i wasn't looking but i found you.

"See Devan, if you had a boyfriend you wouldn't have time to do fun things like this!!"

- My mom, as she walks into my room while I'm having a photoshoot with my stuffed animal.

Thanks mom. Thanks.

I'm sitting here watching the weather network while wearing a housecoat covered with reindeer and snowflakes. I'm eating 'simulated' bacon bits. The container tells me that they contain no meat, which both intrigues and worries me. I have a box of lucky charms sitting in front of me and I'm picking out all of the marshmallows.. and stuffing them into my mouth. It always confuses me how these things can be called marshmallows, I mean they're not fluffy and soft, they're hard and crunchy. This difference in texture has confused me yet in no way has affected how much I enjoy them, or stopped me from stealing the colourful little rainbows and horseshoes from every box we buy. Only a tiny bit of me feels guilty over everything that's happening at this second, and that's the part of me that knows it's never acceptable to watch the weather network for an hour straight.

I went to Calgary last weekend. It was my grandma's birthday so me and my mom peaced out of here and was planning on staying for a few days. It started off pretty awesome. Went to Red Lobster with the family. Hung out with Brandy, Ry and Josh. It was pretty chill. Random. Just the way it always is with us. It consisted of yogun fruz, cinnabuns.. and wheat grass. Judging by the look on my face in the pictures you can see how well that one went over. I'll try and describe wheat grass for those who haven't tried it. Imagine a warm, sunny, perfect summer day. It's warm enough to wear shorts, but not hot enough so that your skin is melting off your body. You're on your skateboard.. bicycle, tricycle, roller blades - however you choose to get around. You're about to go and get ice cream. You're loving life, loving the sun, loving the summer.. and BAM, you biff it. You miss the cement and land face first into a field of grass and get a mouthfull of dirt. That, is what wheatgrass tastes like.

The rest of the weekend was hard and unexpected. My aunt had a stroke about a month ago. I've been back and forth between Calgary to see her at the hospital the past few weeks. She was showing a lot of improvements and we all thought at that rate she'd be out of the hospital within the next few weeks. She went into a coma on Wednesday. She passed away Sunday, two days after her birthday.

I'm pretty convincing. I can convince myself of almost anything as long as I can find a way to understand it, even if it's only a very small part of it that I understand. Why something happened. Why something didn't. Why something wasn't meant to be. I don't understand death even a tiny bit and therefore I don't deal with it well. It's next to impossible for me to see the people who I love more then anything upset and knowing that giving them a hug won't make everything stop hurting. I hate not being able to say something, anything, to make everything alright. It's one of those things you can be as convincing as can be, yet it still never makes sense. It never makes it okay. And it never makes it easier.

I was having a pretty rough time with everything. My mom needed to stay a few more days because that was the best thing for her, but staying would of been the worst thing for me. Ryan drove three hours to pick me up and drove three hours to take me back home, which was completely ridiculous and so appreciated. That's one other thing that I don't really understand, how I'm so lucky to have someone like him in my life and why he cares about me so damn much. Some things aren't meant to be questioned though, they're just meant to be thankful for, and thankful I am. He sent these flowers when we first got the news about the stroke. Anyone who thinks flowers are over-rated clearly has not had a bouqet of your favorite flowers delivered to your work when you're having a rough week. Thank you. 

I went to get my tarot cards read earlier this week. I believe in that sorta thing to an extent. I don't believe that they can tell you exactly what will happen in your life.. where you'll work, live, who you'll marry. I mean, they never flat out tell you not to eat that left over meat lovers pizza from your fridge because you'll get food poisoning from it. Although I kinda wish they did warn you about that.. throwing up pizza kinda ruins the fun of it until many, many years later. I do believe some people can just sense things though.

Then again, there's still a tiny part of me that believes that Santa Claus did eat the stale cookies I left for him when I was a kid, that Cupid does exists but just has really bad aim and that somewhere there really are bunnies that lay pastel colored chocolate Easter eggs. I also believe that Willy Wonka is based on true events because who in their right mind is fucked up enough to think up that sorta stuff. Or maybe it's just wishful thinking that somewhere in the world there's a land where rivers are made of chocolate and gummy bears grow on trees.

It's always interesting walking in to the place where I get my tarot cards read. It's always so busy no matter what day, or time of day it is. I think half the people go in trying to get the answers to questions they have that they can't seem to figure out on their own. I think the other half go in knowing the answers to the questions they have, yet for some reason it only finally sinks into their head once a lady with a crystal ball in front of her breaks it down for them. I think I fall in between these two groups of people.

As soon as I sat down she managed to read me as though I had paragraphs of the past year of my life written across my forehead, arms and hands. I didn't say a word, I just sat there with a grin on my face, afraid if I stopped smiling I'd somehow give something away all my secrets. I don't think it really mattered though - she knew it all anyways. Somehow this lady with curly black hair, warm eyes and witch-like laugh saw through my huge grin, my over sized sweater and my wavy hair that had been ruined from the gym hours before. She talked and I just sat and listened. She answered the questions I had without me having to ask at all and confirmed the answers I knew but wouldn't listen to when I tried telling myself.

Everything she said can be summarized quite simply into two words,

LET GO

I promise I will,

And not just because her sparkly ball told me so.