tailoredbutterfly-blog

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02.02.2020

Groundhog day! Travel day! 

Today is my first day travelling by myself. Many times before today I have travelled long distances, but always with a companion. My mother, my university friends, my husband; they have all joined me on my journeys. Today is different. Today I am travelling for work - travelling for myself. 

Work and my actual self are two in the same. It’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Working for your community feels like a never ending job. I’m a community health and cultural representative, so I work out of our “Health and Wellness Centre”. The quotations are there because it’s not much of a centre. We operate out of our head office’s basement essentially. It’s one large room with a second smaller room in the back - now its own individual room if you close the unlocking sliding door. The bathroom is attached to the smaller backroom, making it difficult to operate in the office when one of us is seeing clients. 

Working in this position has me wishing I had finished schooling and had taken indigenous social work. It would be considered an asset. But being the silly girl that I am, I put that aside, not wanting to be hidden under the shadow of being my mother’s daughter. 

What’s even more ridiculous is that even though I didn’t want to be recognized or acknowledged as my mother’s daughter. I moved back to my home community where I am recognized first as my grandfather’s granddaughter, then my mother’s daughter and then myself. 

These past 2 years living in my home community has made me realize how important family ties are - not for the leverage but for the general understanding. We are nothing without our past. Just cold stranger vessels. 

That doesn’t mean that if your past is horrible that you need to acknowledge it or be recognized by it, but who are you as a person if not someone who rose from the ashes or someone who is running from something bigger than themselves? 

I’m a big believer in being independent, but great self power comes from acknowledging those roots. The work that I am doing now is the work that my grandfather started a 3 decades ago, but was turned away because “we aren’t there yet”. I remember by grandmother telling me that my grandfather used to say, if not now then when? 

If not now, when?

Those are big words. Huge ginormous words that could paralyze anyone. For awhile I was frozen, unsure of what to do. But I put my neck out for our community. I risked losing a position I was already in to fill a different position. The position I fill now is not one that ever existed. It was created for me, for the knowledge I carry. I am a cultural carrier. I carry teachings from my Elders and provide them to those that are lost. I am a story collector. I realized that once I started listening, people just continued talking. Telling me about their past, their present and what they hope to see in the future. 

In my 24 years of life I had listened to everyone from different walks of life. Everyone wants to be acknowledged, and to know that what they do matters. But those are just concepts derived from stories. No one straight out tells you what they want out of life. They usually begin by telling you what is going wrong, and then touching on the past - when things were good, before redirecting themselves to the future asking themselves “what would my life look like if I hadn’t…” 

When I look back at my own life, I always wonder what it would look like if I hadn’t certain choices. But then I think, without those choices I wouldn’t be married, working for my community, working everyday to better myself and my fellow community members. I would probably be killing myself in a different field of work, trying to just make money to cover my bills and saving up the rest. 

I struggle constantly wondering what my life would be like if I hadn’t gotten married. More lately than ever before. We’ve been struggling lately, and it seems like neither of us want to admit it. We’ve just been existing alongside each other, and coming alive when other people enter the room or our lives. 

It saddens me to think that I was once very happy with my husband and our crazy little life. But the last year almost destroyed us. Now we need to rebuild. 

[tailoredbutterfly-blog]

02.08.2020

Heading home today. Going back full of love, inspiration and ready to tackle the world. 

I made so many new friends that I will be visiting this summer - whether my partner wants to join me or not. Two inuk friends, 2 mi’gmaq friends and 3 ojibwe friends from Manitoba. 

My inuk friends took care of me all week. Taking me out for breakfast and for dinner, hanging out with me at night. I am grateful for each of them in their own ways. N was my favourite person this week. We are so much a like, it was comforting having someone I could open up to and be close with. L was a different kind of comfort. He opened my eyes to a whole new culture, a new way of life and a new way of thinking. He reminded me that men can be friends too. Granted, I think we were both lowkey flirting with each other. But it was tons of fun and quite harmless. I will always remember our Wednesday Karaoke night, where N and I rocked the stage together (twice!) and how I found the courage to go up alone and sing You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. Together we sang Don’t Stop Believing and Follow Me. I will also never forget the night after when L and I stayed up past midnight just watching youtube videos, sharing stories and drinking my new favourite Inuk tea! I managed to grab a few bags to bring back home with me in hopes our business will be able to order them and have them in store. 

Now if only late Summer could get here so I could go visit them. I miss them already. They spent our last night with me, and we had breakfast prior to my flight. L and N  hugged me so tight - to last me until summer they said. My heart is full. For the first time I did not cry when saying goodbye. Because I know it is not goodbye but see you soon. Baamaapii giwaabamiin 

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01.28.2020

I am grateful today for sleep. 

I often fight it because I feel like I have so much to do in a day. Or it doesn’t come because my mind is blocking the melatonin with all of my anxious thoughts. 

I have to commit to going to bed. I have to commit to closing my eyes and finding peace. 

I have been either listening to audiobooks or music when I really can’t sleep, but reading a book before bed seems to get my eyes nice and tired. More willing to stay closed rather than panic. 

FOMO is real guys. LOL

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Beautiful artwork! 

It’s so wonderful to see indigenous art reflecting the strength and resiliency of our people. The government talks a big game about reconciling with the indigenous population but we have yet to see it! When are we going to see the land that our ancestors once walked upon and treated with respect? When are we going to see our indigenous languages in schools? When are we going to see our history and our stories in the school curriculum? 

We are here. We are indigenous. We are resilient. We aren’t going anywhere! 

piper mclean

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it’s okay to...

miss how things were.

take time off to just heal.

cry, get angry, be upset.

not know how you feel.

handle your emotions differently than others.

put yourself before others.

cut people out of your life.

ask for help.

say no.

make mistakes.

be wrong about something.

have bad days.

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This song is definitely on my morning wake up list. I find the beat very appealing when I am moving around the kitchen or in the shower. The Upbeat nature of this song puts my mind in a great place to tackle the day. 

This song also reminds me of my beautiful friend Amanda. When I hear it I picture her smiling and dancing around like nobody is watching <3 

[tailoredbutterfly-blog]

01.21.2020

I started my morning off the way I assume most of you do. I snoozed my alarm clock, rolled over and stole another 20 minutes of rest. 

I find I do this a lot when my mind or my heart is overwhelmed. 

When I was a little girl, I learned to control my dreams. I keep a dream bank in my mind, a list of a few of my favourite dreams that I like to pop back into every now and again. I’d like to keep a dream journal, jot down everything I can remember and pull it a part. Really dive deep into the meanings of some of my dreams, but it all ends up being speculation. No one really knows why we dream of what we dream of, just that we do. 

My battle to wake up in the morning is most often caused by lack of sleep. I find myself constantly saying that I will be going to bed at a certain time, and try to maintain that consistency but it is impossible. 

In the New Year, I decided that I was going to focus on my internal health. Meaning that I was going to put healthy foods into my body, give it rest, give it a challenge and stop wasting it on scrolling social media. 

It’s been 2 weeks since, and I have to admit that I am feeling better than ever. More motivated at work, more eager to help out around the house, more eager to get outside and get active. 

However, the feel-good-feeling doesn’t have the power to get me out of bed in a way that I get up and say to myself, “Yes! Today is your day! Let’s go!” 

What has changed however, is how I talk to myself in the morning. I do a self-check in. All done silently, in my mind, and all done in about 2 minutes. I check in with my body, doing a quick inventory of any aches or pains that weren’t there when I went to bed. I check in with my mind, setting aside thoughts of what is ahead and instead focusing on what is right in front of me. 

I keep my morning to do list short and sweet. 

1. Open your eyes

2. Stretch

3. Get out of bed

DONE. If I accomplish those things, I am already winning. 

I usually proceed to the bathroom, relieve myself and then scurry downstairs to start the coffee pot. If I am feeling particularly energetic, I will run back upstairs and take a quick hot shower so that when my coffee is ready, I am also ready. 

Prior to the New Year, I would spend my morning rushing around, scrolling facebook when I’d finally sit down, notice I was almost late and then run off to work. 

This year, I find waking up a half hour to an hour before I normally do gives me the time to truly wake up before heading into work, which my coworker sooo appreciates. 

Once I am freshly showered, dressed and have done something with my mop of hair, I grab my cup of coffee and head into the back porch. Instead of scrolling Facebook, I put on some music to set my mood, open up Flipboard and see what articles the app has generated for me today. 

*For those of you unfamiliar with Flipboard, it is an app that personalizes articles to your interest. You simply flip through the articles and you have an option to heart (if you like it) and/or save it to a “Magazine” that you create for yourself*

If my eyes haven’t quite woken up yet or if I am not in the mood to read so early in the morning, I will open up Youtube and watch a few TED Talks. 

My goal for the New Year is to gain more perspectives, to eat healthy and to commit less time to social media. 

For those of you still reading, Thank you. I appreciate you. Please let me know how you get ready in the morning. 

I look forward to hearing back from you, fellow reader. I would brew you a cup of coffee or a cup of tea if I could, just so we could sit and connect. 

TB <3 

[tailoredbutterfly-blog]

I am the architect of my life; I build its foundation and choose its contents

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