The Writer's Weekly

Happy Canada Day to you all!

I didn't get a paper today so I don't really have an idea for my writers in the media blog.

I still can't quite work up the habit to look at newspapers online so I will leave my media blog until next week.

Reconnecting with old friends is a really wonderful experience. I found a high school friend on Facebook and she seems so much like she was at 17. She is my age now of course with a daughter and all that, but her essence is the same and it's really wonderful to know about her life again.

Reconnecting with her has brought me back to myself somehow.

Relationships are so important to our lives, but North American culture focuses on quick and fast and convenient in just about everything. Food, money, sex--it's all about more, more, more.

There is nothing genuine in that however. In fact, that is in direct contrast to how most people live their lives. Maybe that's why, when we are lonely, we buy into that idea. But it is just that--an idea.

There is nothing even vaguely fulfilling about living a fast-paced life and treating everything, including people, as disposable. That is a recipe for disaster!

I think a lot of people find it overwhelming how important people are to their lives. It's also very hard to come to terms with the fact that we make our own realities so we should really spend a lot of time looking after ourselves.

A fast-paced life implies that other people should look after you, but that it's an 'in and out' kinda deal. Never stay too long in one place, no emotions, just satisfy your desire--whatever that may be--and run. Ooohhh...that gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

That's the way you hold people at arm's length and self-protect to the max.

I think reconnecting with my school friend made me realize that I was very alive when I knew her. I was 17 and the world didn't scare me and I just lived and really cared about the people in my life.

It is so great to feel that way about life again and it was no accident that I found her now. That's where I am and exactly where I want to be.