five

One of my first memories from when I was a child was watching my mother write in a little notebook. She would constantly scribble away at the pages with her fountain pen, looking up once in a while to make sure I wasn’t getting into trouble. When I gained a few years she used to let me draw in her notebooks. They weren’t even legible, but she would always leave those pages untouched with her words, like some sort of shrine to my three year old self. Sometimes she would read to me from those notebooks, poems and little stories that she had jotted down from magazines and newspapers. I never looked at her notebooks without her knowledge, but I was always enthralled by them, always curious to see what lay on the pages she didn’t show me. 

My mother is an incredible woman, an eccentric type, just like me. Her collections involve figurines of ducks, toy lambs, dishes, vintage tea pots, candles, the list goes on. But what she loves to collecting more than anything else are flowers. I don’t think you can really collect flowers, but if you can, then the amount of orchids perched on windowsills in my house is undeniably an impressive collection. Naturally, we also have a lot of flower pots, but my mother fills these with an impressive amount of different items. The other day I happened to discover a flower pot containing many of my mother’s old journals and I couldn’t help ruffling through some pages.

It felt wrong to look through my mother’s journals without her permission, but curiosity definitely got the better of me. The first and oldest journal was marked with 1984, so my mother was only three years younger than I am when she began to record her life on those pages. I don’t know how long it took her to fill the notebook, but it was incredible to flip through the little book inspecting the inked words. There were poems about love, mothers and fathers, flowers, and life. There were short stories, quizzes, horoscopes, and recipes. Scattered throughout the book were pressed leaves, photos, magazine clippings of cute boys, clothes and flowers. And jotted down in random corners or spanning many pages there were lists of hopes and dreams. 

As I flipped through the journals I felt as though I was prying into her life, but at the same time I couldn’t stop. With every word I read I saw myself in the pages. As much as I love my mother and as well as I get along with her, I never realized that we were so similar. From these ink blotted pages jumped a beautiful young woman who lived in the clouds, and over 20 years later, here I sit, a replica of her.

Like all replica’s I’m not a perfect representation of her, but it still fascinates me that we are so extraordinarily similar. Although I share my differences with her, we are more alike than I ever thought we could be, and even if I cannot reveal to her that I sat there sifting through her journals, I hope I can find a way to make her realize I appreciate her more than she thinks I do.

My next steps will be to copy down some of her poetry and stories into my own journal so that I can always have a reminder of that silly little quote “like mother, like daughter”. But it’s not that silly, is it?

one

I’ve always been rather different from my peers and my friends, but I didn’t *really* appreciate it until I turned 17.

I moved to Canada when I was four from a small country in Eastern Europe called Lithuania (Lietuva). I don’t really remember my life there, although I sometimes receive flashes of random memories: strawberry picking with my grandmother, pulling the tail of a great big Saint Bernard, climbing flights of wooden stairs to a secret attic, getting my head stuck in a railing, and visiting the baltic sea on windy days. 

When I first moved to Toronto, I was so young that I couldn’t fathom that I wouldn’t be able to see my grandmothers and grandfathers every day. For all I knew, I had just taken a very long journey to vacation in a strange place, and I would be back in a few weeks. I didn’t understand why all the adults around me were crying, after all, I was going to be back, wasn’t I? I didn’t move back, and after 16 years I don’t think I’d want to, but to be able to visit more often would be lovely. 

I spent elementary school being extremely bullied for being different. It took me a while to grasp the language, I had an accent, I wore different clothes and styled my hair in a bun, I was a bit chubbier than I liked (although I eventually grew out of it), I ate “strange” foods according to my classmates, I never went to birthday parties because buying presents was expensive, and I could never hold my own birthday party in return. I was criticized for being Lithuanian and for everything else that my peers deemed “not normal”. I hated everything, everyone, and most importantly myself. I only had one friend, but because she wore a bandana due to her Alopecia Areata she was also teased and humiliated. We fit together perfectly.

When I finally graduated from elementary school and started high school life began to get better. I was still made fun of, but I had more time to move away from the crowds and retreat to quite areas of the school. If I had no one to sit with at lunch I would go to the library and study or read. Throughout my time in high school I began to explore the world of fashion, and travel to wondrous places in books that I never believed could exist because of how beautifully written they were. I spent four years dealing with unrequited love, silly fights with friends, and dreaming of university. 

When I was 17 I finally took my life into my own hands and I broke free from the grasps of my classmates and society. I stopped caring about trying to fit in and I accepted myself. I started a fashion blog and entered a community of people who believed in being nothing but themselves. I explored photography blogs, art blogs, blogs by world travellers, and blogs filled with hopes and dreams and wishes. When I started university my life changed in a way I could never have imagined, and suddenly my online world broke into my real life. Suddenly I had friends who wrote poetry and who also wasted away their time drinking coffee and ruffling through racks at the local thrift store. I found dreamers and photographers, future doctors, scientists, politicians and lawyers. I renewed my relationship with my elementary school friend, a relationship that had taken dips into oceans and the skies. My world felt full, free and happy. My world is still full, free and happy, but I’ve started questioning my future, pondering my dreams, and wondering who I will be 10 years…5 years down the train tracks.

I’m an old soul. I live in my thoughts more than I should and wish for a simpler time, when picnics by the lake and time to read books (not for school) was more common. While I still dress young, many of my clothes are vintage and I wear them in pairings that remind people of their grandmothers. I like to think the reason I associate myself with an “eccentric grandmother” is because I grew up without grandmothers. I’ve spent 16 years with only an incredible mother and father but apart from a few summers, I’ve never had much interaction with two women who are amazing and beautiful in their own special way. I like to think that I’ve recreated my grandmothers through my likes and dislikes, and my personality. Lately, I’ve noticed both my grandfathers filtering through my life. The character and attitude of one, and the hopes and dreams of another. It’s a beautiful thought, to think about becoming a combination of four extraordinary individuals. 

I’ve always been rather different from my peers and my friends, but I didn’t *really* appreciate it until I turned 17. Now I cannot imagine being someone different. I am who I am, and I’m proud. I may come off as the “weird” one of the group, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. As E. E. Cummings once said,

          “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

That’s the short version of my life, for a longer one you’ll have to wait till I publish my book (another dream). Currently my life is flying past and the minutes are falling away. I’m trying to unearth my place in the world, but it’s becoming harder each day. Hopefully over time this little blog will help me uncover the puzzle pieces so I can fit them together, and find an answer to my long unanswered question.