I cannot UN-learn one more thing right now. And this might sound super harsh and maybe I’m just being awful but I can’t even apologize for it.

Yes. I know we are in a pandemic. Trust me, I fucxing know we are.

Yes. I know racism and black lives matter is something massive and we all know what we need to do. Some are doing the work and some are not right now.

Yes. I do know that there are unspeakable things happening to Indigenous Womxn in Canada and when I read up on these atrocities, I cried again. After crying 5 million times this past year so far and it’s only July.

YES what J.K Rowling is saying about trans lives is not okay but I still love Harry Potter.

Yes. I really dislike all of it and I am doing the work. When I have the emotional energy to do so.

When I saw articles and post regarding how we need to unlearn the history of Canada Day, I almost vomited again. Once again, the world is asking me to unlearn and learn something awful. Something that I have the most fondest and dearest memories of in my mind and my heart. It ripped me apart.

Because yes, I am not the most important person in THE world. But I am the most important person in MY world. And that might be a small world but it’s still a fuxking world. It still counts. One I was sort of happy to be in while forced to stay home and not be allowed see my outside world. My nature. My extended family. I did it though. I stayed home. And it was fucxking hard.

My world consists of my beautiful and always happy children. Keagan, Kurtis, Olivia and Madelyn Justine. It includes my never stopping, always working hard for us husband Chad who will literally do anything for us. It includes my cats and dog. It includes some friends and my business that I have been trying to build for the past four years. It includes laughter, drinking tea on my front porch, saying hi to the neighbours and fake smiling at their dogs. It includes me waking up first thing and seeing my red and white paper cup of very Canadian Tim Horton’s tea that my husband went and out and got for me and then I sit at our “nook”in the small rented kitchen and type on my Mac. It includes listening to the cats play and run around my house like my kids used to do when they were toddlers. My world has emotions, meditation, dinners together on the back deck. It sometimes includes worrying about money <for me> and how I will pay for my beautiful manifested dream car that I can see out the window from where I am currently typing. It includes “remember when” conversations on morning walks. It is full of uncertainty yet so much certainty that we are here together for a reason during this time when our family was split in two a only a few short years ago.

This is my world inside of a much larger and much more screwed up, yet still beautifully messy and changing world.

I am struggling more than I have let on to my online tribe. It would be unfair of me to rant about my grievances when there are so many miracles still available to us all. My tank is emptying from emotional ups and downs, internal struggles between my light and dark thoughts, recalling my turbulent past and then fighting it off to be in the now. I sometimes walk around in a daze because every time I check online, there is one more thing I am being asked to speak up about, or unlearn, to admit, to feel shame about, to “look into that persons eyes and feel her anger”. I can’t lose one more “friend” because I made a comment under her very angry post when I didn’t mean it to be the way I had said it. I can’t do it.

Therefore, I refused <maybe in a tantrum way> to NOT celebrate Canada Day. In fact, last night in the dark, my daughter and I ran around the neighbourhood with our red and white flags following the loud booming sounds hoping to catch a glimpse of the beautiful colours exploding in the sky. We laughed our heads off trying to see all of them at once. Since officials had cancelled all town run events, I felt so proud that the people of this town still banded together and kept celebrating anyway. You know why they probably did this? It wasn’t because they didn’t give a shit about the horrible things that are going around in our country and the planet. They most likely did it because they wanted to feel BETTER, happy and good for just a little while. There was laughter and the familiar “ooohs and ahhhh’s” and it felt amazing. It brought JOY back for a small window inside of me. I wasn’t shaming myself for not knowing. In that small window, I wasn’t thinking about my privilage. I was only thinking about how grateful I felt to be holding my daughter’s hand while she is still young enough to want to hold my hand, looking at the pure joy on her face and being able to see fireworks on Canada Day. I felt pure appreciation in my heart.

That’s the secret I think.

To not always be unlearning. To appreciate the little things we once took for granted. To not always doing “shadow work”. We didn’t come here to punish ourselves, or shame ourselves for not knowing what we didn’t know. We always must be aware, we do need to pay attention, get angry and sign petitions and even bigger actions than this. But I beg you to stop asking someone to do these things all of the time because in their world, it’s too much. In their world within the big world, they want to keep going and find pockets of joy in the colours in the sky. Let them have that. You can’t see inside their memory banks of past holiday traditions that they have always celebrated. This is also most likely why these people chose to set off the fireworks in the park. They did it for people like me but they also did it for them.

They can unlearn tomorrow.

We need joy. We need it to survive our day and to then thrive in the world. We can’t be leaders you want us to be if we don’t get to live out what lights us up in-between. Even if there is a negative history attached to our country. WE still need to celebrate her. WE still still need to celebrate our little and big worlds. Our memories of our small children who are now grown up. Who don’t see the harshness yet and are still innocently looking up at the sky with awe and joy. Take a mental photograph of those moments. Hold them close and be in the moment. Appreciate in the now and do the work tomorrow.