Describe the most ambitious DIY project you’ve ever taken on.
I started to renovate my house shortly after my separation. First, I emptied everything off the second floor and moved my bed into the family room downstairs. Then I ripped up all the carpet and painted all the doors, ceilings, and walls. New lighting fixtures and door handles made a huge difference. I used a quarter inch plywood to build up the subfloor on top of which I installed vinyl plank flooring.
Covid had just started so before I cocooned myself in my house I bought the baseboards that I needed to install.
Projects like this have a way of coming to life all by themselves. Once I was back in the bedroom upstairs, it was time to renovate the downstairs.
When the weather was nice I worked on the yard, replacing a dying tree and planting a vegetable garden. The deck had seen better days so I had it rebuilt and then when a storm knocked the fence over I had a new one built as well. As soon as I could afford it, I replaced my roof.
I’m not finished yet – I still have some trim to paint and transitions to stain and I’d like to paint the front door and the garage door as well as the cement under the brick around the house. While I’m doing that, I’m also going to focus on emptying out the rest of the basement and holding a garage sale to get rid of what’s in the garage.
People who knew my house before and see it now have commented that it looks completely different, not the same house at all. And it isn’t because it has my sweat and tears and heart in it.
Now that it’s finished, it’s time to leave it behind and move forward in my life. I don’t know where and I don’t know when, although it should be soon. One thing I do know for sure though, I am not going to buy a house that needs any renovations.
Change is painful. I’ve always known that, but I always thought about it in relation to my change in marital status. I’ve always gotten attached to people – even friends – and the change around my social circle predominantly.
Leaving a spouse is painful. Losing a friend – either through death or circumstance – is painful. Moving is painful. Changing jobs is painful. I get all of that.
I now realize there are other changes that affect me much more, and I even know why.
The thought of retirement is like a nightmare. I don’t know how to do anything but work. My job represents personal stability for me.
From 16 to 19, I faced periods of homelessness and hunger. I also had to deal with the trauma and mental health consequences of my situation. I worked hard to develop stability – I went to college at night, I devoted myself to my job, and I eventually built a stable life for myself.
Over time, I faced many changes. I had a child, I married, I moved to an entirely new community, my daughter grew up and moved away. My marriage – which was never great – fell apart in an exceptionally traumatic way. I stayed in the house and renovated it.
And I worked. Even on vacation, I made myself available if I was ever needed. That was always my choice. I did it for me. I know I’m not that important and can be replaced. I did it for my feeling of security. I love what I do. It’s not always great – every company has challenges – but my job allows me to continue learning and honing my skills.
But it can’t last forever. I’m 67 (and a half). My plan is to work to 70. Will I make it? I don’t see why not. But what then? Does my lack of a job mean a return to insecurity? What if I lack the financial means? That’s a real possibility because of how my marriage and divorce have affected me.
Change is painful and scary. And this may be the biggest change of my life.
How can I tell when something’s over? How can I tell it’s run its course? When I feel that something has shifted Do I pull back too And follow his lead? Or do you hang on and wait? When does the broken heart happen? Should I ever let it show? Or pretend I feel the same While I cry alone in silence Vowing never to make the same mistake To get too close To trust and believe In someone Who isn’t worth it Who doesn’t deserve it.
Have you ever caught your reflection and marveled at how much you’ve transformed? That old version of you seems like a distant memory, doesn’t it?
That’s how it felt to me.
I’ve evolved into a better version of myself. And I’m not done yet; the journey of self-improvement is ongoing.
Keep in mind, no one does it alone. We all need a helping hand.
The push to change often comes from tough times. When others doubted me, it only stoked the fire within to prove them wrong. I refused to be the person who wallowed in sadness and anger.
The most significant support were my friends. They saw the struggle, provided a steady stream of encouragement, and stood by me when I wavered. Their reminders of my progress were my beacon of hope.
To anyone facing challenges or doubting their ability to change: hold on. It does get better, much better. But it’s also true – it may get worse before it gets better.
You might feel like giving up, believing that change is beyond reach. But remember Randy Pausch’s words: “The brick walls are there to show us how badly we want something.” They’re not barriers; they’re tests of determination. Look up Randy Pausch if you don’t know who he is.
Stay the course, and eventually, you’ll look back at your former self with wonder, barely recognizing that person. If you don’t give up, one day when you see your reflection, you’ll ask yourself, “Who was that person?”
And when that moment comes, you’ll recall this re-assurance: it’s all part of the journey.
Every night, when my busy day is over, I walk into my bedroom, and I’m immediately relaxed. Soft lighting and the calming scent of lavender oils remind me how important it is to have a room like this, and how important it is to appreciate it.
I wish everyone had a special place – a haven – a safe place to relax in, to meditate and reflect. It’s important to carve out time and space to create it. For some, it may be having a relaxing bath or chilling on your deck. I didn’t have a special place for too many years, and I now realize how important it is, especially for my mental health.
We spend too much of our day working, cleaning, studying – there’s so much to do and when we’re finished, we fall into bed and almost immediately fall asleep. That’s not really living, is it?
Do you have a special haven? What does it look like? Share how you unwind and tell me in the Comments. I’d love to know.
Life gets busy for everyone. Between work, volunteer, and studies, there’s still the lawn to cut and housework to do. When I get a chance to actually sit and rest, my mind focuses on everything waiting to be done. Something had to change.
Self care isn’t about bubble baths, face masks, and chocolate.
Self care is consciously connecting mind and body.
Three years ago, I did a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. One night a week for 8 weeks, I spent 2-1/2 hours in the program and it was amazing.
So I emailed the facilitator and asked if she had any silent retreats coming up and could I attend? She did, and she signed me up.
One day of not saying a word, of practicing mindfulness, gentle yoga and stretches, and clearing my mind. Focused on how my body felt and consciously relaxing. Controlled breathing, calming both mind and body. What an amazing feeling!
The next day I started re-evaluating some new commitments and decided to pass. I feel my energy and creativity increasing.
They say that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. That makes sense. There were people who shared difficult times with me, people who helped me and who helped shape me into the person I became, people that I was able to help in some way, and people who will remain in my heart forever, even if they’re gone.
I envy people who are still close friends with people they went to school with; how you must trust them like family. Sadly, few people in my high school would even remember me. It isn’t totally my fault though – at sixteen I had to leave my foster home suddenly and the next several years are best described as a nightmare.
Thinking back over the years, I’ve come to realize that I lose people. For no particular reason except that life moved on and we lost touch.
It’s easy to lose people. One of us moves away, gets a new job, starts a new relationship (ever notice how some people forget their friends when they’re in a relationship? That’s a post for another day though). We have every intention of keeping in touch, getting together, remaining friends. Life moves on though and we look back and think, “Wow! Has it really been that long?” A year, five years, ten years, twenty years.
Some friends are meant to be though, and your paths with cross again. That was the case with my elementary school friend, Susan Hayman (now Holbrow). I used to walk by her house on Beechgrove Road every Sunday on my way to St. Joseph’s Church. She started coming with me. That always confused me because she wasn’t Catholic – she didn’t HAVE to go to church. She even came to summer camp with me one year – and shortly after that her family moved to Fullerton California. We wrote to each other for awhile, but the letters eventually dwindled. I’m so happy to see her whenever she visits Canada, and one day I will visit California.
Facebook has helped me to reconnect with some other high school friends, including a special one, Karen Robbins. These friends – Karen in particular – knew me best; she knew the difficulties I faced when I was sixteen. Even after I left my foster home, we stayed in touch, lived together for awhile, and then we lost touch. I searched for her for years, to no avail. I still remember the day she connected with me on Facebook – I literally cried.
My biological parents are gone. My foster parents are gone. My foster sister is gone. I am not close with my biological siblings. Sometimes I feel all alone in the world. That’s when I start thinking of the people I’ve lost and I ask myself why I allowed that to happen.
I think we all mean to stay in touch, but life gets busy and distracting. I have to do a better job at reaching out and just say “Hi, how are you” to keep the connection going. I’m going to challenge myself to write a list of people I know that I don’t want to lose, and my resolution for 2022 will be to strengthen the connection.
There’s a reason we met, and I don’t want to lose any more friends. If you’re reading this and think you might be one of the friends I haven’t stayed in touch with – please don’t hesitate – reach out and keep in touch. Don’t let me lose you.
I made a decision today to carry around a notebook with me everywhere, to motivate me to stop for a few minutes every day and write something – anything. Writing helps me to focus, which in turn helps me to calm down.
So, I set about gathering all my notebooks and assembling them in the order in which they should be used. Then I did something different today – I put the best ones on top. I’m going to use those first. That’s quite different for me – I’ve always saved my best things for special occasions, but I’ve just decided that every day is special, and I’m going to use the best ones first.
While I was making this decision, I had a memory of my mother. She was feeling the blues one day, and it had a lot to do with getting older, so while I was visiting, I took her shopping. One of the things we bought were pretty underwear. I told her just because she was getting older, and just because she was not thin anymore, was no reason not to have pretty underwear. Even if no one ever sees them, YOU know you’re wearing them, and that can make you feel better.
Years later, when she passed away, and I was clearing out her house, I opened her underwear drawer. There were all the nice, pretty underwear – still new and never worn. Knowing my mother, she was saving them for a special occasion.
That always confused me, because when I was a child I remember her once saying that life is short, eat dessert first. I don’t know when that changed for her, but I know that I have a tendency to save things for a special occasion as well – whether it’s a notebook or underwear or my fine china.
Today I decided that being alive is a special occasion, and when I die I hope the only empty notebooks will be the cheap ones. The good ones will all be filled with my writing. And I hope that my underwear drawer will be filled with pretty underwear; none of it new and unworn.
When I entered the workforce in my late teens/early twenties, the fight for equality was just starting. When I think of where we are now, it seems almost unbelievable how far we’ve come. Women entering the workforce now have almost no idea what it was like in the 70s.
I’m going to relate a couple of situations that I experienced back then.
The first situation was when I got a part-time job pumping gas. There were no self-serve gas stations back then – attendants pumped your gas, checked your oil, and cleaned your windshield. You never even had to get out of your vehicle to pay; attendants came to your window to accept payment. I was hired by the guy in the evening shift. I looked like a young lad – short and thin, with a very short hair cut. Until you looked at me close up, which the owner did one day. He felt it was unsuitable to have a “girl” pumping gas, and I lost my part-time job. Funny how it became suitable when self-serve gas stations opened. (Interesting fact – did you know consumers were promised cheaper gas by pumping it themselves? Funny how that never happened, isn’t it?)
A similar situation happened when I got a part-time job as a DJ. The owner of the disco company reluctantly “allowed” me to play at weddings and parties, until one night they were stuck and needed someone to cover in a club. Then it became my second full-time job. When the owner went on vacation, the vice president of the company promoted me to area supervisor, and I started helping to install discos and train DJs. Until the owner returned and was very upset about that turn of events. When I lost that job, I went to New York City and ended up employed by Juliana’s Sound Services in Manhattan, a predominantly female DJ company.
The Good Old Days?
When I started working in an office, dresses or skirts were mandatory. There were rules – so far below the knee, so far above the ankle, no bare midriff, no halter tops, no going bra less (I always wondered how they tested for that). When tellers at the Bank of Nova Scotia were given the right to wear slacks to work, it wasn’t long until most women were given the same right. The first step towards equality.
Outside the office, women were discriminated against as well, in the increased cost of products and services. Let’s take razors as an example. Razors for women were more expensive, despite being almost identical. The only main difference is the handles were pink. Must have been expensive pink.
Besides products, services were more expensive as well. The one that irritated me the most was dry cleaning. The cost of dry cleaning for women was almost 30% more. It irritated me so much, I started to lie to my dry cleaner. Here was a typical conversation when dropping things off:
“2 men’s pants, 3 men’s shirts, 1 dress.“
“These are women’s pants.”
“No, they aren’t. They’re my brothers.“
“No, the button is on the other side.”
“Ha! I wonder if my brother knows that.“
“This is a woman’s shirt”
“No, it isn’t. It’s my husband’s.“
“The buttons are on the wrong side.”
“Wow, I guess my husband didn’t notice that.“
“The material is really soft, too.”
“Yeah, he likes soft materials.“
Staring war ensues until he gives in.
Reluctantly.
But I hated having to do that every time I had to drop off dry cleaning.
Equal doesn’t mean looking the same
It’s worth mentioning that my shirts were not the frilly kind. I’ve never been the frilly type – in the 70s and 80s I was too busy believing that emulating a man would help my career and let me be taken more seriously. So, you have to picture me in white business shirt, short hair, and tailored pin stripe suits with padded shoulders. No frills.
By the 90s, friends were calling me a feminist. No, I’m not a feminist, I would say; I’m an equality. Why should I be treated any different. If a man had a rough day at work and stopped by a bar to relax with a drink on his way home, that was acceptable. But for a woman to do the same was not. If a male manager raised his voice to a staff member, he was “authoritative” (considered a good trait at the time), but if a female manager did the same, she was a “bitch” or maybe it was “her time of the month”.
I now realize that I’m more than an equality – I am a feminist. As all women should be. It’s amazing how far we’ve come. We can do the same jobs, we have the same rights, and those who feel that a woman’s place is in the kitchen are quickly becoming a minority.
But we’re not there yet.
So, what made me think about this now?
A bra.
Actually two bras.
I bought two bras at a Giant Tiger store in Sutton, Ontario. Signs around the store hanging from the ceiling said “Don’t try clothes on”, so I tried them on at home, and they didn’t fit.
When I went to return them, I was told I couldn’t. It was “unsanitary”. It was a young lady, who told me that they were like underwear. I had an email from Giant Tiger’s head office, stating that “Bras, and swim tops such as tanking and bikini tops are not to be classified as undergarments and will be refunded.” The sales clerk phoned the manager, who said I could return it “this time only”.
I’m not trying to slam the store. This Giant Tiger store actually does a lot of good in the community, and I love Giant Tiger. I love the one in Newmarket, in Stouffville, in Lindsay, and the two in North Bay. But here we have a store that hires predominantly pretty young women, who tell me that returned bras (still on hanger with all tags) have to be thrown out when they’re returned because they’re unsanitary.
Despite being a franchise, I was told they could make their own rules, that they didn’t have to follow the rules of their head office. I think they should read their franchise agreement again. I’ve seldom seen one that includes that clause.
I asked why they were considered unsanitary – I’m way too old to be a lactating female. What is the difference if a man returns a t-shirt? What if I returned a t-shirt that I tried on without a bra? No answer.
Because there is no answer.
There are still those who feel that it’s acceptable to have different standards and rules for men and women. Who believe that it’s okay to pay women less than men, or to deny them promotion opportunities because they might take time off to start a family, and who feel it’s appropriate to treat a woman as a sexual object – the sex trade illustrates that.
In the Euro 2021 beach handball games this year, the men’s team wore shorts and tank tops. The Norwegian women’s team wore thigh-length elastic shorts during their bronze medal match against Spain in Bulgaria, to protest against the regulation bikini-bottom design. They were fined 1,500 euros total ($1,700) for “improper clothing”. Women are required to wear midriff-baring tops and bikini bottoms “with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg” and a maximum side width of 4 inches, according to International Handball Federation regulations.
Pink has offered to pay the fine. I should listen to her music more because I admire her standing up.
I’m standing up by writing this and by refusing to visit the Sutton Giant Tiger location until they change their policies. I’ll do the same for any other store or business with the same attitude.
Because that’s what we all need to do. Stand up. Women are not “less than” a man. We are more than sexual objects or cheap labour. We are equals.
All this rant because of a bra. And because of what it signified – we’re not there yet.
“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.”
There’s a growing movement to cancel Canada Day celebrations this year, in light of the recent graves discovered at the residential schools and the reminder of that terrible part of our history, when children were removed from their homes on reserves and sent to schools. These schools were nothing less than re-education centres, run by a few organized religions, predominately Roman Catholic. It was, in fact, cultural genocide and many children were abused and died of various causes, their unmarked and undocumented graves only recently discovered.
I’ve thought long and hard about whether we should be celebrating Canada Day this year, even taking into consideration the fact that some of my ancestors were Aboriginal.
Every country in the world has shameful events in their past. In our multicultural country, many of our citizens come from countries where exploitation, torture, and genocide are still happening. Our local newspaper just published an article about a refugee from one such country.
We cannot change our history, but we can change how we respond to the tragedies that are part of it. By coming together and recognizing our strengths and our weaknesses, we are demonstrating what it means to be Canadian. As Canadians, we must not cover it up, but bring it to light and find a way to reconcile what has happened with who we are today.
