Be A Good Bra

Support is a tricky business. Most women understand the importance of a good bra, they also know how hard it is to find one. Those of us who do find something that works may by three of the same bra knowing it might be eons before we stumble upon on that actually does its job and isn't too terrible to look at. The issue with bras is they are all different. Sometimes the lace is itchy or it holds your breasts too high, it cuts in around the sides, or when you lean forward you nipple slips out, causing chaffing.

Like the great search for the perfect bra, sometimes you find a serious lack of adequate support in your life as well. It's tough because those people who are supposed to be your emotional or mental bra are completely incompetent when it actually comes to offering the encouragement you need. Instead of being an integral part of your foundation, they end up being the crack in the wall. The bra you've washed too many times and the shoulder straps are shot causing your boobs to sag.

Even worse, they might start off as the most amazing brassiere you've ever owned, but after only a couple of wears the under-wire begins creeping up the side, digging into the most sensitive skin of your under-boob. What once was a cornerstone of comfort swiftly becomes an annoyance, which can prove to be an issue, because you tend to want to hang onto these bras, imagining how one day they will be fixed and give the lush support they once gave so willingly. Maybe you even try to take the under-wire out completely, thus making one breast drop lower than the other and turn it into a more horizontal oval shape. Not very pleasing.

Finding an emotional bra to hold you up and keep you going when you are unsure or scared is hard. Bras (of the fabric kind) are finicky and intricate, much like the people we let into our lives. And bras (the human variety) are sometimes clueless to the type of support needed. Also, there is sensitivity. It's hard trying new things, stepping outside our comfort zones, striving for things we might not feel we even deserve.  Sometimes all we want is for someone to say, "You can totally do that." Even if what we want to do is completely ridiculous, or exceptionally silly.

There is something to be said about offering unconditional support. I know I try to be encouraging and optimistic when it comes to the people I love, offering help wherever I can. In truth, I want my friends and family succeed and be happy.  This is why it's so hard when the help, encouragement, optimism and hope of success isn't reciprocated. Maybe I just don't understand this desire people have to be realistic, especially when it comes to dreams. Someone once said, go big or go home. This world is too scary and cruel and defeating not to reach for the stars.

Life's too short to shake your head and say, "Do you know how hard it's going to be?" to someone else. There's no need for anyone else to be hard on us because we're already doing a bang up ourselves. Adding another person's doubt to our own apprehensions will only guarantee failure, or even worse, complacency.

Even if there isn't any follow-through, of if there is and it results in failure, isn't it better to be the most amazing bra for someone else on the off chance they do follow-through and actually win? I don't know about everyone else, but I want to be a part of that success. Part of the celebration. I don't want to be the person who deters someone away from fulfilling a dream. I want to be a good bra and offer support no matter the day, weather, or impossibility of the goal.

A Million Words

Over the last year, I've been writing a book for my mother. When I first moved to the island, I sat on the ferry with her, travelling from Horseshoe Bay to Departure Bay, all my belongings in a U-Haul below deck. This was one of the biggest changes of my life, leaving the mainland, but I wasn't thinking of how monumental this decision was. I sat with my mom and talked about this idea I had for a new novel. 

You know, one of those stories about the good and wicked. 

She seemed to really enjoy the premise. After mulling for a couple months, I decided to give it a go. The beginning came easily and whenever I finished a chapter or two, I'd Skype my mom and read it over the internet. In the beginning, I had a lot of time to write because I wasn't working as much and had enough energy to be creative. Once I got a job, the writing ebbed and flowed. As it goes, my imagination suffers when punching a time clock. Not that I am complaining about having work, it's just hard to craft, create and bring characters to life when you're tired and use your brain for other things, like creating Excel spreadsheets. 

 So, writing became a weekend endeavour. I worked hard to turn out those chapters. This novel, we will call her Ramona, wasn't the only thing I was working on. I had some Pankhearst projects and this alien collaboration, and a zombie thing I was dividing my time up for. Honestly, Ramona was like pulling teeth.  But I kept at it. As some of you may know, I am the Queen of putting things to the side when I lose interest in them. At the side they will sit, eating away at me, but I never seem to find the time to pick them back up and get involved again. 

Thanks to my mother's interest, I couldn't put Ramona to the side. My mom wanted to know what happened. How it ended. If everything was resolved in the end or if there were to be more books coming. And she asked about it. Asked how it was coming along. So, not wanting to let her down, I kept at it. Toiling away. Some days I'd write a paragraph, others pages, and once in awhile I'd do really good and churn out a couple chapters. Those were the best days. Days where I slipped back into those characters with ease and knew exactly where the story was going. 

That's one of the things a lot of people don't know about writing a book. 

It changes as the characters grow and as you write it. Sometimes the ending is completely different from what you thought it was going to be. This happens a lot to people like me, anti-plotters, people who don't map out where they are going, what they are doing, and how they are going to get there. What can I say, I like my freedom. 

In the end, this is the ninth book I've written on my own. Ninth. That's hard to believe. Don't get me wrong, the first eight were terrible. I've also co-wrote three novels, that are completed. And I refuse to count how many short stories I've put to virtual paper. All those words. So many of them. Thousand. Hundreds of thousands. Over a million, believe it or not. 

I have written over a million words. 

Well, that thought simply exhausts me. But before I tuck off for a nap, I want to thank my mother for her support and interest in Ramona, the clumsy book that she is. Without her I wouldn't have finished it. It's been nice having someone who cares what happens. 

In the end, Ramona is still a work in progress. After all, a first draft does not a finished novel make. There is plenty of work to do, and plenty more books to write, but for now, this one is roughly done. The fine tweaking will start, but for now she will sit and rest, until I have the courage to take another look and bring out the red pen. 

Onto the next book. 

Jockstraps & Wonderbras

Let's get serious. What? With the title, you thought this was going to be about undergarments?

Not bloody likely.

Today's program is all about support.

Here is a bold statement for you: there aren't a lot of people in my life. It's true. I have a very select, meaning small, circle of people I run and howl at the moon with.

Hold on, before you get all 'awwww' and 'that's sad', let me finish what I have to say.

For that, I am grateful. When you have a small pack, you know who to turn too.

I used to have more friends. While I certainly would do anything for those people, they had their own priorities to follow and their own lives to live. Certainly, some of them are still friends, but for the most part our locomotives are no longer on the same tracks. This is called existing. Though it may be sad when someone exits stage left from your life, you can curl in a ball and whine about it, or move along with the knowledge they weren't supposed to be there forever.

Besides, these paths we are on are twisty, windy things and you don't know when they will intersect with someone else. New or old. If you start to feel sad about losing someone, remember, no one is ever truly lost. They live on inside you. For as long as you let them. Also, consider how many lives you've left.

If you're lucky, which I am, you get to keep the extra special individuals in your life. The ones who, no mater how long you are apart, will always be able to rely and depend on you, and you them. When you move away, you have text messages and Skype, letters, birthdays, and love. I like to think everyone is special to someone. My little circle is special to me and I like to think I am to them.

It's nice to know who will be there for you. The ones who will let you crash on their couch if you need a place to rest your head. Those that think about you every birthday and Christmas. And those extra special individuals who will read the rewrite of the first book you ever wrote and tell you it's just as good as the crappy first edition.

My circle is small, but those kids are jockstraps and wonderbras.

Supremely supportive.

And they are definitely people to mention here.