A bit of winter introspection

I've always been very introspective. I think it has something to do with my brain that never stops thinking a million miles a minute and the fact that I am very critical of myself. I've always been driven, and sought out things that would aid my personal development, and been quite aware of where I'm at, and what I'm feeling at any given moment. That and I like to write and record. These traits naturally complement 'introspection' or the examination or observation of one's own mental and emotional processes.

There are a few times of year where introspection seems to creep up a bit more overtly than others. Making its way from the back of my ever playing mental tape to the forefront. Commanding solitude and time dedicated simply to reflection, introspection and thought as the main event. September, marked for years as a fresh start, a new school year, new challenges and new beginnings. And December marked by cold and crisp icy mornings, the ability to see your breath as the street crunches beneath your feet and you gather with friends and family to welcome a new year and say goodbye to the past.

So here I am, being introspective and reflecting on the year I’ve had. The year we’ve all had. I’ve heard from friends, from family, from strangers that 2014 was a particularly rough year. An unhealthy and unsupportive work environment saw me change jobs and enter a new field in May, to be followed by a stressful and all time consuming municipal campaign to which I devoted my every waking moment and squeezed every last drop of energy into. Coming off the campaign to an unstable political environment saw me forced to assume a new position in a new part of the province that will test my skills, patience and perseverance. The sudden unexpected death of my great-uncle, my partner’s brother being diagnosed with cancer, addictions issues effecting family members added to the stress of an already heavy and stressful years full of change. Buying a house with my siblings and the help of my late grandfather who left us money to invest, moving in with my brothers and my partner, getting a dog (Mikko), and feeling torn between where I am now and where I want and need to go.

This year has been heavy, and its been hard. But in heavy moments where it feels as though I’ll be crushed by the sheer weight of it I often feel the most strength because (even though I must remind myself) I have yet to be buried alive. Time and time again, I step up with the weight on my shoulders and figure out how to take steps to reducing the weight, and I continue to take steps (sometimes tiny steps) until it feels less heavy and I can see that it’s going to be okay, and that I’ve proven myself again to be perseverant, determined, and that nothing can crush my will for too long.

My little sister, Sierra (18), is currently in France working as an au pair for a family that lives on a ski hill and runs the restaurant. She left last week but is having a tough time dealing with homesickness, missing family, and battling with thoughts that she is not strong enough to tackle the challenge she has chosen for herself. I see a lot of myself in her. She took a chance (as I often do) to thrust herself abruptly into the unknown. Got swept up in the excitement of the change, the challenge, the adventure and barrelled on ahead full speed. Now, in quiet moments, she finds herself wondering “what the hell am I doing?”

I can’t help but remember feeling the same way when I was on the last flight into Tegucigalpa for in 2010. It sunk in as to what I was about to do. Live in a foreign place where I didn’t speak the language, a place I was told was dangerous, and work with an NGO that I knew nothing about and knew no one. I would have to learn a language, find a place to live, develop relationships, make friends, conduct research, and do it completely alone. Surely I must be out of my mind, or have seriously overestimated my own abilities. I felt suspended in freefall. My breath catching in my throat and forming a lump in the bottom of my stomach. But we know how it worked out. I learned Spanish. I found a place to live with a family I grew to love. I made friends, developed relationships, completed research and helped the NGO develop a program to engage youth which I then delivered. I went out on my own and took buses, and ferries, and hoped on the back of mopeds and saw the country. I visited friends in El Salvador and tried my hand at surfing. In fact, 4 years ago today I was on a bus headed to Santa Rosa de Copan to see a new part of the country, welcomed by a new friend and her family.

Some days, it feels as though the “Delaney” who had the guts and the confidence to embark on that type of adventure is a different person. That if tasked with the same thing today I would be unable to deliver. But I know that’s untrue. I know that whatever the obstacle, the challenge, the upset, or the adventure I will approach it the same way. Figuring out what I need to do, what needs to get done, taking it apart, and making sure it happens. By playing to my strengths, by giving myself time and allowing myself to feel weak and sad, but reminding myself of my proven track record of strength, determination and courage.

I know my sister will figure out, in her own way in her own time, how to do just that because I see that in her as well, even if she doesn’t. Learning about ourselves, being honest with ourselves, and pushing ourselves to do better and be better is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves. A gift that sometimes hurts more than we’d like it to as it can only be found in moments of discomfort and isolation, but a gift that we should cherish none the less.


In reflection,
Delaney C.

Not All Men

It’s Monday. I’m going home at 6pm and a middle aged man and a teenage boy are the only people left on the bus with me. I consider the fact that because the driver is also a man I am the only person left on the bus with the correct genetic makeup for boobs. I’m automatically scared, scared because of my own anatomy. I wonder how old I was when I realized that my own body was going to be the cause of the constant anxiety and fear I feel in situations like this. I get off at the last stop and the older man smiles at me while following me up the street. His smile drips, drips, drips and my heart is pounding, pounding, pounding. He turns off down another road, but I run the rest of the way home.

Not all men.

I’m at home on a Tuesday, beginning to plan the travels I want to go on next year. I dream of wandering the streets and meeting strangers. I just can’t wait to escape the city I’ve lived in for 17 long years. But… my mum is hesitant. She’s forever worried about the danger that being a young girl traveling alone can bring. I’ll be alone and she’s scared. Surely I’m invincible. I feel invincible. But I know, I know this danger is real and I can’t help but think to myself, if I feel unsafe in my own city, how am i going to feel in a strange place with strange men who don’t speak the same language as me? If I was my brother planning this, I would probably just be wondering if European girls are going to be hot.

Not all men.

Wednesday is a beautiful sunny day but I’ve always been told that I don’t have a “nice enough body” to wear a bikini on the beach. Ever since I was 6 years old I’ve thought that having tummy fat was ugly. That skin that doesn’t have a perfectly golden glow is undesirable. I amble to a clear patch of sand in my one piece and I can feel pairs of eyes latching onto me. Hairy men in speedos who I don’t look twice at eat into my body with their stares. I’m a piece of meat. I am a piece of meat? I am here for their amusement. Please don’t let me be eaten alive.

Not all men.

Thursday night two friends and I are walking to our god damn school dance when we hear “Jesus look at you! You sluts heading to a pole?” These words snarl out of the mouth of a respectably dressed man and we stop in horror. Shivers roll up my back in fear. It’s dark. We are alone. What. Do. We. Do??? One of us pulls the finger back. I can never be sure how quickly a sexist man can get angry so we walk quickly away. We’re angry, so so angry. But also so… deflated. I wonder if we deserve this shame.

Not all men.

Sitting on the internet, Friday night and scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed:

“Haha, good job at the game today bro. You RAPED them!”
“Damn with tits like that, you’re asking for it :P”
Another sexist comment…
Another sexist comment…
Another sexist comment…
I’m shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and I want to CRY because these boys don’t realize how small they make me feel with just pressing a few keys. I see these boys on the streets, I talk to these boys, I laugh with these boys. Dear GOD, dear GOD i hope these boys don’t think actions speak louder than words…

Not all men.

Three rules that have been drilled into me since I was young run through my mind at 1.30am on a Satur… Sunday Morning:

-Don’t ever talk to strange men
-Don’t ever be alone at night in a strange place
-Don’t ever get into a car with a stranger
I break all 3 of these laws as I pull open the taxi door. Making light conversation with the driver, he doesn’t see my sweaty hand clutching the small pocket knife I keep hidden on me at all times. He doesn’t even realize the fear I feel at his mere presence. He cannot comprehend it, he never will. How easy would this 15 minute car ride be if I was born a boy?

Not all men.
It comes to Sunday, another snoozy, sleepy, Sunday and someone has the AUDACITY to tell me not all men are rapists. I say nothing.

I’m a 17 year old girl.
When I am walking alone and it’s dark, it’s all men.
When I am in a car with a man I don’t know well, it’s all men.
When men drunkenly leer at me on the streets, it’s all men.
When a boy won’t leave me alone at a party, it’s all men.
Not all men are rapists. But for a young girl like me? Every one of them has the potential to be.

Not.
All.
Men.

My sister, Sierra, found this on tumblr and shared it with me. The writer does an excellent job at articulating how as a women I know it's Not All Men who perpetuate sexism, violence against women,and who make public space a dangerous place for me as a women to occupy.

I recently got in an argument had a discussion with my 24 y/o brother who was frustrated with "being painted with the same brush" as men who are sexist and oppressive when he himself is not. He challenged me saying, "if people are going to assume I am sexist or oppressive simply because I'm white and male, then what's the incentive" for him to make sure that he is not. I had trouble articulating my thoughts with him aside from saying that it's the right thing to do, and that as a women I'm judged every day due to sexism, and we don't always get to decide how people see us or perceive us to be.

One of the differences being that my safety is constantly in question and top of mind, while his feelings may be the only thing to be harmed. He routinely walks home from work in the exchange and downtown to Wolesely and West Broadway at 2 am. An experience he finds calming, enjoyable, and freeing for me is experience filled with anxiety, concern for my safety leaving me hyper aware of my surroundings, going out of my way to stay on well lit streets, and switching to the opposite side of the street to avoid other groups of people. I'd like to think I'm overreacting, being more cautious then necessary, but on more then one hundreds of occasions I've been yelled at, grabbed, and made to feel uncomfortable and unsafe.

I remember one evening leaving Old Market Square after closing down the Jazz Festival and finishing my volunteer shift. I started walking towards my apartment at the corner of River and Donald feeling content with the evening, the fact that at 2:30am it was warm, people were milling about, and I was going to meet a friend and have a beer. As I approached portage avenue a man came up to me and started talking to me. I kept walking while being polite, making it clear that I was headed on my way. I wasn't scared until he grabbed my arm. He grabbed my arm forcefully saying something along the lines of "you're pretty, you're alone, and we should get to know each other."

I'm not small by any means, but I remember feeling terrified. Easily overpowered. I managed to yank my arm out of his hand, kept walking forward and he lost interest. A minuted later, shaken up, I saw a cab and jumped in not wanting to take any more chances that evening. I hoped in the back and as I was giving my address realized the male cab driver was accompanied by a male friend whom sat beside him in the front seat. Again, I immediately felt unsettled, outnumbered and that there was the potential for danger. Was I safer on the street? Or safer in a cab? The ride was short. I hopped out blocks before my apartment, figuring I would take my chances in my own neighbourhood. I remember getting home to my apartment, double locking the door, sliding down to the floor with my back against a wall...and I still didn't feel safe.

As this writer eloquently says, its Not All Men, but every man has the potential, and sometimes I'm not willing to take the chance so that someones feelings don't get hurt.

With anger and frustration,
Delaney C.

Back in My Home and Native Land

Its just under a week since I left Honduras, and I'm feeling 'flat', as though I am back in Canada but part of me is still very far away. Leaving Honduras was hard, and I found myself more nervous to return to Canada than I was when I originally set off for Honduras. I wasn't necessarily expecting to feel this way which has felt me feeling a bit blindsided causing me to have trouble articulating my feelings towards the end of my internship. Its been difficult to put in to words what my time in Honduras has meant to me, what I have taken away, and all of that good stuff, when I have been so harshly tossed back into things having to immediately worry about what comes next and begin crossing things off my 'to-do' list that seems to have been created somewhere between Houston and Toronto.

Without a doubt my time in Honduras has taught me invaluable lessons, both personal in nature and about development but trying to quantify those lessons has proved to be difficult if not impossible, and that's not the easiest thing to explain to people who want to know 'all about' my experience in Central America. I'm never sure of the line between giving enough information to satisfy ones curiosity and giving too much information leaving the listener bored and wishing they had never asked.

Culture Shock is a force not to be reckoned with, and for me reverse culture shock (upon returning to Canada) has always been a harder battle. I feel guilty. I feel overwhelmed, especially at University or in places with lots of people (which I used to thrive on). I feel more confused than ever...about what the next step is for me, and I feel like a part of me is still in Honduras.

Con Esperanza y Amor
Delaney C.