...so I resigned from my job today. I was pretty nervous about telling my boss since we're coming into High Holidays. She read my resignation letter and said, wow, you're going to Italy, this is great. we're sad for the loss but this is bigger than us, this is an opportunity for your future...She smiled, told me about when she moved to Israel, how she taught English and how she acclimated to life in Israel...said she'd go back in a heartbeat, in fact, she only came back to Canada because her husband wanted to. Her daughters and son all live far away and sure, she'd love to be closer together, but this is life.


do you have family or those friends that live far, but you see them again and it's like they just got back from a coffee run?

i miss some of my dearest friends everyday and we live in the same city.

were you raised and encouraged to live, i mean really, really live...learning, growing, sharing, being joyous, following your heart and dreams...achieving your goals...

i believe i was.

when you feel sad or lonely because the people you love the most are far away from you, don't you already know that they are loving you with every inch of their being wherever they are in the world and wishing you'd smile the way you do...laugh that way the makes your eyes light up and pick up the phone or a pen or open a computer and let them know you love them back times infiniti.

i read somewhere that you should keep your family and friends within hugging distance...that's ideal, true, but real is not letting your thoughts, memories and feelings toward family/friends fade because they're not right beside you...

I think I can count the number of times that I got to visit my Grandma Anderson and yet she sent me a handwritten note every year of my life since I could read even if we also talked on the phone.

I remember one of my down days in Madrid...I felt so homesick I thought my chest would cave and I didn't want anyone to know or feel bad (especially the family I was living with)...I got ready that morning and then skipped school, got on a bus and roamed around the city all day, by myself. I thought, how selfish was I to leave my Mum all alone for a year. What would she be doing right now (it's clear I didn't have a cell phone or i would have rang up a crap load of charges just to say hi and then she would have kicked my ass through the phone for skipping school).

In the end, the day ended. nobody said anything about me skipping school (miraculously because Belinda would have tore a mean strip off of me had she known), I didn't get to talk to my Mum...I did see a few new areas of Madrid, take a walk through el Parque Retiro, practice my spanish at some news kiosks where I bought a lemon fanta and some candy...and then made it home before my host parents got back from work.

life doesn't stop. and it's ok to feel sad, for whatever reason, but your more loved than you know and everyday that your breathing, walking, fed, safe, it's better to focus on being thankful for your well being and live life doing the best you can as though you were surrounded by your loved ones and setting an example.



"I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich".
~Dan Wilcox and Thad Mumford, "Identity Crisis," M*A*S*H

"The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life's essential unfairness".
~Nancy Mitford

"If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct".
~Letty Cottin Pogrebin