The First Snowflakes and Some Life Lessons

Today Toronto had its first flurries. I was walking home and then suddenly these beautiful white flakes enveloped me. I actually danced a little with my ipod playing. I'm almost positive I'll get sick of snow within a few months, but it was still a welcomed treat. Although, I'm hoping that there will still be time to enjoy the smells and sights of fall. I'm really enjoying the foliage.

Still, it's a shock to me to see snow this early in October. I know it didn't stick, but still. I wasn't wearing my winter jacket! Of course by now I've dug it from the closet. And it's on its peg near my boots.

My mother has finally gotten a job. Ironically with a company based in Canada. Not far from Toronto. I still think it's almost too perfect how life manages to intertwine itself in some way. Either way, I'm happy for her. She deserves this. So I wish her the best in her new beginning.

I've learned that the advice that makes you angriest and hurts the most, is probably the best advice for you. It's because you can't bear to believe the self-destructive path you're on is the wrong one. And because it takes so much strength to change it--after so many years of the same vicious cycle. How do you finally stand your ground?

I know I'm guilty of running away when I get scared or vulnerable or trapped. I know that in some way coming here to Toronto just wasn't a new beginning, but a way to run. In the end, I feel I made peace with as much of my past as I could, but I can't help feeling that coming here was an escape.

Maybe it was. Maybe it was the right thing to do. Only time will tell. But have learned this much, no matter how hard it gets here--and it will, I've already had my moments--I can't give up. I cannot run away. For once in my life, I need to stand strong. I've spent so much time trying to fight fears in my life--fear of heights, fear of falling, fear of nakedness, fear of swimming, fear of failure--that this is just another fear I have to fight. I've worked so hard for this adventure; I can't possibly back down the first time I get scared. I can't.

I need to put my money where my preaching is. And stand up. And stay. Because I know that this program and Toronto are the best things to ever happen to me. And a direct result of some of the greatest things that ever happened to me. So maybe I'll take the advice that hurt so bad. Because I want to define myself up here, eh. Not to prove that the woman I am capable of being is not the woman I am going to become.

Because I refuse to give up like that. So I'm standing, in the first snowfall, proving to myself that I'm not running this time, eh.