Someone Like You

In May, my cousin got married and I was lucky enough to be in his wedding party.  My cousin asked me if I would sing a song during the reception with one of the bridesmaids and I happily agreed until his bride requested we sing "Someone Like You" by Adele. I can't figure out why this song is played at so many weddings because it really is a breakup song in my opinion.
The song turned out really well and I really enjoyed working with Kristina, the bridesmaid I sang with. While we were practicing we decided that it would also be fun to record it and give it as a gift to the bride and groom.
(Sorry, I don't know why the video size is like that and the quality is so poor :/)

This connection won't work as nicely written out as it worked out in my head but this song did make me realize a few things. For the last half of my time at High School, I was haunted by the death of the girl who I had fallen in love with. Her death made me the angriest and most upset that I had ever been and will always be one of the worst losses I will ever experience. It is something that I was afraid to heal from because I didn't want to forget or move on and disrespect her memory because I truly believe that if she hadn't died, we would still be together. But I decided that when I was abroad I had to leave my past behind and that included Hannah. I became, well, easy. I thought that casual hookups and one-night stands were just part of the traveling lifestyle and a part of the experience. The reason I had to keep my hair dyed brown is because I brought more girls back to my hotel room while my hair was that colour than when it was blonde. A small part of me might have actually believed that what I was doing was the healthy thing. But I have learnt, to best respect the people who I have left behind is to continue on in my life as normally and as similarly as possible. 

And so, I have put myself out there again, this time in a responsible and respectful way of course. I have been on a few dates with a few girls over the past few months and, there might be a girl. Nothing serious though; she doesn't even know my natural hair colour and I haven't told her about the car crash yet or how I tried to commit suicide. This isn't the time to rush, she still has a lot to learn about me and there is plenty I don't know about her; hopefully what I don't know about her isn't quite as heavy. 

This might be one of the only times "Someone Like You" can almost make sense to me. If I can find someone as kind and loving as Hannah, someone with as beautiful a soul, someone who can make me smile like she did; well then, I will be a very lucky man.  

 

The Truth

In September last year I started feeling kind of upset. I just assumed that I was still grieving for my mom or my friends or just grieving for my old life. Obviously these losses will never fully heal and I think of them everyday but it could not account for the extreme loss of feeling I suffered last year. At more than a year after the fact I don't think that it can even be considered a trigger. In January, I told you all that I went to Haiti for a few months and volunteered with orphans. That was extremely cowardly of me and I regret lying to you all. I was ashamed that I became depressed and needed to get help or I would have successfully killed myself. That post has been weighing on me and I feel as though I should clear the air, this is what happened instead.

This post will get kind of graphic.  

In late September I sat on my roof just above my bedroom window, from there I can see the water of Deep Cove and the marina where the boats leave the dock every morning. I used to sit up there a lot. When I first discovered the place it was exhilarating. Once I had reached the peak I straddled the roof and looked in awe at the perfect view, no screen from a window or railing from a balcony blocking any part of it, for about 5 seconds before my mom saw me as she was eating her breakfast on the back patio. She forcefully controlled her voice, speaking slowly and deliberately while trying not to let it tremble, she ordered me to get off the roof and get into my room. Once I got to the safety of the floor inside my home she yelled at me for so long that I missed the bus for school and she had to drive me in, during which time she yelled some more. Her yelling deterred me for a week but the excitement of being so high and seeing so much overwhelmed the fear of another angry mom. I would wake up early in the mornings to sneak a sit before my mom would wake up and then whenever I became angry with her I would go sit up there to scare her. Before long if I was ever upset or just bored I would go to the roof and wait it out a while. The thrill of the adventure died down and the roof became a peaceful solitude. Every time I returned though, I felt something, starting with excitement until it turned into peace. When I returned to the spot after at least two years I expected the same emotions to return. The roof seemed steeper and the drop to the ground must have doubled, but when I made it to the top I didn't feel excited and I didn't feel peace. I sat up there and the view didn't impress me. I wanted my mom to be eating breakfast on the patio and to see me and yell at me to "get back inside the house immediately young man", or for my brother to wonder where I was and just know that I'd be on the roof and join me even though he was as terrified as my mom of falling. None of that happened, I just sat on the roof in the mild September air.

I slid down the roof and back into the window. I walked down the basement where I relocated to get some space from Izzy and my dad (they have broken up since, and is currently trying out the single life). I put my hair wax and cologne on my bedside table then went into my closet and pulled out my grey suit, white dress shirt, black tie, black dress shoes, socks, boxers, undershirt, watch, and tie clip. I laid them all out on my bed for my dad. I pulled two letters out of my top desk drawer addressed to my dad and to Paul and slipped them into the suit jacket's inside breast pocket. I checked to make sure my room was in order then I hung up the clothes I was wearing and moved to the bathroom. I turned the shower on and got the water warm then moved to the sink to shave. I looked at my brown hair and for a second wished that it was blond again. I turned off the tap, washed the stubble down the drain and straightened the hand towel on the bar. I stood in the shower because the water would stop the blood from clotting. 

My dad came down to my room maybe twenty minutes after I got into the shower. He was making waffles and wanted to know if I had breakfast yet. I didn't lock my bedroom door or the bathroom door, they weren't even closed. He must have walked into my room and knocked on the open door calling my name. When he didn't get a response he walked in and saw my clothes laid out on the bed and called my name again, maybe a bit louder. He could already hear the shower going so he peered his head in the door to see if I was there, not seeing anything he walked into the bathroom and moved toward the shower. He couldn't see my silhouette through the fogged up glass door but he tried my name one more time. Getting no response he slowly opened the door and saw my body passed out on the shower floor. He quickly pulled the top half of my body out of the shower and onto him and he reached for the towels beside him while calling for Izzy to hurry and help. My body was already getting cold and pale but he wrapped my forearms tightly in hand towels and called an ambulance.

The paramedics arrived and tried to stabilize me with a saline solution so I was well enough to be moved to the hospital. I spent a few weeks there recovering physically until I was released to a centre in Washington. My dad visited me there every day until December when I was allowed to return home and make the adjustment to everyday life once again.     

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité: Haiti

A few of my roommates 

Hunter with Simon

On the first of September this past year I went to Haiti for fifteen and a half weeks.  I flew to Port-au-Prince where I stayed the night and met up with four guys from Australia who were taking a semester off to volunteer in Haiti.  From there we flew in a very small passenger plane to Hinche in central Haiti whose airport had a very short and very unpaved runway on which both people and livestock like to spend time.  The guys (Lachlan, Jaedan, Hunter, James) and I began our training and orientation in Hinche. The man who ran our orientation, Dr. Jean Caleb, also directed an orphanage for boys between the ages of 5 and 13 so that is where we stayed. Jaeden and I became the newest roommates of sixteen 9 year old boys for a week and a half.  While the boys were in school, we did our training and when school ended for the boys we helped them with their homework, helped to prepare dinners, and played soccer with them in the field across the street.  In our training, we learned basic Haitian first aid and how to administer vaccinations.  Once our training was completed we traveled with Dr. Caleb to many different villages in central Haiti where he offered free health care to those in need and Hunter, James, Jaeden, Lachlan and I went to the primary schools or orphanages and gave children vaccines for typhoid and hepatitis A.  In the last three weeks that we were there, we left Dr. Caleb and went to another village in central Haiti close to the border of the Dominican Republic to begin work on a high school.  A local man was in charge of the project and we met with him for a day where he handed us some plans, explained how to dig and pour a good foundation and then left and said that he would come back if he found time and we didn't see him again in the three weeks we were there.  The biggest problem with building the school was that a lot of the supplies like the loose gravel and the concrete needed for the foundation and the lumber and cinder blocks needed for the actual building could not be delivered to our site because the road was not equipped to handle the truck. Thankfully, we had a lot of help from the young guys who would attend the school when it was complete; after we had marked out the area that had to be dug out for the foundation and showed the guys how deep they had to dig, Lachlan, Hunter, James, Jaedan and I started hauling the 60 pound bags of gravel and cement down the very muddy 10 kilometer path from the truck to the site of the high school.

I flew back home and my dad picked me up at the airport and drove me back to my home. I walked through the front door and my fathers wonderful girlfriend Izzi came running to the foyer to welcome me but stopped about ten feet away and told me that I stank, that I had to stay there and that she would get a garbage bag so I could throw the clothes that I was wearing away before they got any farther into the house.  To be fair I did smell and me and my clothes were covered in a good layer of dirt and other things, I only could bring three sets of clothes with me and they never really got washed and the closest that I had gotten to a shower in the past three weeks was when it rained.  After I threw away my shirt and shorts, nearly the entire contains of my backpack and, my backpack, Izzi decided that I still smelled too bad so she made me walk around the entire house to the back doors in the gym and then shower in the bathroom attached to the gym because she never uses that one. It made me angry that Izzi made me walk around the house in the cold without much clothing on and that I had to shower in the worst shower in the house. 

And then I realized, my house has nine bathrooms. I traveled all over central Haiti and I did not see one flushing toilet, in Haiti, many of the people I saw had to bathe in the stream where they get their drinking water and I was angry that I had to shower in the worst of the seven showers in my house. I live in that house with my dad and his girlfriend, there are seven bedrooms, seven rooms that are reserved for nothing but sleeping.  Sixteen 9 year old boys made room for two more people in their one small shared bedroom.  I saw extended families of ten or twelve people all living together in a one room home. I have five extra bedrooms with five extra beds that stay empty nearly all the time.  Not surprisingly, reverse culture shock hit hard but I am still glad to be home.