Waiting for the bus to take me to Kwantlen for Creative Writing class.

I added some fake comments to that WordPress site I am working on now. I am still not happy with it. It is so had for me to create anything visual that meets my artistic standards. I want it to look exactly like a conspiracy based blog, but I keep hitting roadblocks.

I thought I was so clever when I decided to make the story sections blog posts instead of blog pages. Voila, instant comment section? But that only works if I can, as I assumed I could create users and post under their names, like I can do on this site.

But no, WordPress.com blogs don’t let you do that. Bugger. So I improvised. The result looks more like a chat log than comments, but it gets the idea across.

Luckily, only a rough version is due tonight. It will be the NEXT week where I have to knuckle down and make it look presentable.

(—)

In class now.

I am going to find a way to work in video. Video I can do. I certainly can put together some kind of “unanswered questions” conspiracy video. I might be able to do the “mysterious” anonymous audio clips. The one for the lady social worker will be… tricky.

I just need to get over my voice-acting stage fright. Or is that microphone fright?

There must be other things I can do with video. Something spooky.

It was very nice to cash my chech and get ALL of the money yesterday. Oh, the joys of being a bank customer. I will never pay Money Mart their “three dollars on the hun” any more.

Otherwise, today had been groovy. Did the therapy thing. Proud of myself for FINALLY remembering to skip the biographical update and head straight for the deep seated issues. That is a far more fruitful approach. Biographical updates yield no insights, just small talk.

And I don’t go to therapy for chitchat.

We ended up talking about Dad. It was that or Mom, and Dad won the mental coin toss. Normally I don’t talk about him much because I don’t like even thinking about him. And I think that, on some level, I decided that because I had mentally severed all connection to him (or thought I had), he wasn’t important. This seems childish and petty to me now.

I mean sure, when you are really angry with someone, the last thing you want to do us admit they are important to you. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t. In fact, if they are not important to you, why are you so damned angry at them?

And we are all born with a need for paternal emotionsl input. The competency and even the suitability of the actual father has no bearing on that. If there is a father in your life at all in your childhood, they are a vety big part of you, whether you accept them or not.

And my relationship with my Dad is… complicated.

I find myself wondering how my relationship with him would be now if he had not taken me out of college. That is something I find hard to forgive, and you can’t get over something without forgiveness. So many people get hung up on that.

Forgiveness is for you, not them.

So I am working on forgiving him. It seems impossible, but I can look back and see that I am far closer now than I have ever been before, so I must be doing something right. I am getting there.

It was such a petty, thoughtless, selfish act. Wrecked the life I was building. Pretty much threw me back into an adolescence that I am only escaping from now. All these years of depression started with that act.

I suppose he didn’t know that would happen.

(—)

Back home now. Walked. I decided that, since the bus I usually take, the 405, only takes me as far as Richmond Centre at this time of night, meaning I would have to walk two blocks anyhow, I might as well get some extra exercise and walk the 4 to 5 blocks from school to home.

Yes, I live that close and I take the bus. Shut up. It’s a fat guy/emotion security thing.

So I had a pleasant enough walk home. It was a clear, cold night, so my ears and hands got a little cold, but the air was clear and clean, and I am slowly teaching myself to stroll in a leisurely fashion instead of trying to get home as fast as I can so I can rest as soon as possible.

That, as it turns out, is counterproductive. When you push that hard, you adrenalize, and an adrenalized body is a stupid body. It burns up all its resources rapidly, it tenses your muscles in a way that makes any sort of movement short of sprinting after a gazelle painful, and it raises your heart and respiration rates regardless of whether it is actually necessary.

If you stay relaxed and calm, the body does not adrenalize, and activities become much, much easier because you are no longer fighting with your own body. And all it takes is finding that sweet spot where you are moving forward enough to feel like you are getting there, but not so hard that you have to push yourself to do it.

I was in no particular hurry tonight, so I strolled home at a pace I could maintain. And halfway there, I rested. When you are taking things easy, resting seems quite natural, and your brain is no longer screaming at you to KEEP GOING because somewhere there is DANGER.

There’s no danger. Relax. Stroll.

It also makes resting easier because it’s way, way less of a contrast to moving. This makes both stopping and going easier.

I really feel like I have discovered an important secret with this strolling thing. This could be a big help to fat people who want to exercise without agony.

Go only as fast as you can without pushing yourself. A rule for walking and possibly for life.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.