Personal

Crossroads: (Baby, I’m back)

Posted on by yknight

You know those moments in life when you’ve been dealt with more thank you feel you can bear, and you just need some time to get away. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to disconnect from everything – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, even your Blog, for a little while so you can recharge. Recently, that is what I was faced with; this feeling of being overwhelmed, and honestly, terrified.

I’ve had a lot on my plate over the past couple of weeks. Now that the dust has settled a little bit, I’m facing a fork in the road; a crossroads if you will.

We’ve all experienced it, or at least have seen it dramatized in some movie. That pivotal point in life where you just know in your gut that from this point forward, everything will be different. While in the movies, it’s made to seem so dramatic, and epic, in reality, it’s just plain scary.

I’m not sure if you all have quite gotten this part of my personality based off of my posts, but I LOVE to be in control. I make about 20 lists a day, and I have a 5 year plan for my life.To me, these lists and my 5 year plan helped me to believe that I knew what was coming next, and I was totally in control. But something happened recently (that I’ll eventually write about on here) that made me realize that couldn’t be further from the truth, and that left me feeling as though I passed off the reigns of my life to an invisible person, which scared me.

Being at a crossroads is terrifying, because it makes you to question everything. However, in my week of solitude, reflecting on the events of late, I began to get excited about the opportunity such as a “crossroads” can bring you.

Now, there are a couple of people that know me personally that read my blog, and know the nitty-gritty’s of my “life change’ , and to them (and to everything else, I guess, too) I say, I am NOT happy with what happened, and it’s something that I’m still battling with understanding and accepting, however I cannot allow something tragic to stop me from becoming the person I want to be, building my life and fulfilling my dreams. I’m choosing to look at this situation, this phase of my life as an opportunity. An opportunity to discover who I am, live life freely, and be boldly ME. There is not a thing holding me back, and there something in that, that feels incredible.

If something happened to you recently that has made you rethink everything, or maybe you hit rock bottom, or maybe you find yourself at a crossroads; think of this: This is the opportunity to burn the book and start over. This is your opportunity to go back to the drawing board and come up with something even more fantastic.

I have no idea where the next phase of my life will take me, what I do know though, is that I have the opportunity to grow and become the person I’ve dreamed of at this point. Because what is really holding me back?  What’s holding any of us back?

So this marks my return to my blog, are you ready?

A Personal Note to You

Posted on by yknight

Hi all!

I’m sorry I haven’t posted for a week; I’ve been dealing with so much in my personal life recently, that I haven’t had a chance to sit and breathe. Because of everything I’m dealing with currently, I will continue to take a couple of day to attempt to deal with what happened, and figure out my next course of action.

I’m so sorry for being absent from here, and I really hope you all understand. My first post when I get back will explain my story; what I’ve been dealing with for the past four years and the unfortunate turn it took this past week. The true reason why I started a blog was to tell my story, and it’s time I do so.

Thanks so much,

Knightlights

Piano Lessons

Posted on by yknight

Tuesday. It’s a day that is rarely spoken about; the “forgotten” day of the week.

When do we ever hear about Tuesdays? For me, Tuesday’s meant piano lessons as Mrs. Macmanus’ house. Piano lessons was something I used to have a love/hate relationship with. I loved listening to other people play, and had this deep rooted love for classical music (still do!), thanks to my father. However, when it came to playing myself, I hated it.

I’m such a perfectionist, if I played something even slightly differently as to how I heard it in my head, I would get mad at myself, slam on the white keys of the piano, and storm off. I would get so frustrated at my piano lessons when I had to do scales for half an hour, or had to play a piece I just could not get that you could totally see a steam coming out of my ears.

But even from a young age, I was not a quitter. I would not allow myself to stop doing something I started. So through my little fits while sitting on the leather black bench, I would keep working, and keep progressing. Eventually, after many, many attempts, I master the piece, and glow in pride over my accomplishment

There will be many times in life that we will want to slam on the keys of our piano. Moments, when you have to repeat scales, over and over again, and the hot steam will come out of your own ears. Those moments in life SUCK, but, they are important, because they teach us about who we are, and how we handle situations.

I had (and still have) my hissy fits, where I get overly worked up for something as minuscule as a missed note in a four page long piece. In the grand scheme of things, that missed note didn’t deter me from eventually mastering the piece. That one missed note, didn’t stop me from becoming a classically trained pianist.

So often in life, we get worked up over something so minor- whether we missed the bus we wanted to take, or not doing as well on an exam as we hoped. We allow these missed notes to become gaping holes in our days, when it reality, it didn’t really change the outcome of our lives. We still got to work on time (even if we had to run a little bit), we still passed our class with a solid average (even if we had to study a little harder for the next exam), we still mastered the piece, even if it required a different game plan.

In life, we will have to make adjustments. When I would play a section of a piece wrong in piano, often times, my piano teacher would stop me, and make notes on the music sheets. “Louder here, phrase here, Slow down here”. We will have to step back sometimes, take a look at the situation before us, and figure out what we need to work on; and make little marks on our music sheets, and that’s OK. The important thing is that we continue on, and keep working on mastering the piece.

Take a step back today, what is the piece you’re trying to master? Are you ready to slam onto the keys and walk away? Take a look at how far you’ve come and how much you owe it to yourself to keep going. Make the notes on your music, readjust, and continue. You’ll be a classically trained pianist in no time.

Wait

Posted on by yknight

I was so excited about my post last night, that I spent the night dreaming about what I would post today. I had this brilliant plan, with an amazing tagline, all set to post today. Seriously, I could barely sleep because I was so proud of this idea.

Then, something unimaginable happened.

“Please evacuate the building for an emergency”

If you managed to glance at a TV screen today, you probably saw the catastrophe that happened in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada this morning. If not, I’ll quickly fill you in.

This morning, an individual shot a solider standing guard at the War Memorial in Ottawa; a short walk from the Parliament and seat of our National Government. The individual then went up to Parliament Hill, and proceeded to exchange fire with the security personnel on the Hill; eventually being shot down by possibly (yet to be officially confirmed) the Sergeant-at-Arms.

The downtown core (so, if you’re not from Ottawa, that’s basically where a large percentage of the Government buildings and hot tourist spots are) has been under lockdown since 10AM today, because the police do not know if there is another shooter at large, and the police are not ready to let the public know what all they know (if they do) about the situation.

I was under lockdown for most of the day.  in fact, the lockdown at the location where I was located, was lifted long enough for me to get into a safer location. However, the entire tone of the day was so…eerie. There was this feeling of fear and uncertainty in the air. It in fact, was worse because in the heart of downtown, we had no idea what was going on; yet all of the drama (so to say) was happening blocks away. Cell phone service was down, we had little access to media, and we were going by the scant information given to us by police.

While I was sitting in my corner next to my co-workers and some books about various methods of cooking, I began to think of how little control we have in so many circumstances.

Here’s something about me: I’m a planner. No really. I’m a planner. I have a color-coded agenda, I have a ten step plan for my life, and as I said to one of my co-workers today, I have this need to be in control of every aspect of my life.

But, today, I had no control over the situation. Today, I had to rely on faith and hope that everything will be okay – without my 10 step plan. While I’m a firm believer in being proactive, and going after a situation, there is always a waiting period. There is always a period of waiting.

Today, if I waltzed on outside against police command, I could have been killed. In life, in a different way, if we go out against our gut, or our inner voice, we could be “killed”, figuratively speaking.

After we’ve done all we can do in a situation, sometimes what we have to do is sit back, sit tight, and wait for the clock to run.

And so we wait….

I finally did it Mom!

Posted on by yknight

I finally did it! I finally took the plunge and made a blog.

I’ve always wanted to have a blog, or at least a little place online that I could call my own. Obviously, in the social media centred culture that we have now, it’s not like there is a lack of options. But finding the right avenue for someone like me, was a bit of a challenge.

I’m a very private person; if there is anything said frequently about me, it’s that (and that I love cats too much, but that’s for another day).  To get me to open up about myself, is much like pulling teeth. When my girlfriends and I are out having coffee, I’m usually the one listening, rather than talking about anything that I may be going through at any given period of time.

So you’re probably wondering, why on earth would I want to blog to begin with?

I came to a point in my life where the question was “why not!” rather than “why should I?”. In a sense, I have nothing left to lose. Revealing yourself in a new way is always scary, and something I avoid; I play  the game of life very safely. However, I’ve come to a place in my life where playing it safe is no longer working for me. You can’t play life safely, because life in of itself isn’t safe. At all. My life has become an endless circle of the same experiences with different names, and I need more.

Heck, the most memorable experiences in my life were the odd times when I decided to step out into oncoming traffic (not actually, but work with me here!)

So, here I go, stepping into the middle of a highway.