Ten Years Later: The Antarctica Post

I admit that I love lists. I make a TO DO list every week, every weekend, every other day. My lists keep my mind and my life in order, and there is something so completely satisfying about being able to cross an item off - so it looks like the strikethrough font, as Microsoft calls it. Every check mark, every line through a word, every time I scribble over A Thing To Do is like the moment a big toe crosses a finish line. I'm earning myself tiny medals everyday for completing my little goals, one To Do item at a time. Sometimes there are tasks I never conquer - like my taxes - and they sit there on my lists staring back at me, whole words unmarred by checks and lines and scribbles that get transferred from list to list, each time re-written with the hope of a future accomplishment, but sometimes... I don't win these little victories.

I've had one item on my To Do list since June (which isn't that bad when you consider the fact that my taxes have been on my lists since March). It's been written and re-written onto countless lists, even typed out into electronic task managers in the (glorious, glorious!) world of digital calendars. But tonight, at midnight, this item will disappear - not because I've gone and done it, but simply because I'm too late - it expires.

A few months ago, J sent me an email. It wasn't anything elaborate, just a fragment of a sentence and a link to something he thought I might be interested in. He wished me all the best before signing off. He had found a contest where the prize was a trip to Antarctica and all you had to do was blog your way there. Sure enough, I was interested - I've "always" wanted to go to Antarctica and yes(!) I can blog. This sounded like something that I could actually do. I checked out the site, read the rules, bookmarked it in my head, and told myself I'd have to do it later - hey, I was busy.

Days passed, and I went from city to city. Weeks came and went and I found myself overseas, country to country. But no matter where I was, his email, this contest, was always on my mind. I'm on holiday, I thought, I'll get to it when I'm home. Before I knew it, August arrived and I found myself in my desk chair in front of the computer with a week off before I went back to work. This is perfect! I said to myself, I've got a whole week to really write something good. Really GOOD. I pumped myself up. It's gonna be touching and DEEP. And I gotta make it funny, and COOL and ...awesome. Yeah, I can do that. But it's gotta be short and sweet because they only take 300 words... And then I freaked out because all of the sudden I didn't know what to say anymore.

---

I remember the first time he brought it up. We were in high school - I was 15 and him, maybe 17? - and volunteering at the local bingo hall one night. It was our turn to go into the smoking section, and my goodness, the smoke was so thick in there you could hardly see your friends through the glass walls. He came up to a friend and I and just threw it out there: "Hey, would you guys ever want to go to Antarctica?" Our friend thought it was a wild, ridiculous notion - just the kind of thing I liked. My eyes widened. I enthusiastically asked questions, nodded my head vigorously - and that's how it started.

He had found the website about a month before departure and the trip organizer was gracious enough to let us both on the expedition - on the condition that we pay the fee of $8,800 each. Ten years ago, that was a crap load of money for a teenager - it still is. We couldn't afford it without help, so we had to fundraise and solicit sponsors. The next couple of weeks found us writing letters and emails, making phone calls, faxing papers, leaving messages from home and from the office at school where we would spend all of our spare hours. We went store to store at the mall, I told old teachers from elementary school and called every local business listed in the yellow pages. We even got ourselves in the local paper and set up an account where community members could make donations. Someone deposited $20. A couple years later it got eaten up by bank fees.

Suffice to say, we never did get the money to go on the trip. The night before we officially gave up I was making phone calls at midnight, leaving messages on answering machines. I got scolded pretty badly when I woke a shopkeeper up - he thought it was an emergency. "But... it is an emergency," I thought.

For Christmas that year, my closest friends brought us to Antarctica - they had made stuffed penguins and polar bears and set up my friend's basement to be like the Antarctic journey we were 'supposed' to be going on. When I opened my eyes and saw what they had done, I cried. I still have that penguin they made.

J would go on to tell me that the whole Antarctica episode was what really brought us closer together - to him, at least. After a while, I admit that I started seeing the continent as our goal, our thing. The years that followed saw us as friends, lovers, and when we became strangers, he went on the expedition by himself. Of course, he never told me he was planning on it, that he had started fundraising - but I heard about it all the same (I really don't like sharing friends with ex's). It was a sobering moment when I found out he was going because our thing, of course, was no longer ours. His point was made pretty clear when he returned the cheque I wrote - a measly $100, but hey, I thought it would be nice to help. This was all his, and he didn't want any part of me, not my pennies and not even my goodwill, to be a part of it.

I guess I can understand that. Really, I do understand. And if I'm completely honest, I'll admit that I might have done the same if it was me. But here's the thing - since that moment in that smoky bingo hall, I've felt like I was a part of it and that the whole Antarctica thing was a part of me. For years, when people asked me where the first place I would travel to is, I said Antarctica. My eyes always wander in that direction on maps. And here's something I don't tell people often: every year when winter is about to come, I, without fail, visit the same website he found ten years ago. I look up the expeditions that are coming up, I check the prices ($12,500 nowadays), and read about people's experiences. A few times I downloaded the application to be a chaperone and almost started to fill it out. The newspaper article of us, yellow and fading, is saved in a folder. I still have the departure package we received in the mail, ten years ago, when the trip organizer thought that we might actually be able to find $8,800 each within a month and make it on the expedition. So when I got that email from him, I thought that I would actually do it.

Of course, I stopped myself. I didn't even try. I never drafted a single thing, never wrote even a word. Why? Because I didn't know how to say all of THIS in 300 words and make it fun, and cool, and awesome. In the end, I'm glad I didn't try to encapsulate this history and post it for all the world to see (er... I realize the irony). No one wants to read a sob story as an entry in a contest, and a sob story sure as heck wasn't going to garner me thousands upon thousands of votes. I realized I couldn't make it fun though; I couldn't be all, "Ooh! Look at me! Send me on this trip because I *heart* ice and penguins and I write good!" I'm still not able to think about Antarctica without getting all serious, and ...mopey. I mean, did you read what I just wrote or what?

---

Why do I want to go to Antarctica? For all the reasons anyone wants to go: I love to travel, I have an insatiable interest in the environment and different ecosystems, I want to do something different, it's the Last Continent, I sleep with a stuffed penguin every night and really - Why not? I have a million reasons to go, but there's got to be at least one reason why I don't want to go, because otherwise I wouldn't have chickened out so badly. The email wasn't even one full and complete sentence, but held in it a whole world of history and emotions that I didn't know what to do with. So I did nothing.

*breath* So there we go - a little victory that I didn't win (it's not the first time). I hope that my inner self can agree with my fingers when I type that while I didn't win, I don't feel like I lost anything. I hope that I have at least gained a sense of ... acknowledgment. I hope that I have come to terms with the fact that this was never my goal. Sure, one day I'd still like to go to Antarctica, but it'd be nice if I could stop giving it such significance. I guess J was right, it really was his. It wasn't even my idea. It was never my race to finish, never my battle to fight, never my war to win. Oh, Antarctica: never my To Do Item to cross off.
10:12 PM

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Post Date Lament

The date? It did not go well. And while I wish I could leave it at that and desperately forget about it, the whole evening haunts me still. I use the words "whole evening" in a very loose way - I spent a total of an hour and a half with the guy and it was an hour and a half too much. I have never so badly wanted one of my friends or family members to be seriously hurt so that I could have an excuse to leave. I can't describe all the ways in which it was terrible (SO TERRIBLE!), so I will remember that I have no regrets in life as long as I learn valuable lessons from all of my experiences.

And the lesson I learned from all this was: NEVER DATE.

10:29 PM

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Dressing For A Date

Finally, after a half hour I have just finished fretting over what to wear tomorrow. Sometimes I wish we had uniforms at work just so I wouldn't have to worry about this kind of thing. Normally, it wouldn't be a big deal, but choosing an outfit particularly stresses me out when it has to be multi-functional, like my outfit for tomorrow has to be.

1. It has to involve a pair of jeans.
It's casual Friday at work and I'll be DAMNED if I don't take advantage of the one day a week we're allowed to wear denim.

2. It has to be work appropriate.
Just because it's casual Friday doesn't mean I can stroll in with jeans, a funky t-shirt, and a pair of Birkenstocks (though, that is the ultimate comfy outfit that popped into my head when I thought, "TGIF fackers!"). I'm also doing some presenting at a big meeting tomorrow in front of a very intimidating manager so... Alas, I have to wear a nice shirt and somewhat respectable shoes.

3. It has to be First Date Appropriate.
Yes, you heard/read me correctly. First Date. I have one of those tomorrow night. Don't ask - I'm not quite sure how it happened either, but the short version is this: I met a boy on the subway.

Now, this is significant for a few reasons:

1. I love meeting people whilst in transit.
Of course we all remember how I met J - on a public transit bus! - and how it remains one of my favourite, and now one of my most difficult, stories to tell. I've met a few good friends thanks to public transportation as well and they're all wonderful tales to relate. Secretly (or not-so-secretly, thanks to the wonders that are this blog), I've always wanted to meet my future hubby-to-be that way too. Come to think of it, that's how boy-wonder in Paris and I actually met last summer - while on the bus up to french camp in small-town Chicoutimi, Quebec. And speaking of boy-wonder...

2. I have a First Date while I've got ten days worth of dates waiting for me upon arrival in Paris in a week's time...?
Yes. Yes, I do. Again, I'm not sure how it all happened, but it was harmless enough and I've been honest with boy-wonder in letting him know that I did indeed give my number to a random dude I met on the subway home from work one day (our conversation started when he asked me what I thought of his hat - it was ridiculous). He knows, and he's only kind of cool with another guy calling me up to go out, but let's be honest - as crazy as I am to fall head-over-heels for someone who lives an ocean apart from me, I'm not going to be so crazy that I close all the doors that even creak open before me.

3. I can't remember the last time I went on a real date.
A "real date" being one that happens with me and someone else I've only briefly met (and he initiates by calling me). A "real date" is not hanging out with a friend and then drunkenly making out at the end of the night. So, by these standards, the last time I had a date was *thinking* ...with Mr. GQ/Asshole from *thinking* ...DECEMBER OF 2007. *calculating* Oh. My. Go-

4. I had a conversation about dates this morning.
While making breakfast in the office kitchen, Finance Director walks in, looks at what I'm stirring and says, "Ooh, oatmeal."

"With dates!" I replied. "Nature's candy!" (Breakfast makes me happy, apparently.)

"You like dates?" He asked.

"Of course. Both of the fruit and male variety."

10:39 PM

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Home Is Where My Closet Is

My mother walked into my room one Saturday morning last winter. She went towards my closet, pulled open the double doors and took a deep sigh. I had only been home for a few weeks and was still getting used to her walking in and out of my room unannounced.

As she stared into the jumbled abyss that is my clothing collection, I wondered if she was going to make a comment about how I hadn't unpacked well or put my things away nicely. It doesn't matter how old you are, a mother's disapproval is never a welcome thing.

"I've always wondered when your closet would be full again," she said. "Now that your clothes are here, I know you're finally home."

10:05 PM