The Unexpected Lesson I Learned at My First Rave

This past weekend, I learned a very valuable lesson about perspective. And accountability.

It came at an unexpected time, in an even more unexpected place: Beach Club Fest 2015.

Thousands of Toronto’s hottest party animals descended on Muzik Nightclub Saturday afternoon for an all-day, all-night party. Women wearing bikinis and stilettos walked past muscular, shirtless men.

There I was in the midst of it all, wondering what I had been doing there. I had never been into electronic dance music, but when my two friends insisted I would have a good time, I felt compelled to accept the invite.

I lay there in my yellow bikini under a tree, taking in the sun. I realized a long time ago that I have an abnormal obsession and love for the feeling of the sun on my skin, and not for the tan. I just love feeling the warmth of the sun on me. So much so that whenever the sun got trapped in the big tree ahead of me, my smile turned upside down.

I had been laying there for about half an hour when I realized that the sun was diminishing. It was moving very gradually away from me and was almost completely hidden behind the tree.

My friends had suggested moving to the pool where there was more sun. But I insisted on staying where we were. I knew that after a short while, the sun would be back in the open sky and I would feel that warmth again.

Another half hour passed and the sun was still hiding behind the tree. While it had indeed moved, it still had a long way to go before it was out in the clear sky again. Fed up, my friends said, “Stephanie, there is sun at the pool, we just have to move there.”

The idea of getting up, gathering all my belongings, and trying to find comfort at the pool seemed daunting. But I wanted the warmth of the sun more than I wanted to stay where I was. And so I picked myself up, gathered my belongings, and walked over to the pool.

When we got to the pool, I couldn’t believe how warm it was there. The sun was directly on me! People were dancing. Heck, I was dancing. There were beach balls everywhere. But more importantly, there was sun. There wasn’t a cloud-or a tree-in sight.

I was crushed that I hadn’t moved here earlier. I could’ve been feeling the comfort of the sun all this time. Mid-dance move I asked myself what had been stopping me the whole time I was laying by the tree.

Truthfully, I just didn’t want to move. I was comfortable. I knew the sun was going to come back in due time. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to do anything. I was being lazy. I just wanted to lay there and feel the sun.

Then it hit me.

Constantly, easily, and unforgivingly do we make excuses for ourselves to stay in whatever situation we might be in at the time. We get comfortable, we tell ourselves it will happen later, or next time, when really, those are grounds for it, whatever it might be, to not happen at all.

How could I have possibly laid there under that tree for almost an hour waiting for the sun to come back when there was sun elsewhere the entire time? It’s like I was standing in a dark room complaining there was no light and there had been a switch in front of me the whole time. All I had to do was reach for it.

That tree had represented every piece of adversity I had ever faced. It represented the word no. It represented every excuse I had ever made for myself, and every excuse I made for others.

We get so familiar with the darkness that we forget what the warmth of light feels like. We forget how to remind ourselves to look elsewhere when our current circumstance isn't good enough for us. We forget what good enough is.

It is so easy to stumble across mediocrity, unhappiness, or complacency. It’s so easy to fall into a rut and decorate it and call it home. But just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s okay.

This weekend I learned that in life, there is only so much sunlight before the darkness comes. And you’re going to want as much of it as you can get, not only because it feels good but because you deserve it. You have to be willing to get up and move sometimes.

As I stood there on the side of the pool, looking all around me and feeling kissed by the sun, I learned two very valuable lessons. The first is that if you want it, whatever it might be, you have to go after it. The second is that the music of life really isn't so bad once you start dancing.

Why I Had to Grow Up Even Though I'm in My Twenties

I always detest it when people say cheerfully, “Change is good!”

I mean, change is very subjective. How can we possibly assume that all change is good?

Personally, there are a lot of changes going on in my life right now, and yesterday my head nearly popped off and rolled itself around on the ground at all the madness.

Firstly, my parents have decided to put our house up for sale and move us into an apartment.  They say home ownership is becoming too costly, they’re getting older and mowing the lawn and plowing the snow is not as easy as it looks.

Secondly, one of my sisters and I are on the outs. The last time we had a dispute it lasted three years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this one followed suit.

Lastly, I’ll be attending a new campus this coming September. After spending the last four years familiarizing myself with the University of Toronto Scarborough Campus, I’m afraid of petty things; where I will park my car, whether I’ll find the washrooms easily or have an accident in the hallway, and whether the doors are push, or pull.

While all of these changes seem manageable, for some reason they seem to have been interfering with my life a lot lately.

Yesterday, to avoid my head popping off, I decided to go to my old elementary school to take a walk around one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city. The houses that fill the tree-lined streets are just beautiful. They’ve got big bay windows with beautiful panes and decorative doors, and long front porches that I would love to sit and drink tea on.

But when I turned into the parking lot, I saw my old school being bulldozed. As I exited my car and looked at the pile of concrete that had once been the place I made amazing memories, I had to answer one question about my resistance to all the changes going on.

What’s the real problem?

As I began walking, one foot in front of the other, step by step, I realized that the problem wasn’t that I was going to have to make small talk with people I did not know in the elevator until I got to my floor. I realized that it wasn’t about the fact that my sister didn’t care to speak to me, or that I would have to face the possibility of the door not opening if I leaned on it.

I realized that the problem was that I was going to have to grow up. And I mean really grow up.

Through all of this, my partner has repeatedly told me that I need to let things go.

“But how?” I sobbed to him with tears and boogers streaming down my face.

This was the question I would have to answer if I wanted to enter the next phase of my life with grace and dignity. I would be 23 years old in exactly 8 months and I had a lot of changes to make.

As I continued to walk, I felt the sun on my skin. Even though it was setting, it was still bright enough for me to feel the warmth of it touch me. And it felt really good. The warmer it felt, the more I was able to really understand the root of my emotions.

As I walked, I realized that I wasn’t upset we were selling the house. I knew it would be so much less of a burden on my parents. I had thought about this idea a hundred times over, more concerned with their well-being than waiting on an elevator. I realized that instead, I was upset that they hadn’t asked me about how I felt about it.

This was a good sign. It meant that, sure, I was an adult now, and wanted to be a part of our family’s decision-making instead of just dragged along in whatever worked best. Despite them being the parents and not really having to run anything by me at all, I wasn’t (contrary to popular belief) just a little kid anymore.

I was upset because I didn’t have a say.

When it came to my sister, I don’t think I was upset because she wasn’t speaking to me. I was upset about the circumstances surrounding the issue; the lack of closure. While explaining this to my partner, I told him, “I like there to be periods at the end of my sentences, not just ink that fades away.”

Truthfully, there was no period at the end of this sentence. There was no closure, no finishing statement. It was just one of those things that would hang in a cloud until someone decided to clear the air.

I walked back towards my car, parked in the lot of my old school. I stared again at the pile of concrete. I had flashbacks of recess, track-and-field day, and running long jump. I looked over to the two baseball diamonds I played slo-pitch on. The grass was growing over the gravel, what a shame.

Then I thought about how sad I had been to hear of this place getting bulldozed. When really, what did it matter? I didn’t go there anymore. It was no longer my school. It was just the school I had gone to at one point in my life.

It was then that I realized that I was too focused on the institutions where my memories took place, my house, my school, rather than the actual memories themselves. I was so fixed on cherishing the home of my moments that I almost forgot that the moments would have happened anyway.

As I walked back to my car, I hoped that my new school would have a parking lot just like this one. And I hoped that I would even be lucky enough to get a spot. I felt the fear of starting at a new place start to fade, and the excitement start to grow.

Maybe it wasn’t the fact that it was a new school, but that it was the last of two years that I would be a student. And truthfully, I loved being a student. I loved learning, I loved doing tests, I loved doing assignments, I loved reading. I loved the student life.

When I got home that night, I talked to my parents. I asked them if I could help in the search for our new place; townhouse, apartment, or shack. Surely, as long as I got to live with them, I would be fine.

And when I woke up in the morning, I apologized to my sister. It wasn’t about who was right or wrong, it was about the fact that I didn’t want to be the one who didn’t try to make it work.

And then I googled my new school. There is a parking lot. It looks just like the one my old school had. I even located the washrooms on the map. Couldn’t find any information about the doors, though.

I can’t say I always detest people who say cheerfully, “Change is good!” But maybe I can say I envy them. Because they don’t have to go soul-searching for answers to questions other people are too afraid to find out. They can rest assured that it isn’t about the change, it’s about the process.

And if there is one thing I know for sure, it’s that in life, we have to do one thing, and one thing only; trust the process.

Perhaps the reason change is so scary is because we become content with where we’re at, afraid that it won’t get any better than this. We’re afraid of who we’ll meet, whether they’ll be better than who we have in our lives already, and if the grass really is greener on the other side.

Why not just water our own?

But the refusal to believe that yes, there is better out there, illustrates a complacency that many of us, you and I included, are simply too good for.

So I can't face these upcoming changes with resistance. Instead, I can welcome them, walk with them, one foot in front of the other.

Step by step.

The 'End' in 'Friend', then the New Beginnings

I used to listen to Good Charlotte all the time in my teens. I wanted to be a rockstar, but listening to them loudly through headphones was as close as I got. One of the most powerful things I took away from my time being an active listener of their music was a line in a song that went like this:

“Best friends can become strangers. But I don’t want that, no not for you, if you just stay with me, we can make it through.”

I find that one lyric echoing in my head a lot lately while parting with many friends and friendships that I thought, at one point or another, would be lasting. Quite frankly, this lyric helped me to arrive at the peace I needed to discover, and showed me that some things just fall apart naturally.

9 times out of 10, it is in our best interest to let nature take her course.

I kind of just brushed off the recent “re-circling” of friends in my life as just another phase. I figured the people that were leaving were on their way somewhere else, and the people who were coming in needed me just as much as I needed them.

But then I thought, where am I going?

The more I thought about the direction I was headed in, the more I could account for the loss of some friends, and the gain of others. I noticed that the surer of myself I became, the less I saw of people who either weren’t sure of themselves, or didn’t want me to be sure of myself. The more career-oriented I became, the less I saw of people who didn’t care to get ahead, and wouldn’t know what to do if they ever got there. The last thing I realized, was that the better of a friend as I began to be, the better, although the fewer, friends I had.

Over time, some of us get to a point of self-actualization. I’m not talking Maslow’s hierarchy here, I’m just talking about being, feeling, like you know what you’re capable of. When you get there, you start doing things that you never did before, because you didn’t know you could do. Maybe you change the way you talk because you realize the impact of your words. Maybe you change the way you think because you realize how much results thoughts can generate. Maybe, quite simply, you love yourself a little more because you realize that you’re worthy of love; especially your own. Whatever changes you make as a result of being more sure of yourself, will illustrate to you, clearer than night and day, who encourages and promotes your growth. 

Conversely, it will make the ones who don’t stick out like a sore thumb.

When I decided to become a journalist, I made both a commitment and a sacrifice. I committed myself to journalism and the act of being a journalist. I committed to writing, my blog, to being an active citizen, to being a recipient and distributor of information to other citizens, and the list just goes on and on and on.

The sacrifice came from all the things, and people, I would lose in that process. I sacrificed the people who maybe wouldn’t have time to talk about the news with me. I sacrificed being friends with people who wouldn’t let me interview them in order to meet a deadline. I sacrificed shallow conversations for deep discussions and debates about what was going on in our world. And I sacrificed all the attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors of both myself and my company that would not actively contribute to me getting to where 

I want, deserve, and intend to be.

Friends will read your blog. They will let you talk their ear off about something they really have no idea about. Friends will come to you for “the inside scoop”. Friends will grab extra copies of the magazine you write for and only read your article. Friends will let you drag them out to networking events to mingle and schmooze with people just so you leave there with a couple contacts, and expect nothing more than a cocktail in return.  

True friends are the ones that would be disappointed if you didn’t make it. Anyone that wouldn’t didn’t care to see you get there in the first place.

The more I realized I had a few friends that were really willing to do all these things, the more willing I was to do things for them. I guess when you’re trying to make it somewhere, anywhere, you always remember those who helped you get to the next landmark. For me, that is any person that read one, just one blog post. It is anyone who sent me a text, a tweet, or an email to say, “Hey kid, you’re doing alright. Keep writing.”

But you also remember those who tried to point you in the other direction.

When people acquire wealth, fame, or success, they get accused of forgetting where they came from, and “changing”. But to people who have not the eyes to see it, growth is always viewed as change, and quite negatively too.

The lyric in the song says “If you just stay with me, we can make it through.”

That means they watch the whole race. In fact, they show up early and run a lap with you, just to get you going. They give you water when you become dehydrated. They come and jog beside you to keep you going. While your soul dwindles and almost dies within you, they say “You can do it”, and bring you back to life.

They don’t just show up at the finish line and expect to be part of your victory. They help you get there.

I look at the people that I have in my life and know why they’re there. I look at the people that aren’t in my life and know why they’re not.

Should we try and save friendships we care about? Yes.

Should we lose ourselves and our focus in the process of doing it? You can if you want to.

Or, you can accept the fact that some people don’t always make it to the finish line with us. Some people choose not to; others, simply, just can’t run the race.

Regardless, you still deserve to see, to touch, and to cross the finish line.