Remember being 23 and fantasizing about what your life will be like in the future? I will be 30 this year and where I am today is way off the mark from what I ever imagined. I wanted to be a successful, powerful business woman who had given up her job to take care of her 4 children (yes, 4!). At 30, I wanted to have a beautiful home and a husband who was truly my partner in crime. I wanted to be home each day taking care of my kids. Doing the mundane tasks like laundry but also catching those special moments with each of them. Coloring outside the lines. Baking cookies. Cuddling up with my family to watch a movie. That is how defined happiness when I was 23 and working my first job in the big city.

Today I am 29. Single. I have strep throat and a chest cold. I have been sobbing all day because I am miserable from my recent break up. I have hardly eaten all day because I have no energy to get up and make myself food. And that makes me even sadder since it reminds me of my recent change of relationship status.

This is life. If there is one thing I have learned over the past 2 (very trying) years of my life, it is this: life never turns out how you expect it to. So you can either sit and sob. Or you can deal with it. This is your life today. And this is who you are today. There are circumstances in our life that we can’t do anything about. But what we can change is ourselves.

Now let’s go back to that fantasy. Forget those around you. Forget the material possessions. Focus in on the person you dreamt you would be in the future. Is this person self-confident? Is he/she the life of the party or the quiet dependable friend you can always call? Are you that person today? Often times we work so hard towards goals that society sets for us. Well let’s see, they say: first you will need to get a stable job, meet someone, buy a house and then become a parent. In the future you can buy a cottage and wait until you retire to travel to all the places you always dreamed of visiting. But where are you in this picture? How do you want to feel about yourself as a human being? Personal growth is often overlooked when we set goals.

Side Disclaimer: I am not saying that being in a stable and healthy relationship is not rewarding or having a new born is not enthralling. Research proves that married people actually live 2 years longer than those who never marry. However, research also proves that folks that run marathons increase their life expectancy by up to 7 years. People that spend time volunteering can add years to their life as well.

So let’s redefine happiness. Who did I want to be at 30? I wanted to be self-confident, kind, funny and someone who has her “stuff” together. I wanted to be a woman who takes care of herself, her body and those around her. She has few friends but good ones and knows where her priorities lie. She is extremely involved in her community and spends a lot of her time volunteering. She sounds great, doesn’t she? Alas, that is not me. Although I have shades of this person in me, I feel like I have not grown into the person I always wanted to be. And who you want to be as a person is driven by what makes you happy. We often loose sight of what truly makes us happy and chase dreams that are not even our own.

Over the next several months I will be embarking on something called ‘The Happiness Project’. It is inspired by a book of the same name where the author, Gretchen Ruben, spent a year working on herself. She picked a theme for each month of the year and made resolutions surrounding that theme. For example, January was ‘Energy’ and her resolutions included exercising better, de-cluttering her life and acting more energetic. Each month I will be a picking an area of my life that I feel needs improvement and then setting 3-5 resolutions that help me close that gap.

So if anyone is reading this, I ask you: what type of a person did you imagine yourself becoming in the future? Are you that person today? I would love to hear your thoughts. Your success stories on how you have achieved personal growth. And I would also love to hear from those who find themselves in the same boat as me. For more inspiration, start your own happiness project by accessing the Happiness Toolbox.

This episode got me thinking of the several sudden ‘episodes’ I have had recently. What’s going on? Shouldn’t I be crying less? Getting on with my life? Then I read a chapter about betrayal from ‘The Wisdom of a Broken Heart’. This book came into my life serendipitously. The day my ex and I said our goodbyes I had signed up for a meditation class at a local Buddhist centre where I met the author, Susan Piver, who spoke to a room full of broken hearts. According to Susan, we don’t just feel a sense of betrayal when someone cheats on us or leaves us for another but also when a promise is broken without our participation in the decision or even knowing that the decision was on the table. That is how I feel. I feel blindsided by this decision. Promises made over the years have been shattered with the blink of an eye. My trust has been obliterated.

This is when you have a decision to make. Do you continue down the path of anger and blame? Or try something different? I say it’s time for something different. First accept that it’s over and there is nothing you can do about it. The other party made this decision as they could no longer continue to be in a relationship with you. I know it hurts to think that way but its the truth. Secondly, consider this: heartbreak is a risk you take on in any relationship. Sometimes relationships end and sometimes it the other person that pulls the plug. No relationship is safe from heartbreak but that cannot stop you from wanting love in your life again. You have to move forward with your life with this knowledge. That shows real courage. Instead of being haunted by this betrayal, acknowledge it and accept it. Choose not to take cheap shots at your ex (or try your hardest!) because that only stirs anger and deflects you from your real emotion: hurt. Choose to accept reality and feel your real emotions. And as you move on with your live, choose love. Always choose love.

I know all of this is easier said than done. I am not going to turn into a Buddhist monk overnight who meditates on betrayal to let it go, but I sure am gonna start each day with the right intentions in mind. And for the days that my heart just won’t let me move past the anger, I will listen to this. Enjoy!

Poets, song writers, actors, authors and painters have all tried to describe the anguish of a broken heart. What is it about the end of relationship that makes the pain so unbearable and makes you feel like you can’t stand feeling this way for another moment? I believe it is the death of unfulfilled dreams and expectations. It is the sense of betrayal that leads to obsessive thinking, uncontrollable anxiety and profound sadness. It is a bizarre sense of loss when the person is still around. They are in the same city, perhaps even around the corner. But you can’t see them or speak to them or try to understand the reasons why…make sense of it all. No, you must soldier on. Move on. Your life changes overnight. You went to work in the morning and when you got home everything you were certain about was gone. Just like that.

Now you may think I am being too negative. On the contrary, I am neither negative or positive at the moment. I simply am. I have experienced a fascinating, confusing and contradictory set of emotions in the past few weeks and it has given me an opportunity to look at this common scenario called heartbreak. Here are some insights from a silly, emotional girl trying to make sense of it all:

• You are more alive than you have ever been before. You feel more. You feel for others around you. When someone around you is sad, you feel it deep within as it resonates with your core. When there is happiness around you, you feel that too and sometimes not in a good way :)
• Your heart is not yours anymore. It has a mind of its own. Its like one of those crazy balls that is out of control. It bounces around and hits you in the face constantly with extreme emotion. It ricochets off daily events and catches you off-guard. You are in a business meeting? Too bad! Your heart doesn’t care about your professional reputation. It only cares about the colleague who is brimming with happiness about her recent engagement and is flashing her ring in your face. Accept the unpredictability of your emotions and instead of fighting them, accept them. The storms will pass quicker each time.
• Obsessive thinking is your new mode of operation. Time and again you will be trapped unexpectedly by your internal line of questioning. Out of nowhere you become overcome with grief and a realization that you are alone. That is usually followed by bouts of tears, anger, regret and sadness. You go over the relationship in painstaking detail…over and over again. What if he is just not at a good place? What if I had not given so much of myself? Only if I had not worn a polka dot dress…
• Will I ever find love again? This is the question at the core of your fears. You question if you will ever have what you had with this person. Will I find someone I can truly love who can love me back or will I end up settling in a loveless marriage? Why am I alone again? Why can’t I find someone who deserves me? Which leads you to the next set of emotions….
• What is wrong with me? Why do I attract the wrong men repeatedly? What did I do wrong to deserve such heartbreak? Why is it that some people find love and can keep it and some of us struggle through so many relationships, with happiness eluding us time and time again? Many start to question their self-worth. Although, at this point I don’t feel that way (for a change!), I know plenty of women that start to feel insecure. They feel unattractive because one man decided to move on. To those ladies (and men) I say: relax. You are the same person you were the day before the breakup. Nothing has changed except your relationship status on Facebook :) So don’t go critiquing your wonderful self!
• He is an idiot. As much as we may blame ourselves, we also start to demonize the other party. ‘He is just afraid of commitment’, ‘she wouldn’t know a good thing if it hit her in the face’, ‘he is a fool to throw out the best thing in his life’. You see-saw between self-doubt and violent hatred towards the other party. It is easy and natural to think this way. It is even helpful in the healing process. However, don’t default to this way of thinking. Whether or not the other party is at fault is inconsequential. It is done. We cannot change the past. Anger only hurts us and holds us back while the other party moves on with their life. Who is the loser now?
• This pain will never end. So it seems that way. But it will. With each day, you gain acceptance of your situation. You grow stronger. Will you slip and have another break down? Sure you will. But those crying sessions will become less and less frequent as you start to pick up the pieces and move on with your life.

As I go through this plethora of emotions on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis, I tell myself  that it is ok to feel what I am feeling. I remind myself to not be too hard on myself and stifle my healing process. Hang in there kiddo! There is light at the end of the tunnel. There always is.

I have felt compelled to write these words by a change in my life. A change that came unexpectedly. The end of a relationship. It was not something I had anticipated. But here I am. And on the cusp of what will be a new chapter in life, I ask anyone who is reading this to take that next step. Stop fearing that big change in your life. Quit that job you hate. Leave that destructive relationship. Apply for that graduate program. Ask out that cute girl you see on the subway everyday.  Color your hair that fierce and fiery red. Whatever it is that you have been fearing, it won’t be as bad as what you imagine. I promise.

The Canadian province of Ontario, outside of Toronto, saw a decrease of 6% of electricity while Toronto saw a decrease of 15.1% (nearly doubled from 8.7% the previous year) as many businesses darkened, including the landmark CN Tower.

S. and I turned off the lights and put up a bunch of candles just in the nick of time. The whole day had been extremely hectic for both of us and suddenly as we were grabbing groceries for dinner we realized at it was 8 pm already! So I will come clean and admit that we did cheat a tiny, wee-bit by cooking in the dark. The only appliance that was on was one of the elements on the electric stove. We then enjoyed a nice candle lit dinner. Hopefully we can plan it right next year and have our meal ready before 8:30 :)

I was disappointed to see that NO ONE else in my neighbourhood turned their lights off. I am not sure if it related to the demographic of this area. Most people here are immigrants or families or both. I am immigrant myself so I am not trying to oversimplify my argument or target one segment of the population. However, I do find that first generation immigrants are less interested in Canadian politics and the environmental issues facing us. They feel disconnected with the political happenings in their new environment and come from countries that face a different set of challenges such as extreme poverty, clean water, basic education, human rights and deep corruption within the government agencies. The environment usually takes a back seat in third-world politics.

Similarly, families tend to have a different set of priorities and challenges compared to say a 24-year old living in downtown Toronto. The 24-year old is probably more involved in political discourse with friends, has little responsibilities, no dependants and the luxury of pursuing individual interests. However, parents living in a suburban area are concerned about providing for their families, the local school systems, safety of their neighbourhoods, and surviving this economic climate.

Maybe I am oversimplifying a bit much. There are obviously families and first generation immigrants that do feel passionately about the environment but I think we can agree that they are not the norm. So how can we get these segments of the Canadian population to care deeply about our planet and become active participants in the fight against climate change?

About a year ago I read the Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs and instantly fell in love with the women in this book whose lives were tied together with the craft of knitting. It is a dear, witty and heartbreaking story of so many women we know in our own lives. The premise of the book is a knitting group that meets at the ‘Walker and Daughter’ store near 77th and Broadway in New York City. Here are some of main characters:

Georgia Walker, a single mom and owner of Walker and Daughter. She is a self-made woman who took the road less traveled and chose to raise a child on her own while trying to establish a business. She is the rock that everyone leans on and the glue that holds the group together.

Dakota, Georgia’s spunky and smart daughter who is a maestro baker and whips up batch after batch of sweet treats for the ladies of the knitting club. She is wiser than her years, an old-soul. We meet Dakota when she is just coming of age, starting to become curious about the father she has never known.

Anita, an old widow, trying to still get past her husband’s death. She keeps herself occupied by working at the knitting store and playing surrogate grandmother to Dakota. At her age Anita is the oldest member of the knitting club, yet she is able to connect with women and girls from a completely different generation. Through the novel we see her starting to redefine how a woman of her age, a widow, should or should not live her life.

Darwin, the emotionally detached PhD student who is struggling privately to keep her long-distance marriage afloat. Her husband is doing his residency in California and they are biding time until they can live like a proper married couple. Darwin is one of the most interesting characters as she starts out as the student doing her dissertation on domestic crafts (such as knitting) that negatively define the stereotypical gender roles. She dislikes knitting and what it stands for, questioning how these women can voluntarily participate in an activity that clearly demeans their abilities and the role of the modern career woman. We see her transform from a keen observer to an active participant at Walker and Daughter.

There so many more interesting characters in the book. Take Catherine for example. She is Georgia’s childhood friend whose life couldn’t be more different than Georgia’s. She has all the luxuries of life that the other women at the club can only dream of. Being married to a wealthy man means being part of the who’s who in NY high life. Catherine reconnects with Georgia when she commissions her to create original hand-knit couture for a special function. It is fascinating to see Catherine’s journey as her assumptions and judgments are “corrected” and she starts to see her life as it truly is.

The story starts to unravel when Dakota’s father, James, shows up one day wanting to be a part of his daughter’s life, having regretted all the years he was hiding from his responsibilities. Georgia is thrown into a situation where she struggles internally to be a reasonable, rational human being and letting James get close to Dakota. However, James’ presence threatens everything she has worked for all her life and the little world she has created for herself and Dakota. I am so happy that Georgia’s character didn’t exhibit any extreme behavior: stopping James in a dramatic fashion or falling for James immediately since he is a good looking, successful man that happens to be the father of her daughter. More often than not the female characters are so helpless and dramatic in fictional works. Georgia is real! She is not crazy but she is not a saint…just somewhere in the middle. Like most of us :) Our lives are painted in shades of gray, not blacks and whites. A good novel is able to capture the ‘grays’ in each character and the Friday Night Knitting Club certainly does a great job of it. I expected this book to be of the typical chick-lit variety but I was pleasantly surprised. It is much more than that. None of the characters in the book are broad stroked caricatures of themselves. They are real people, with real struggles. Some struggles that get resolved and some that don’t…just like real life.

The book consumed me. The women drew me in. We see them deal with their own struggles and personal issues. We witness their successes and failures. Each of them have aspects that any of us could relate to. There are certainly are enough characters that each reader will most likely identify with one or more. None of their struggles are portrayed in a contrived fashion. Somehow the author is able to introduce a large number of characters, develop their stories individually and tie it all together in a rich and meaningful manner. I walked away from the book being reminded that things are NEVER what they seem on the outside, everyone has struggles that we don’t know of and judging others on their appearance means that we may lose out on making a real connection with someone who is not that different from us if we just look beneath the surface. It is also never too late to adjust your lifestyle to match your true values. It is never too late to realize that the life you may be living is not the one you strove for when you were young and there is no shame in admitting that. Sometimes people come into our lives to instigate the questions that lead to personal growth. The key is recognizes when life is throwing us a chance at reflection and growth.

Rating (out of 5):

I trimmed the ribbons after the took these pictures cuz I felt the length was a tad too long. I hope the new parents will like the little booties. I can see how knitting baby stuff can get addictive. It’s quick, satisfying and the end results are adorable pieces of tiny clothing.

On the heels of a semi-successful project, I definitely am feeling the new-yarn-itch. My goal is to look for another project that involves some shaping so that I can continue to learn new skills and buy more yarn :)

It took me a day or two to pick a pattern since there are about a 100,000 baby bootie patterns on the net. Overwhelming to say the least. I picked my pattern and started knitting on Thursday night. I was able to finish one bootie right away and worked on the second one last night. I wasn’t able to meet my deadline of Saturday night :( Don’t let the size of what you are knitting fool you folks! Anything that involves shaping can end up being a pain in the booty (no pun intended!). Both booties are done but I am going to re-do the first one I made since its not as clean as I was would like. I think I made mistakes reading the pattern the first time around since it had odd knitting abbreviations such as ‘sl’, ‘tbl’ etc. that I just didn’t get. For future reference, I recommend this site that contains a pretty extensive list of abbreviations and even some instructional videos: http://www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knitting-glossary.

Here is what they should look like when they are done (I HOPE) and a link to the pattern: http://www.save-on-crafts.com/baboknpaussu.html.

Baby Update

(Disclaimer: extreme oohing, aahing and gushing about a new born baby)

The baby is PERFECT. She is around 7.5 pounds and her name is Alisha. She is adorable. Tiny little creature that slept peacefully as a whole bunch of descended upon our friend’s condo to congratulate them. She did awaken for a little bit to get fed and show off her beautiful dark eyes with long eye lashes. The whole bunch of us were just enraptured by her cuteness and littleness :) I held her many times to just play with her, feed her from the bottle and burp her. S held her as well. He was the only guy who was comfortable enough to hold the baby and boy was he a total natural :D Nothing is sexier than to see your man hold a baby like he has been doing it all his life!

We are really looking forward to see this little baby grow over the next few months and years. Just reminded us how child birth truly is a miracle of life. To see our friends become parents overnight was just amazing. It hit me like a ton of bricks what my parents must have gone through to take care of me and my brother. To feed me, bathe me, take care of me, love me, only to see me grow up and make my own mistakes, my own decisions that may or may not align with their ideas and values. I have a new appreciation for the parents of this world. A selfless love that knows no boundaries. I have a small, minute understanding of what it must be like to give a child everything you have and then having to let go of them and lead their own lives. Note to self: Call my mom more often :)

I just love this skirt because it banishes the stereotype that hand knitted clothing is generally dowdy, matronly and far from sexy. Next time someone says that knitting is for grannies I will point them to this pattern and say ‘Does your grandma make that???’

Intolerable Cruelty

Attempt no. 1: I followed the pattern to the ‘T’ and half way through I measure S.’s head and the hat’s circumference and it’s an inch or two too small :S The hat would be a snug fit, cutting all circulation to the brain…not good.

Attempt no. 2: Ok, no problem. Sometimes even the right weighted yarn + needles does not = right gauge. Time to do the right thing and make a gauge before re-starting the hat. Yes. This shall be a good lesson for me to never, ever dive right into a project no matter how excited or impatient I might be to get started!! Point taken. So I make the swatch and figure out that my stitches are a bit tighter and thus the shortfall on length. I compensate, fix my pattern, do a few calculations and courageously start again. About 20-30 rows in…now the hat is freaking massive!

Attempt no. 3: Humph! Ok, deep breaths! Phhheewww. After some swearing, a bit of a fit and a little break from knitting I start to re-engage….What did I do wrong? Obviously casted on too many stitches. So I re-adjusted the no. of stitches. More calculations, another swatch just to be sure (can we ever make enough swatches? really?). Third time’s a charm right? Wrong! This time around it fits around the circumference of his head BUT its loose around the crown. In fact, what is this I see? His short spiky hair pushes against the hat, morphing it’s shape instead of the hat snugly presses down on the hair!!! Oh noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Attempt no. 4: NO WAY. NO WAY. I am defeated :( I took the hat into a yarn store. I felt like a total IDIOT! I swear I have made hats before and here is the kicker…THEY FIT!! Anyways, the nice lady told me that the reason the hat doesn’t have a snug fit around the crown is partially due to type of yarn used (very delicate merino-cashmere mix) and because the decreases should have happened a lot sooner. Anyways, the hat looks good on me or any other person who does not have short spiky hair. So happy birthday to me :) S. was extremely grateful for my several unsuccessful attempts and I decided that I would make him something with thicker wool and maybe follow a pattern I have used successfully in the past ;)

The elusive beanie

Additional details: The original pattern asks to cast-on 113 sts. As mentioned earlier, I found that to be too tight. In the end, I added 10 more sts…bringing the total to 123. If I were to (due to some unfortunate stroke of insanity coupled with motivation) attempt the hat again, I would start the decreases when it measured about 4 3/4″ or 5″ from the beg.

The Lesson: For a control freak like me, it’s very important that there be a lesson from each failure. Ok so here goes: Make sure you have the right yarn and the right needles…check! Always follow the pattern and don’t try to be a knitting cowboy…check, check! Make sure you make a swatch….hhmm…wait…I DID!! So what went wrong here? Sometimes the lesson is: There isin’t always a lesson in everything missy! Sometimes perfection must be compromised for “good enough” because it’s 3 am again and you have to work the next morning. Sh*t happens and a little mystery (like how can the addition of 10 measly stitches mess up a pattern that was way too tight??) never hurt anyone :)

Case closed. Next!