Clichés.   Truisms.  Trite remarks that I don’t want to hear.

I don’t want to feel better.   I want to feel sad.

I’ve broken my leg five times, my foot four,  my arm,  hand,  collarbone and back once,  my spirit for a spell and I do my best to break the mould every day.

Most recently,  I’ve had my heart broken.

Shattered.

It hurts like hell.  Like walking through glass on fire with acid poured all over you…not to be dramatic…because quite frankly that doesn’t even come close.

I am completely empty and I am completely full and the waves of emotions are like a tsunami coming out of nowhere.  I’m drowning.   My brain hurts.  My eyes sting.  My skin aches.  I’m tired.  I am so fucking tired.  I walk into walls.  I yell at innocent people.  I yell at myself for being stupidly in love.  I hate this.

I have no rhyme or reason.  No lilt in my step.  My pallet is battleship gray.

I pace.  I cry.  I talk out loud, I scream.  It’s a sickness; being heartsick.  Nothing helps.  Nothing numbs the pain, the sadness, the brain space that struggles to hold on and to let go.  It sucks pickles.

I know it gets better.  Duh.  Been here done that before…but I can’t get away from here fast enough…this molasses drip of transitioning from sad to mad to eventually glad is excruciating.  I want it over – but the end is not nearly in sight and my feet are sore and covered in blisters and the road is rough and long.

Love is so amazing.  So freeing and contagious.  Such a precious gift.  No wonder it hurts so much when it is lost.

“This too shall pass”.  “Love is blind”.  “It’s better to have loved and lost, then never loved at all”.

I’ve retraced my every step, frantically searching for clues, where I could have misplaced them.  How they could have possibly come unfastened from my chain.  Maybe they slipped through a crack or fell out of sight.  Maybe I put them in the wrong pocket or haphazardly tossed them aside and they are lost in the abyss of paper work on my desk.   Maybe they are playing a trick on me and mischievously hiding.  I half expect them to show up, but they haven’t.  I feel lost without them.  It’s strange how such a small trinket can hold such important meaning.  I miss them.  I need them.  I can’t lock my doors and I don’t feel safe.  I feel exposed and it’s hard to sleep at night.  I don’t have an extra set.  I can’t just duplicate them.

I guess I’ll have to change my locks.

I was once told that fear actually stood for “feel everything and rejoice”.  I like that.  Makes it less scary.  Feeling everything as oppose to not.  Kinda like a release, a relinquishing of what tortures you inside.  It shrinks its power once you stop giving it power.  It also gives you control.

The couch doctors say to face your fears head on.  Shake their hands, get to know them, have a drink with them and decide if you really want them to remain in your life.  Not always so easy….but doable.  I’ve faced some pretty magnanimous fears in my time – some life and death, some involved pickles.  All were incredible lessons.

Tonight I hung out with a very brave person.  A person who has left me inspired and humbled.  It was unexpected.  Really unexpected.  My sister has been in the hospital since Christmas. It’s no secret we have a tumultuous relationship.  But she is sick and alone and needs me, so I am doing what I can.  She is one brave mother fucker.  She is experiencing symptoms of a stroke although yet to be confirmed and hopefully it is something else more easily fixable.  But she has no feeling in her right arm or hand.  She can’t pick up a pen, let alone write and if you think for just a minute about all the millions of things you need your good arm and hand to do – from the basics like being able to give your cat its shot of insulin to your artful pleasures like painting…it’s pretty damn scary.  It’s scaring me.  So I asked her how she is coping with this unknown body of fear and she said “by just taking it one minute at a time and not letting myself go to the dark side.”  Funny because she lives on the dark side, but she sure shed some serious light in my small world tonight.  She isn’t letting the fear control her.  She is taking control.  That’s inspiring and truly fearless.

Please get better soon little sis.

We couldn’t sleep last night, so were hanging out during the wee hours having a little mother-daughter chat bout our 9 nine lives, fur balls, catnip…you know stuff we have in common.   Anyways…she’s a really good listener and at the end of it I got some incredible insight from my little ginger monkey on how to be in this wacky world….

• If you have a cute bum, flaunt it.

• If someone is mad at you – just rub up against their leg.  (Apparently works like a charm)

• If you can’t do something naturally – do it your own way. (Fiend can’t meow, so she quacks)

• Be friendly – even to strange little black dogs that snort and fart on your blanket.

• It doesn’t matter where you came from or how hard your life may have been – you can turn it around. (Fiend was abandoned at 4 wks in the woods and ate toads to survive)

• Catnip is the key to unlocking the imagination and finding your source of supreme creativity.  (You should see Fiend dance…1 word – Baryshnikov)

• Rolling around on the carpet feels good. Do what feels good.

• It’s good to know the difference between real and fake. Harriet is real…sparkly mouse is fake.  (Works with people too)

• Hiding and pouncing out at someone is fun.

• Trust that you will be fed.

• Being able to put your leg over your head can come in handy.

• Don’t sweat stuff.  (Have you ever seen a cat sweat?)

• If you think you can’t balance on the banister – you won’t. So try, fall off and get up and try again.

• Squirrels are intriguingly weird.  Duh.

• When all else fails give a gentle head-butt.

• There’s nothing better than cuddling with someone you love…ok you don’t even have to be that discriminating.  (Fiend’s words)

I love new days!  New beginnings.  Fresh slates of tabula rasas.  I don’t know what this year is going to bring.  I’m still unclear on what I’m suppose to do, to be, to wear to school tomorrow.  Luckily I like surprises.

I expect there will be some hic ups, furballs, pebbles in my shoes…there always are; makes life interesting and those days help make us smarter, tougher, more empathic, appreciative of the good ones.  And as sure as I am an Irish Polish Pixie … I know there will be even more days filled with giggles,  sunshine and unicorns.

I hate it when people call me a Polly Anna.  Makes me kick up some serious dust.  Trust me I’m no where near that nice.  But I do choose my choices very consciously and carefully.  And I usually err on the side of loviation.  Sometimes it’s harder than others, and sometimes I fuck up, sometimes I’m self serving, sometimes abundantly giving, and sometimes I’m ridiculously reckless…in a good way.  I’m human.  Ok…I’m not…I’m a Pixie.  And we Pixies (however few and far between) have special powers…kinda like when lucky charms meet perogies.   But that’s all I can say because anymore and I’d have to kill you …part of the Pixie Promise… so I won’t…just trust me, you want me on your side.

Pixies are very clever monkeys.  We have microscopic vision (except at night), we get our strength from marshmallows and we have an enormous capacity for seeing beauty.  I see it all the time, in everyone and everything, and if I had one wish for all the non pixies, on this planetary plane, on this new day…it would be to open your eyes as wide as they possibly can be and see everything that is before you and see it with appreciative, generous, loving eyes and say shanks, ain’t this thing called life swell.  It’s just a little Pixie trick in finding the secret of being happy.   Choose it.

Major loviation,  x pixie

Or perhaps I just won’t bother to wear a watch.

I’m not a fan of NYE.  I have nothing against the day, other than it’s the last day.  I don’t like last days.  For some twisted reason the evaporating hours pinch, poke and prod me to take stock of the year’s days, weeks, months, feats, fears, failures, accomplishments, triumphs, gifts, joys, surprises, loves, losses, wonders, should haves, could haves, dids, wants, don’t wants, wishes and make a last ditch attempt to make sense of it all while contemplating the seeds I’d like to plant tomorrow.  No pressure.

I’m usually more organized – but I’ve been idling, avoiding, ok…down right slothful about getting to this task. Usually it’s all neatly typed by now in rows and charts and sections highlighted with lots of colour…ok I’m joking…sort of. But this year…it’s remained on my “To Do” list…untouched…I’ve been too busy living.   It’s been an incredible year. Amazing in fact.  Bountiful in so many ways.  It’s been a year of changes – all for the better with new places and people to inspire me, tickle my fancy and make my life fuller.  I think I’m calmer and more go with the flowish. I pushed myself and I learnt and did some super cool grown up things and embarked on some even more amazing life adventures. And more than anything and more than at anytime before in my life – I believe I truly and authentically tried to live in the moment, the best that I could.  Which then nudges my noodle to ponder the possibility that a long and ruminating review of 2011 has already been accomplished, acknowledged and appreciated in the moments I met them.  Whoa llama that was easy!

So shiny and new.  Like a new penny, like a new day, like a new hour or minute. Like sun diamonds dancing on an ever-flowing river… there’s always something new right around the bend.  A pleasant surprise, lessons, heartache, headaches and supreme happiness.  I’ve come to realize it’s not so much about turning a huge stone tablet on the next chapter of “Elfa’s Great Adventures”…but more like a series of little post-it note snibblets, sneak peeks, blinks, winks, hmms, umms and yumms in each little unveiling of the story that is being written.   Shiny and new – it’s a choice, an opportunity, an adventure, a freedom that is ours with each and every breath.

So goodbye and thank you to a most awesome year, a beautiful period of time filled to the brim with extraordinary souvenirs of life.   Let the next chapter unfold.

Peace, love & abundant happiness – all around.

Simple enough, right?  Well, not exactly.  Because I want a real one.  And yes Virginia, they do exist.  And even though the Unicornians of the universe say that these wildly precocious, paradoxical, pure and magical woodland prancers can only be captured by a virgin…I just want to remind you all that I tamed Crackhead Betty the Kamikrazy Squirrel and really…what magnificent beast wouldn’t want to lay its weary head in my lap?  Just saying.

Not only would I truly, madly and deeply love my unicorn, he’d come in rather handy as his beautiful spiral horn can actually neutralize the effects of poison, heal the sick, prolong life and believe it or not  – act as an aphrodisiac….when you lick it.  It’s true… I’m not pulling your horn.

The unicorn is the gatekeeper of the forest veil; they are symbols of wizardry wisdom manifesting great power yet maintaining gentle grace.  They are known to frolic with an ambrosial voice, have a fanciful fetish for lavender and they love rainbows.  OMG that sounds exactly like me!   I have to have a unicorn…we’d be the bestest friends ever!

All jostling aside.  As much as I know my unicorn is out there, I also know that it’s up to my unicorn to find me. Rare and precious magical beings don’t come by a dime a dozen. They take time to present themselves and be invited into your realm. All I can do is put my unicorn love out there, lay a path of gumdrops to my door and keep an open heart and mind and be ready. Surprises are what makes life awesome and half the bliss is just waiting, wondering and celebrating the elation every time I capture a glimpse of its white tail out of the corner of my eye.

So on the eve of Christmas Eve – the night of sublime magic, wishing and believing in beyond a question of a doubt that what you dream for can come true…my wish for all of you is whatever your unicorn is – be it a trinket or toy, a purpose or truth, more wonder, more adventures, more firsts or a renewed abundance of health, wealth, peace, harmony and love –may whatever you wish for find its way to your heart.

…There were green alligators and long-necked geese, some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees.  Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born.  The loveliest of them all was the unicorn.   I believe.

On a random side note that somehow is remotely connected in this gibberish banter…I am selfish.  Right or wrong, I have expectations.  I imagine what you put out in the world, what you give, should be reciprocated,  aknowledged, affirmed in some confabulated form.  I kinda have blind faith in that.  Not in a measurable timeline or meter, but rather a trust that what is agreeable and respectable is returned in goodwill…somehow, somewhere that I can hopefully recognize it.  It can manifest in many forms, times,  spaces, essences, whispers, but it needs to exist. It needs to be spoken and recognized.  I need it to be able to believe, to have faith in the good. To believe that there is purpose to everything that is done and it matters.

Funnily I’ve always believed or had faith in the unseen, the undefined, and the unproven.  Angels, faeries, ghosts, magic – it’s always been very real and so I naturally defer to the possibilities of things that haven’t quite yet found their place, haven’t quite yet manifested their truth, their beauty, their form, voice or magic.  That is believing. That is trusting.  That is faith.

Now Love.  That’s a drug and a gift and I am sunk.  It is all consuming and believing and hopeful and faithful.  All I know is what I feel.  And it is all powerful.   And I believe it can do anything it wants to.  It just has to want to.  With love there is hope.   With hope I believe,  and with belief I choose faith… and I contemplate all the possibilities.

India was the most vibrant,  kaleidoscopic experience I’ve ever embraced.  A complete intoxication of sensory overload.  A cacophony of noise, an uber saturation of explosive colour.   Sickly sweet fragrance dripped amongst the flotsam and jetsam of the worse pollution I have ever witnessed.  Stunningly beautiful goddess in silken saris,  buses adorned in bells,  whistles and rainbow delicious garlands of five & dime store trinkets.   Smiling goats with flower necklaces and jubilant half naked children running with open arms to welcome you to their doorstep.  Cardamom and curries seduced my appetite, while the broken down temples soothed my wanderlust soul.

My last day was my best day.  I was alone and took a tut tut for a 2 hour ride off the stinky streets of Delhi, into a lush, tropical mountain forest where I would walk for a good half hour to discover an exquisite hidden temple built to honour Lord Hanuman – the Hindu monkey God.  I was warned not to make eye contact with the monkeys, not to try and touch the monkeys and most definitely not to feed the ferocious monkeys.  As if.   When I walked through the decrepit,  jewelled gates I recognized my utopia.  Hundreds of monkeys before me all waiting and wanting to be loved.  I spent the day making friends. Holding, petting,  feeding and playing with all sorts of beautiful characters.  The babies sat on my lap and fingered my curls, while Mum sat near by and enjoyed a fresh banana.  I followed them around as they lead me to the Holy baths, where I sat quietly and watched as the local ladies de-robed and cleansed their spirits in the emerald pools.  They took me up 200 steps to a secret little cave when Hanuman sat with offerings at his feet and we sat a while… thinking monkey thoughts and about other things that matter in my mind.  I didn’t want to leave and even writing this now, the tears well up because it was a perfect place, and I was at perfect peace.

Maybe I did leave a piece of my spirit there.   Maybe that’s what was suppose to happen,  so that I would have something to search for,  something to yearn for, to drive and inspire me to re fill the empty space.  It’s taken a month to write these words,  to recognize I am missing something,  to be able to feel the gifts that India gave me.   I’m slowly coming back.