A Qualitative Life

I have this bad habit of taking dorky science things and applying them to my life.  I can't help it.  But, to be honest, it actually helps me to better understand myself and life in general.

Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about the types of "data" that exist.  Data is essentially the information you gather when doing research or what you harvest from experiments.  There are two separate and distinct types of data: Qualitative and Quantitative.  Rather than totally butchering the descriptions of each of them, here is a nice little table.

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So how the heck have I been applying something random like this to my life?  Let me explain.

When I was 18 years old, my life became suddenly and strictly Quantitative.  The most important things in my life were numbers.  The numbers on my report card.  The numbers on the clock.  The number of kilometres ran.  The numbers in my bank account.  The number of calories going in.  The number of calories going out.  And most importantly, the numbers on the scale.  These numbers ruled me.  They dictated my emotions, they decided my actions, and they determined my success.  Without these numbers, I was nothing.  My most joyous moments and my most painful failures were all based on these numbers.

Was this a happy time in my life?  Only when the numbers were on my side.  And even then, when I had reached my goal, the numbers would betray me.  

So you got 94% on that assignment?  Think that's pretty good, eh?  Well, what about those other 6%?

You ran 10 km today?  That's nice.  Did you see how long it took you?  Yeah, over 55 minutes.  What a slow poke.

Happy you only ate 1500 calories today?  Well, don't be.  You still weigh 140 lbs.

Numbers were ultimately my best friend and worst enemy.  They were a way of life.  And whether I would admit it or not, I was absolutely miserable.

Fortunately, things have changed.  I'm not sure when or how, but they've changed.  Numbers aren't really that important.  They're only important when they need to be, like when it comes to budgeting or getting a good night sleep.  My life is no longer Quantitative, it's Qualitative.  I pay more attention to the things that actually matter, the things in life that "... can be observed but not measured."  I drink in the colours of a beautiful southern Alberta sunset.  I breathe in the scents of spring.  I pay so much more attention to how I feel, what I see, and what I hear.  For the first time, I feel like I'm truly living.

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Life is meant to be lived Qualitatively, not Quantitatively.  Pay more attention to the quality of your life, not the quantity.

A Good Weekend

Please forgive me.  I've gone and done it again.  I swear this is the last time.

I'll admit it, I just had a blog-life crisis.  Maybe there's no such thing, but I for me it was real.  I just didn't know what the heck I was doing on the internets anymore.  After lots of searching, I figured it out.

When I first started a blog, I wanted to feel more alive.  I was sick of moping around on Facebook all day and then beating myself up about having a crappy life.  What really got the ball rolling was looking in the newspaper one day to read the comics.  This is what I found, and it spoke to me.

Although my method of wasting time and precious life wasn't in front of the television, sitting in front of my laptop was a pretty accurate equivalent.

So I set out on a quest to be a blogger.  I wrote once a week about a topic that had been weighing on my mind during the week.  The results were great.  I found myself cultivating skills of introspection and writing papers for school got a lot easier too.  And the compliments were pretty nice too.

Now fast forward almost three years later.  I'm a completely different person!  I no longer feel like I'm wasting my life and I need a blog to help get me out of a rut.  In fact, for the first time I feel like I've got a really great handle on what life is and my experiences nowadays aren't "Near-Life," they're full fledged "LIFE."  And I love it.  I'm living and I still want to blog.

What will I blog about?  The exact same things I always have.  I'll be honest and frank about the trials I encounter and how I learn and grow from them.  I'll be silly and creative by making videos and cracking jokes.  I'll be philosophical in my own Kristen-philosophical way.  I'll document the cheery, fun things in life too.

So, what's new for me?  Jon and I just had a fantastic weekend down south visiting my family.  Here are some of the things we enjoyed...

Nothing beats a visit to Grandma and Grandpa Gibb's House.

I sure love these two.

Jon claims the only thing good about Raymond is the snow-bobs at Town Pump.  

While eating dinner, my sister Hannah told us to look out the window.  These bald eagles are what we saw in the field next to our house.

Man.  Words cannot describe how much I love this place.

The Best Things That Have Ever Happened To Me: Part III

Once upon a time, I got married to the most amazing boy in the world.  But then I got depression after only two weeks of marriage and thought that my life was over.  And it ended up being one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  The end.

* * *

I've struggled with trying to figure out how to tell this "best thing that has ever happened to me."  Although dropping out of college and getting dumped by a boyfriend were both hard, neither one of them come even close to how hard going through depression was.  And neither one of them come even close to how fulfilling it has been to survive and surpass a mood disorder.  But how does one even describe that to someone who has no idea what it's like to go through depression? 

The only way I can really describe it is through an analogy, and a pretty weak one at that.  I'd say it's a lot like hitting a figurative dead end in your life, except when you're the person hitting it the dead end feels completely literal.  You reach a place in your life where it appears that all the good times are over, you passed them all already on the road.  Now you must sit and stare at the dead end sign and where the asphalt fades into grass and think to yourself that you're finished.  This is it.  This is the end.  Life will never ever be as good as it was on the road I took coming up to this dead end.

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So that's how it felt.  And things began to feel that way after being married for only two weeks.  

How did I cope with this feeling?  Horribly.  I would sleep away as many hours of the day that I possibly could.  I would cry.  I would pick fights with Jon.  I would even literally run away from him, not telling him where I went, once we got home from our honeymoon.  And most of all, I would sit and stew, letting my thoughts take over, telling myself that I had made a terrible mistake and that I was doomed to a life of misery.  

Why did I do this?  Because I literally felt like all the good times in my life were over.  If you were to investigate the causes of depression, there are several different answers you could find.  Perhaps I acted this way because I lacked certain chemicals in my brain, like Serotonin.  Maybe it was because I lacked the cognitive pathways necessary to cope with big life changes.  It could have been because I already have a genetic predisposition for depression and have struggled with anxiety in the past.  There are several answers as to why someone gets depression because not everyone is the same.

Now why in high heavens is this one of the best things that has ever happened to me?  Because I got over it.  This is by far the hardest thing I have ever encountered, which makes a victory just that much more sweet.  It's like sports; it feels way better to beat the hardest team in your league than to beat the easiest.  You have to dig deeper from within yourself, you learn what you are capable of, and you also learn to acknowledge and accept your weaknesses.  For the LONGEST time I refused any help, I was convinced I could get through this on my own.  However, things only got worse until I decided to accept the help that was available to me.  I'm so grateful I had this opportunity to face my weaknesses because now I feel stronger than I ever have in my entire life.

In addition to growing as an individual, I'm convinced Jon and I have grown stronger as a couple after passing through such a difficult time together.  We are now better at communicating with each other, something that is surprisingly important in a successful marriage.  If Jon and I could survive my battle with depression during those first few months of marriage, I feel confident that we can tackle whatever trials life throws at us next.

I never thought I'd ever say this, but depression is honestly one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

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Untold Tales of the Honeymoon

It seems like society portrays honeymoons as the most blissful and wonderful vacation you will ever have the privilege to take in your whole entire life.  You get to get away with the love of your life to some nice destination where you continue to fall even more in love.  So, as a disclaimer to those who have yet to get married, proceed with caution.  Your views and dreams of magical honeymoons may forever be tainted with the bitter taste of reality, or at least my reality.  And as for you people that are already married, don't laugh too hard at me.

Jon and I had the great fortune of travelling to Ecuador for two months for our honeymoon.  We spent time with his family living in various different areas of the country and had two weeks to ourselves on the Galapagos Islands.  Doesn't that sound absolutely amazing?  Feel free to be jealous.

Anyways, as I have blogged about in the past, I got depression while on my honeymoon.  And this depression wasn't just the feelings of homesickness or adjusting to a new life as a married person, it was a full fledged major depressive episode that completely rocked both Jon's and my world.  And our honeymoon, which consequently ended two weeks earlier than planned (changing your flights is EXPENSIVE!).  And our fledgling little marriage.  Fortunately, we can both now laugh about all of this.

So, as I was saying, I got really, really bad depression.  I literally had every symptom you've ever heard of that relates to depression and even the ones that you've never heard of, such as....

Zoom in a little more....

Still can't pick it out... zoom in some more.

Getting closer... almost there, zoom in once more.

Yup.  That happened.  On my honeymoon.  And surprisingly enough, it was the very best thing that happened.  But let me tell all the funny stuff before I get all candid.

To start off, it sucked.  Really bad.  For the first half of our honeymoon, me going to the bathroom was somewhat of a thing to be celebrated.  But then the second half came along and my depression got exponentially worse.  And so did, well, that little problem.  It was actually quite debilitating.  In fact, I was sure that I would die.  It was death-stipation.  Eventually I reached a point where, whether I liked it or not, I needed help.  Which is where things get interesting.

It became clear that I desperately needed medicine, which meant that Jon had to ask someone in his family to give him a ride to a pharmacy.  And being typical Latinos, they just had to know what was wrong.  So my secret was out.  Out in the open.  WIDE OPEN.  Bless their hearts, these people have no problem talking about that.  Maybe it's just me, but isn't that a topic that should be reserved to muffled whispers?!  In Ecuador it wasn't.  In fact, rather than keeping it quiet, it became a topic of conversation, everyone had their own cures for this ailment and insisted that I drink this or eat that or do this.  Fortunately, I was lying in my bed dying when this initial conversation took place.

When Jon eventually got back, I was brought to the kitchen to eat the prescribed papaya, take the prescribed pills, and do whatever else was prescribed by the experts.  As I sat at the table innocently eating, a conversation swarmed over top of me.  Jon's family were all talking about me.  And they were all talking about how I was consti.... well yeah, that.  No, I do not know the Spanish word for that, but when a bunch of Latino people are talking in a circle around you and pointing at you, it's not that hard to guess what the topic is.  Had I not already been dying of something else, this very situation quite possibly may have killed me.

Now, how in high heavens could this be the very best thing that happened on our honeymoon?  Well, as much as it sucked, it was a serious blessing for Jon and I.  My depression had gotten to a point where I was completely unrealistic and crazy.  I was flinging the D-word around and we hadn't even been married for more than two months.  Although being sick like that didn't fix everything and we continued to struggle well after getting home, this little segment of my depression forced me to rely on Jon 110%.  It forced me to accept his service and help, and it really opened my eyes in regards to how much Jon cared about me.  After spending almost a month as a sick and depressed wife that was constantly pushing her husband away from her, being knocked down and forced to rely on my husband was the best thing that could have happened.

Today, Jon and I both laugh about this and even have our inside jokes (well mostly Jon, he teases me).  Although we joke about it, deep down we both hold on to it as an important and almost spiritual experience that helped us survive our honeymoon.  I never, ever thought I'd say this, but getting constipated was good for my marriage.

So there you have it.  Single ladies, pack Metamucil for the honeymoon.

The Best Things That Have Ever Happened To Me: Part II

Once upon a time, I started dating this amazing guy that I thought I would probably end up marrying.  But then one night he suddenly dumped me and it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.  The end.

* * *

Okay, at the time, I felt like the world was over.  But it actually turned out to be the opposite; my world was just beginning.  Here's why...

After an especially awesome summer in the promised land of southern Alberta, moving back to the city to go to school was the very last thing I wanted to do.  I didn't want to leave all of my friends and the fun behind.  But I did.  Cause I had to.  And since I'm such a martyr, I just couldn't let myself make new friends and completely integrate myself to the dreadful city.  So I isolated myself to prove my allegiance to those friends I left behind.  Because that seems like the smartest and best thing to do when you move somewhere new.  Not.

Anyways, around November of that year a perfect stranger crept into my life via Facebook.  Since he lived in another city a few hours away, we got to know each other through messaging.  For the first time since moving to the city, I finally felt like I had a friend.  And that friend existed primarily on the internet.  Eventually, he decided it was time for us to meet and he asked me on a date.

That date went well and was followed by another one.  And that second date went really well and was followed by us becoming boyfriend and girlfriend!!  Oh high heavens, how happy I was!!  I had the world's best boyfriend.

Dating this boy was a dream.  He had everything I could have ever wanted in a boyfriend, which is why my mind started to soar.  When a lonely girl meets a fantastic guy, her heart and mind begin to wander.  They begin to wander to bigger and grander pastures and commitments.  Which can really set a girl up to fall hard should things not work out the way she starts dreaming.

Although our relationship existed mostly online, it didn't mean that when things suddenly ended one fateful night over Skype that it didn't hurt.  In fact, it hurt more.  This boy had been not only my boyfriend, but he was my ONLY FRIEND!  I really liked him!  And now it was all over and I was back to being all alone and destined to THIS:

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This is how sad I was.

Fortunately, after one sad, lonely weekend, things got better.  Both because I decided it would (and blogged about here) and because an acquaintance decided to slip in and become my friend.  And that friend was a guy with a ponytail.  And I called him Ponytail Jon.  

I'm not going to walk you through all the gooey details on how I ended up marrying that guy with a ponytail (he had cut it off by then but not before letting it remain as a rattail for a few weeks), but what I do want to say is how one of the best things that has ever happened to me ended up coming out of one of the most uncomfortable and unhappy things that has.  Getting dumped was brutal.  But the joy I have felt since being dumped has been totally worth it.  Since then, I had the great pleasure of becoming good friends with a stellar guy, dating him, getting engaged to him, and then marrying him.  All because I got dumped!!

Now, in conclusion, I just want to say I have no hard feelings to the guy who dumped me.  In fact, I still hold him in the highest regard and wish him nothing but the best.  I'm grateful I got to know him, I'm grateful for all he taught me, and I'm grateful he followed his heart because it made room for me to meet Jon.  He just went to prove that sometimes the best things that ever happen to a person have to stem from the hardest things.  I'm so glad I got dumped.

The Best Things That Have Ever Happened To Me: Part I

Once upon a time, I dropped out of college and got a job at a Booster Juice.  And it was one of the best things I ever did for myself.  The end.

* * *

Okay fine, at the time, I felt like it was one of the worst things I had ever done for myself, but now when I look back I'm so glad that I did.  Here's why...

After graduating from high school, I moved far away from home to go to college.  It was a big deal, and I was a big deal.  It was a big deal because I had been accepted into a very difficult program to get into, especially for a wee little 18 year old.  As for myself, well, I was an even bigger deal.  I was moving away with a pocket full of scholarships and the pride of graduating as number two in my class, the student body president, and the year book co-editor.  I had my life all planned out and somewhere in the distant future I could see myself making bucket loads of money as a highly sought after Respiratory Therapist.

But then school actually started and by the time I was coming home for Thanksgiving, which is only about 5 or 6 weeks into the first semester, I knew I had made a horrible mistake.  I hated school.  There was no way I could ever see myself working as a Respiratory Therapist.  I was completely miserable.  I complained to my parents and they reassured me it would get better.  But it never did.  

There was the day our teacher showed us a presentation on gory injuries, so that we could prepare ourselves for the types of awful things we might eventually see.  Then there were the two weeks spent doing clinical and hospital rotations where I had the great pleasure of going to a cancer clinic.  My mind was completely and utterly made up that I couldn't continue into my second year of school after being present as a young mother completed a lung test.  After she left, my preceptor told me she most likely had a lung tumour and her prognosis wasn't going to be very good.

And so my mind was made up.  I was going to quit this prestigious program.  But that was as far as I had thought things out.  When the school year ended, I returned home to my usual summer job as a lifeguard at the town pool, where I was still a big deal.  Then summer ended and the pool closed.  So it was time to find a new job.

To this day, I have no idea why I didn't just lifeguard at an indoor pool.  I had the qualifications, just not the foresight I guess.  Anyways, I applied to any place I could find an ad for.  It seemed like no one was hiring.  It took weeks to get a job until finally, I got the call from Booster Juice saying that they would like to hire me.

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It didn't take long before the excitement I felt for finally getting a job quickly faded into embarrassment.  Who knew that everyone would immediately assume that I was going to school and ask me what I was studying?  Every time I was asked that question, I would literally cringe.  I could feel my face go red with my reply of, "Actually, I'm working," always followed by the most fervent silent prayers begging that they wouldn't ask where.  But they would always ask.  And I would always have to tell them the truth.  "Booster Juice."

It was a sad reality that I finally found myself living in.  I was no longer a big deal.  In fact, I was nothing more than a Smoothie Technician.  Or at least that's what it said in the job description.  Instead of studying and moving forward with my life, I was stuck working at a fast food restaurant, and not even that.  I made smoothies for a living.  And I was mortified.

Although Booster Juice did have it's perks, such as becoming good friends with one of the most beautiful and talented women I know, there was no way I could let myself see the wonderful things at the time.  I was blinded by the pain of my shrinking ego and by the sting of my wounded pride.  In fact, whenever I saw somebody I knew coming into the store, I would sneak into the back to do something like this...

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I was Kristen Gibb!!!!  I didn't belong in a smoothie shop!!!!

Eventually I did move on.  I graduated from my time at Booster Juice.  And as the years wore on, I eventually came to understand just how important this experience was for me.  I needed a serious slice of humble pie force fed to me.  

Nowadays, I look back on this trying and embarrassing time for myself as one of the most important and best experiences I have been through thus far.  I learned the most valuable lesson that I am, in fact, not a big deal at all.  I am no better than anyone else.  And I am definitely not better than working at a job where I make smoothies for people.  I'm so grateful I had this opportunity more or less thrust upon me.  I'm so grateful I could have the pride pretty well beat out of me.  And I'm so grateful that I could have a hands on, real-life lesson in humility.  I really needed it.  

Depression: A Tale of Tears and Triumph

Things are different around these parts.  I'm not quite sure when things changed, but they're different.

I'm healing.

Or maybe a better way to put it is that I'm winning.  Either way, that "black dog" called Depression that used to be following me around seems to have disappeared.  I'm a happy camper now.  Probably the happiest I've ever been in my entire life.  Who knew that I would have to pass through the torture of Depression to experience my greatest happiness?  Not I.

I'm of the opinion that Depression will probably be a battle that trails behind me for the rest of my life.  It will continue to wait in the shadows until it finds another vulnerable time in my life to pounce.  However, the knowledge and skills I have obtained in fighting Depression will also be waiting to fly to my defence when that time comes.  Which is why I use the present tense to describe myself.  I am not healed and I have not won.  But without a shadow of doubt, I am happy.

When I think back to a year ago, I can't help but shudder.  I was two months away from being married. And I was two months away from snapping.  Jon and I are now at a point where we can laugh about how absolutely dreadful the first three months of marriage were.  Rather than jumping into one of the most anticipated parts of life with both feet and a smile on my face, I cascaded into a pit of despair, flailing and screaming and scrambling to grab onto any remnant of my "old" life, when things were "great."

Thankfully, I married a good man.  Jon is a saint.  He stood by me when I did everything in my power to push him away.  He did his best to understand something that really doesn't make sense.  And he encouraged me to do the treatments that I needed to but wouldn't.

I'm really not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with this post.  I guess it just feels like I'm in the middle of turning to a new page in my life and I want to make it more official.  As strange as it sounds, I'm grateful I had Depression thrown into my path.  I've been stretched.  And it feels good.  I'm a better person because of it.  I have more compassion for people who pass through the trials of life.  

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