to focus on the highlights of the new year.  At least my new locker is right next to Lyd. At least Sar is in my journalism class.  At least my English class is full of friends, even if my other classes aren’t.  At least I still have club soccer even if school soccer is a bust.

Sigh. I guess I’m a little scared more than anything. I’m scared of change.  When things finally start to go right, your instict is to make them stay that way forever.  I don’t know what this year is going to be like, but it doesn’t look like it’s gonna be like last year. That’s a scary thought.

Aloney on my owney

I have this theory that teenagers are scared to be alone. We have this primal need to be surrounded by friends at all times.  Alone time? Forget it.

Let’s take today as an example.  I had a nice, relaxing, productive vacation day. Today I:

-Did some laundry

-Uploaded some vacation photos

-Made french toast (and ate it too.)

-Went for a (very short) run

-Caught up on Jersey Shore

-Hung up the poster that Lis and I made for the Taylor Swift concert.  It took about 6 jars of glitter. It’s pretty much a work of art.

-Took my cat for a walk (cat walking is not the same as dog walking. When you take a dog for a walk, you go somewhere. When you take a cat for a walk, the cat alternates between sniffing things, trying to catch bugs, and rolling around on the sidewalk. You’re lucky if you actually “walk” 30 feet.)

-Read half of Fahrenheit 451 (It’s awesome, I totally recommend it. My favorite line: “The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies”)

Successful day? I’d say so.  But all day I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind.  ‘Don’t you have anything better to do on a beautiful summer day?’ it said. Don’t you have friends to hang out with?  There’s a million places you could go right now, a million things you could be doing before the summer ends!  Before you know it, school will start again, and then you’ll be too busy to have any social life! Only losers hang out at home by themselves during holidays…

My subconscious has been rather rude to me of late.

 I’ve decided to ignore my nagging doubts. I’m having a good day. Maybe next I’ll eat some ice cream. Or blast Foster the People on the stereo and dance like a crazy person.  Summer is full of so many possibilities!

I guess part of being a teenager is having a busy social life. But mostly, being a teen is about doing what you want.  And right now, I’m craving two scoops of mint chocolate chip.

I’m a runner now

At the beginning of the summer I signed up for a 10km (that’s like 6 miles for my dear American friends)run in the first week of September. I haven’t raced for over a year now, and I’ve never done a run this long.  Today, I was getting all discouraged because I had failed my goal of running every morning in August.  Also, my times for running the 10km are still very slow. An hour and ten minutes to run 10k is practically a crawl.  If I had just stuck to a stricter training regimen, I scolded myself, I would be so much faster, and I would be so much happier with myself.

And then I stopped and realized something (actually, I didn’t stop; I kept running. But my train of thought stopped.)  I realized, hey! I can run 10k now! I could barely run 4 when I started.  That’s not exactly something to be down on myself about.

When I cross the finish line two weeks from now at an hour ten, I will hold my head up high.  I can run 10k. I’m a real live runner.  That’s not something to sneeze at, it’s something to celebrate. (Perhaps over ice cream. I may be a runner now, but that doesn’t mean I’m replacing Ben and Jerry’s with Gatorade and protein bars.)