Erin's Journals

Just a thought… The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. [Leo Tolstoy]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

So, hey! Nice to have you here after a week that, for me, has seen a lot of talking, walking, sitting and sharing. Yes, as I mentioned, my sister Cindy – the one who lives in a primarily Canadian and American community in Mexico called Ajijic – came to visit.

Cindy got here safe and sound and we headed straight for my happy place, which soon became hers: Shirley, BC. It’s near Sooke if you’re looking it up (and you should).

We put on our visors, (top down on the MINI, of course) for the hour-long drive outside Victoria. We strolled the beach, admired the views…

…with breezy sunshine and highs in the mid-teens.

Stayed warm in this water but not the ocean, thanks…

…and by a perfect wood fire in the evening.

Mostly, we took time to breathe. To inhale the indescribable beauty and the peace. The quiet and solitude.

You may recall I told you Cindy’s story a few months ago: married for 40 years, her husband decided to leave her for an American woman he met after he and Cindy had moved all the way to Mexico. Now, Cindy’s like me – like my mom and all four of her daughters, for that matter. When the world shudders or falls apart completely, she takes steps to steady it. And she has taken solid steps to keep moving forward and, heck, some days, just to keep standing tall.

To that end, some of our time was also spent online where she’s starting to dip her toes into the idea of the dating world after four decades of “Status: Married.” Okay, now that was an experience. Writing a profile; how do you sum up who you are so that others will see if you’re a good fit, while also being honest, but not too honest, interesting but not weird, and so on. I have enough trouble with my Twitter bio for heaven’s sake. But there she is, sifting through people who might be a good match according to Facebook’s dating algorithms, and deciding what steps, if any, to take next.

Honestly, I get anxious just thinking about it. I know dating sites have worked for a lot of people, and maybe I’ve watched too many Dateline episodes (as if that’s a thing) but it seems an awful lot of these guys either have a background in creative writing or they seem too good to be true. Of course, I worry for my sister because she’s early in recovery from heartbreak. Like death, it’s a kind of grief that you get through but not over. Well, maybe with new love – who knows? I guess I have to trust she knows what she’s doing and that the universe will give her a break.

Tomorrow she’s off to Kelowna for another sister visit and to see Dad for the first time in three years. Did her stay here help? I don’t know – I can only hope. Often, time itself is the only thing that helps. But if this isn’t part of the prescription…

…I don’t know what is. Have a gentle week. I’ll be in touch as always every day on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Oh, and thank you for helping put my Drift sleep stories in the top 1.5% of downloaded podcasts worldwide. Tomorrow, I’ll be releasing my take on The Frog Prince. You’ll be able to get it here. Sweet dreams!

Just a thought… When I die I want my tombstone to offer free WiFi just so people will visit more often. [Author Unknown]

Ooh – that’s a little too close to home after Friday’s big Rogers service disruption. Anyway, hi! You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Can we talk about expiry dates? Not the ones on food – I’ll save that for another time, I promise – and thanks if you weighed in on a social media question I asked last Friday.

No, I want to talk about our expiry dates. I will apologize right from the jump if this seems insensitive to you because someone you know is very ill or has just passed. You know our story about loss thanks to Mourning Has Broken: Love, Loss and Reclaiming Joy and believe me, I feel you. And thanks again to the lady who sent a picture of her copy now for whomever happens to borrow it from her little book nook. Love this.

But it’s this particular day on the calendar that has me thinking of expiries and here’s why: ever since I was a child, two dates have stuck out in my head (I thought for no good reason): May 11 and July 11. Sounds strange, I know. But seven years ago I learned why May 11 was in bold letters in my life, as that’s the day that a big part of me left this earth, in the form of our daughter.

Which brings me to July 11. Unless you’re reading something on the internet tomorrow (if my departure should garner any attention at all) then I’ve made it through another July 11. And no, it’s not that I have some fixation on 7-11 stores. Maybe they’re where I’ll buy a winning lottery ticket. Who knows?

But it gets me to thinking: how do we want to be remembered? I don’t mean in deeds and legacies, those “big picture things,” but how do people decide which picture should be the one for that “final write-up?”

Is it from a headshot taken for your job, or an event where you were dressed to the nines and looking particularly fancy?

Maybe it’s you doing something you loved or finally got to do once.

Look, just like everybody under the ground in Egypt there, when I’m gone I’m not going to care. But please make sure that my picture doesn’t have too many chins, I’m looking happy but not drunk, and there’s a nice background.

Or maybe you should choose your own or decide who gets to pick. Because if I know my family, it’ll be this one.

I know it’s a weird thing even to think about on a summer day, but blame July 11. Meantime, you have yourself a good week and I’ll be here with you next Monday.

My sister’s visiting us tomorrow from Mexico via Toronto so that’s exciting (if she gets out of Pearson). Honestly! But when she does get here, it’ll offer me a chance to be a tourist in my own area. And with gas prices, airlines and airports as they are, I think we all need a bit more of that. Thanks for coming by!

Just a thought… Focus on what others have and you feel that you have so little. Focus on what you do have and you realize that you have so much. [Hrishikesh Agnihotri]

Welcome in. You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

We had a beautiful Canada Day weekend, and I hope you did, too. Fireworks were held on the 30^th in our nearby town of Sidney and we were fortunate enough to be able to watch them from our house, about ten minutes’ worth of sparkles, booms and bangs that delighted the nearly-three- and eight-year-olds in our house. And the adults too, of course.

On Friday we took Colin to Sidney’s festivities (Jane is still prone to take off, so we’ll hold off ’til next year) where there was fun with firetrucks…

…bubbles with Grandude…

…ice cream, warm little donuts and, randomly enough, a great big kissable pig…

…along with a roaming raptor – but not of the NBA type.

After time at a vacant school playground, Colin and his grandparents were well and truly pooped, with a phone full of video and pictures and lots of great stories.

Today, just to the south of us, it’s our neighbours’ turn to mark their birthday. But what troubled times these are. The formerly “Supreme” Court has become, as Jon Stewart put it, “the Fox News of justice.” And before someone tells you as a Canadian “don’t clutch your pearls” over this decision, or “mind your own business” over that one, just remember that the recent ruling about the EPA and emission limits being lowered affects us all on this tiny blue dot we call Earth.

Especially us, their closest neighbours. It’s all our business, and frankly, a lot of people – especially women and even young girls who have lost bodily autonomy in many states – are not celebrating any kind of so-called independence today. What on earth are we watching happening in real time when a gun has more protection and rights than a woman? And more to the point, other than being vigilant here as we read the headlines and stories behind them, what can we do?

It’s a small thing, but a big one at the same time: we can stop believing and retweeting lies and opinions as facts. We can do our own research, not as scientists, but as those wishing not to be spreaders of false news. We can be proud of our standing, as statistically and consistently one of the freest (right there between Finland and Ireland)…

…and safest nations on earth.

In these languid and lovely days of summer, we can and should take time to be happy and grateful, but not complacent. We can continue to strive to protect our democracy, be anti-fascism (the actual meaning of the term Antifa) and use that gratitude we feel to make Canada better. Not “better than the United States,” just better than we were yesterday.

Tonight, again as a family, we’ll stay up and watch the fireworks dotting the hills and towns across the water and border from us: a beautiful distraction from the many disasters unfolding constantly in our news feeds.

And tomorrow, we’ll continue to hope for an eventual return to sanity, along with the prayer that, unlike those emissions, the toxicity will stop at the border. Please do stay safe, stay vigilant, stay grateful and never, ever be complacent. I’m sorry to say it, but if we think The Handmaid’s Tale that’s unfolding before our eyes can’t happen here, we’re not paying attention.

Join me any night on Drift for a sweeter kind of story, free thanks to enVy Pillow – and thanks to Goodpods for adding me to their recommendations this week. Listen wherever you download podcasts or simply click here. I don’t know about you, but I can use a happy ending these days. Be well.

Just a thought… You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. [John Bunyan]

Now that we’re pared these video journals down to one a week, I feel a need to keep these messages on the upside. You can watch a video version on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

So despite the seismic waves we’re feeling these days from unrest in our own nation’s capital and, of course, the decision made south of our border by their quote-unquote Supreme Court, let me jump ahead a bit this week to Thursday.

June 30^th will mark a three year birthday for me. We don’t call it an anniversary; it’s a birthday, for the rebirth that comes with sobriety. Three years since I finished that carefully measured-out half bottle of cold pinot grigio, and said “no more.”

Now, of course, it’s more like “not today.” And so far, so good. In the past three years, I’ve gotten emails from women who wanted to know how I did it. So I’ve written this and thought today I’d share it. You can do with it what you will – maybe even nudge a friend to watch or read it. I just feel this might be of help. There’s an awful lot of frustration out there, as there was the week I broke my 10 years of sobriety, following Trump’s election and my announcement I was resigningfrom CHFI. So, if I may, please let me share this message with you.

Because You Wrote Asking How I Did It…

by Erin

You’ve gotten to a point where you’re worried that you’re more than a “social” drinker. Whether it’s self-isolation, recent retirement, boredom or stress, you have found your intake of wine, cocktails, beer – whatever – on the rise. And you don’t like it.

I mean, you do like it at the time – most of us do – but you don’t like the knowledge that when you open that bottle of Pinot, you know you’re not leaving any by the time you go to bed. You might even open another, right?

You like how that first sip of an icy martini or a spicy Caesar just gets you a little warm all over, like a wash of wellness and comfort that starts at your toes and gently rises up until the colour comes to your cheeks.

That colour. Rosy red that is starting to show on your face the morning after. Are those broken capillaries? Huh. You haven’t noticed them because you’re busy applying concealer to the dark circles under your eyes. Under-eye concealer, eye drops, Ibuprofen: the i’s have it. As in “I think I have a problem.”

You likely chide yourself for having such a thought; you know plenty of people who drink way more than you, and none of them has considered asking for help or thought they might need to examine their intake. I mean, how many DUIs have you had? Well, none. You plan ahead and do your drinking at home; no one in your office or circle of friends would ever imagine that after sipping your one beverage slowly when you’re with them, you go home and can’t wait to crack open that bottle that has been patiently anticipating your return.

You can’t have a problem; you really only drink on Fridays and weekends! And never alone. Okay, rarely. You deserve to sip a glass or three of wine while you read a good book. It’s civilized; all of the memes online say so. Cook with wine (and even put some in the food!). Drink to survive parenting. Drink to survive Covid. Drink to deal with stress. Drink to forget. Drink to celebrate. Drink to mourn. Drink. Drink. Drink. What kind of a wuss would you be if you stopped?

Your clever brain tells you that you don’t possibly have a problem: you count your drinks, after all. You aren’t like those people whose elevator has gone all the way down, living in the streets with no home and seemingly no hope; you know when to stop. You can’t imagine walking yourself into a 12-step meeting (although all you know of them is 50s movies with smoky rooms filled with forlorn fedora-wearing failures). You forget the glamorous types: Mary Tyler Moore, Dick Van Dyke, Ringo Starr, Elton John, Jann Arden, Robert Downey Jr., Bradley Cooper, Jon Hamm, Rob Lowe, Daniel Radcliffe…and that’s just a few.

But if they do cross your mind, you remember that they’re all rich. They must all have gone to some posh resort and gotten sober in anonymity, your sharp mind tells you. Yes, most of those people, if not all, have a lot of zeroes in their bank account (in the right places, mind you). But you’re forgetting the meetings, those 12-step gatherings, where there’s no bouncer at the door, just a greeter. Who you think you are, what you earn or what you have is immaterial; it’s what you want – sobriety – that is the only price of admission.

I was tired of hiding. Tired of feeling ashamed. Tired of not moving forward. Tired of looking so tired. Tired of the weight gain. Tired of the lethargy. Tired of depression. Tired of the fog: forgetting words when I needed them, having to check emails to see if I’d answered, tired of not knowing how a movie ended. Just. So. Tired.

If you’re tired, you know, a brighter morning awaits. And however you decide to stop – whether it’s writing to a stranger or calling a friend, Googling “find AA meeting near me” (online these days too), looking up treatment centres or picking up a book that resonates with you (for me it was The Thinking Person’s Guide to Sobriety by Bert Pluymen) and reading it, then re-reading it numerous times – it’s never too early and never too late. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” they say.

Some of us quit in our forties (and again in our fifties); others in their twenties, and some even in their sixties or seventies. It doesn’t matter what year, just the day you wake up and say you just don’t want to feel like this anymore: sluggish and filled with regret and remorse for the precious days you’re just wasting, the days when you feel like doing nothing except counting the hours ’til the wine comes out of the fridge or it’s time to crack that beer. That’s the day it all begins. The day you say no more…but just for today.

Because that’s all it is: today…and hope for another one. Why else do you think we say “One Day at a Time?”

Have a gentle week and I’ll return next Monday. Happy Canada Day!

Just a thought… An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. So when life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means that it’s going to launch you into something great. So just focus, and keep aiming. [Paulo Coelho]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Ah, summer: a time for many people to kick back and take on a lighter schedule. Just try getting an appointment over the next two months!

In a way, I’m doing just that; in another way, it’s quite the opposite. But I am, as the quote above suggests, pulling back.

See, when our son-in-law Phil and his wife Brooke and their two wonderful kids Colin and Jane moved all the way out here to Vancouver Island from the Ottawa area two years ago, the promise was that we’d be here for them.

So, with the school year ending, camps all ramping up and lots of other family events planned, I want to give them all the attention that Rob and I can. And that means spending just a little less time at the keyboard or in my green screen studio, not always pondering what the next journal should be about. It means spending more time being present in real life.

I began doing video journals at the start of the pandemic because I really felt we needed more connection – all of us. I’m not stopping doing journals, but I think you may agree (at least I hope that you do) that with three podcasts on the go and these semi-weekly journals, I’m busier than your average 50-something retiree. ReWiree…yes, that’s more like it.

I had an epiphany on the recent river cruise and I think that I am only one in several million who has had this same awakening over the past two-plus years: with the fear of a deadly virus, and the constant fight that ensued about the pros and cons of everything from masks to vaccines and restrictions, I’ve gone inside quite literally and figuratively. But it’s warm and safe in here. And you know what? I’m not sure if I can come out again.

The final two days of the cruise I spent not feeling well at all and, out of an abundance of caution, stayed locked in our cabin. Rob went out cycling on the Saturday, but on Sunday, he decided to do the same. It wasn’t that we were fatigued with the socializing! Yes, the dance wore me out, but that’s because I’m out of shape.

Of course we were worried about Covid, but it was really a metaphor for something else and, please, it’s not about the people I was with. Many of them were and are friends and it was a joy to be around them. But I just don’t think I have much to say anymore. I don’t have a recently published book, there’s no radio show and what can I tell people about stories that are meant to put them to sleep without, well, putting them to sleep?

That trip reminded me of how much I love home. I always used to be ready for the next great adventure, but I’m afraid that “sheltering in place” has gotten me far too comfortable not wearing makeup, not worrying about wrinkles in my linen clothes, not worrying about putting on anything but pj’s. If it was up to me, Mike and I would have hosted the cruise looking like this (Okay, maybe without the accessories).

So I’m going to pull this arrow back a little bit; zoom out to find that perspective that I used in a quote last week during the “lost luggage” blog. And to that end, my journals will be on Mondays only for the duration of the summer.

If you or I feel as if that’s not enough, we’ll talk about it and see what to do. Of course, I’ll still maintain a daily presence on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and even TikTok as the occasion arises. And I will love staying connected with you there.

It’s not that there’s anything wrong, but as I see myself fading into the background, unless something big brings me back out to centre stage, I have to listen to that call to centre myself. Which isn’t, I hope you’ll agree, self-centred – just a little gentler. And isn’t that what summer’s pace is all about?

Have yourself a lovely weekend and I’ll be back here with you Monday. I think Mondays still work best – hopefully for you, too – and, of course, I invite you always to stay in touch and to listen to Drift where you love podcasts. And thank you. Always, thank you.