Hi everyone,

I promised myself that I would write just one blog post before the end of the year. And this is the year that I keep my promises, so.... here goes.

So it's winter time. This is the time when we take stock, gather the harvest, retreat into warmth, and just hang the fuck on until the world thaws again.

Now, I don't know about you, but this year was real good. Also just when I thought it was going to be good forever and all my problems would be behind me... (you know where this is going)... I got kicked in the ass by a whole lotta life.

But 2015 is closing down and I'd like to share with you the teeniest bit about what I've learned this year, if I may. Who knows where the fuck 2016 is gonna go but here's what's sticking with me outta 2015.

So, top things that come to mind that I've learned from 2015:

Time is speeding up.

Oh man, I am starting to write like it is going out of STYLE. I feel like this year -- just this year -- I just GOT IT that there's no guarantee that I'm going to live past tomorrow. I have a lot of things I want... NEED ... to write, create, and work towards mastery. So if not now... when?

A lot of the things that are "true" are actually just "beliefs".

Ok, stay with me here. I'm no physicist and there is a real possibility I will take us all down a rabbit hole with this section without any way of getting back up. There may be some things that are true, like water boils at 100 degrees celsius and flights to Australia are expensive and the grammar rule of "I before E except after C"... but here's where the mind fuck comes up... are all those things that REALLY true? Temperature measurements and grammar are just a series of agreements that a bunch of people decided upon.

Now, hear me out. I'm not wanting to say that time or money or the dewey decimal system "don't exist", or that we should live in an anarchist society. Perhaps on some level they don't and we should. But these rules are the CORNERSTONE of our society, and in order to function as an orderly Canadian citizen, I need to keep an eye on time and pay bills. I'm not here to argue that.

However. What I REALLY started to get a handle on this year is that I really wanted to change a lot of things that I really have no ability to change, and I thought a lot of things that were set in stone actually were not at all.

Like the idea that I always need to rush somewhere (what if I genuinely move slowly and consciously instead?). Or that someone always needs to bail me out when I get broke (what if I have the money and resources to fund myself?). Or the fact that when I don't get external validation after a show from other cynical, jaded comics, that it doesn't automatically mean I'M A SHITTY PERSON (what if I tell myself positive stuff and separated my worth as a human from the way I did a thing?).

I hate to say it but these are all new thoughts to me guys, for real. Now a lot of you are a lot smarter of me and are probably thinking "well this is common sense." So this leads me to my next thing...

I really don't have common sense.

So the next time anyone out there beats someone up for not having 'common sense', I really don't think I'm eligible to join in. Because I super duper DON'T have common sense. I just don't. I figure things out the hard way and I'm a stubborn biznatch and that's that.

Life is cyclical.

I've been learning lessons this fall that I thought I had MASTERED way back in the ol' 2007 when I was hit by that thing.

Oh well.

Gratitude is everything.

I know, I know, you hear it everywhere and it's annoying and stupid and sometimes you just had a crappy day and fuck this hashtag blessed shit. But UGGGGGGGHHHHH I hate that I'm saying this, but I REALLY have to be grateful for what I have. This winter, I had to go back to basics. For about 2 weeks, I was solidly getting the message from the Forces that Be that I really didn't have it that bad. I believe the direct universe's message -- through a variety of conversations, situations, and articles -- was "suck it the fuck up, princess". I got into a conversation with a woman from Johannsburg who was moving to Canada because not only is it SO unsafe that a white woman would not even CONSIDER leaving her house alone after dark, where they have to lock their car doors 100% of the time (even when inside) so as not to get car-jacked, oh and where she got sexually assaulted and robbed IN HER OWN KITCHEN... and suddenly my problems of paying my savings (which I miraculously had procured this year) to fix my computer (which was an easy fix) and having to jump back into work (which was readily available) seemed very small. Which also shows...

I dramatise like a motherfucker.

Goddamn goddamn goddamn am I a complainy shithead sometimes. If you are a friend and you've asked me how I was doing at any point over the past year (both through hte good AND the bad), and you're STILL my friend, remind me to fawn all over you like a puppy on a Milkbone the next time we hangout because jesus CHRIST do I like to turn that convo back onto me.

This too shall pass.

Sadly, that includes the good, and the bad... so time to just let that thing go. Celebrate or mourn the thing, grieve its loss, and let it go back from whence it came... because the things that happen TO me really can't make me happy. I'm in charge of that shit myself. Ugh. But also, cool, Depending on the day.

I did not learn how to prioritize as a kid. 

And that's ok. So  I freak out over small things. And when I notice I do it I've been starting to learn to...

Be Gentle, You're doing the best you can.

And that goes for you who are reading this.
 

Here's to 2016, to all you brave warriors who have made it another year on this planet and probably improved something in your life this year. You are the true heros and you are so fucking loved.

Let's call it a day, slap 2015 on the ripe buttocks, and tell Father Time what a kick-ass dance partner he was this year. Baby 2016 is waiting in the wings, I'll be sidling up to her with the ol' gratitude Electric Slide.

PS - Also since you've made it this far, here is a wombat in a santa hat. (The greatest of the marsupials)