In December 2008 Bob and I met, not even realizing we’d met until the next day. A photo of me enjoying a special moment in my blogography went up from the social media event we were both at and I had people alerting me to it from various directions from the moment I got online. Turned out the person who had caught this moment was Bob and luckily we had met that night, although briefly, we were still introduced. This led to following each other on twitter, reading each others’ blogs, to eventually becoming facebook friends; the regular social media drill.

What originally kept me interested in reading Bob’s blog and following him on Twitter was that I could live vicariously through a lot of his Flickr photos. We both enjoy a lot of the same out door activities but I’m not currently in a position to enjoy them like he is. Bob’s landscape photography always captured me and took me back to good memories from my past, hiking, camping, skiing, made me yearn for those days. Each photo always reminds me how much I miss those sides of myself but reaffirm that they are still there, just tucked away for later.

I learned of Bob’s plans to build his own site, sell his landscape prints and add portrait / headshot photographer onto his resume of services offered. Given that I liked his photos so much I asked if he needed any models for his portfolio, he said yes, I own some nice Betsey Johnson dresses so away we went.

We’d both always wanted to do the whole Vancouver Gastown alley graffiti shoot. We did just that and the set can be viewed here, I wanted to take this post, for the most part to highlight Bob’s work in general and mention about how it meant a lot having him take my photos after having followed his work and growth as a photographer for over two years via the wonders of Flickr.

Bob knew he wanted me in the blue dress but still looking pretty natural which was fine with me, I don’t have a live in hair and make-up artist anymore, so I winged it. The evening itself was super fun, it didn’t take me long to relax, Bob does have a very naturally calming personality, he is very respectful. He wants his shot how he envisions it but he does make sure you are fully comfortable with whatever ideas may pop into his head beyond what is already pictured on the film reel of his brain while planning the shoot.

It was really great getting to help someone start building something towards their passion, it was a pleasure to work with Bob and I would of course recommend him for any of your headshot or portrait session needs! Do check out his site and enjoy the photos I’ve posted here they are a just a few of my personal favourites.

If you like what you see here be sure and join Bob’s new Facebook group for his photography site.

These photos are all property of Bob Lai Photography and have been used with the permission of the photographer.

Normally when I use the word demonstrative on my blog I use it very loosely, it is a word I happen to love and on the level that I have written about myself up until now the context in which I have I used it is always simply to mean that I am not an affectionate person. Having exposed some of the things I have about myself in the last couple of posts l’m feeling more comfortable writing of things that make me who I am, but they’re things that I haven’t spoken about on here in detail before.

Regardless of how bad it is, and it’s really fucking bad, it is refreshing to be able to finally say, yes, Adam and I have problems, we’re normal. Of course people know we do, but I get sick of the online facade. Sure we have a fantastic relationship but we are, hands down, going through a tough time right now. Why hide it, when it is affecting so many areas of my life?

A week or two ago I tweeted a line from one of my old poems “how can I feel so alone when you’re sitting right next to me”. This facet of my personality leaves me an excruciatingly lonely person at times. Wanting to reach out so incredibly badly, feeling frozen and not being able to do it.

It is no one’s fault. Neither of my parents grew up in demonstrative families and that wasn’t their fault either. My parents always told me they loved me but until I left home three months after turning nineteen I had never said it back.

In small ways as a teenager I was able to open up physically but back then the problems I had with affection I deemed for the most part normal adolescence stuff. And because of general teenage angst and insecurity I was able to fake being more affectionate than I really was. How I don’t know or remember, because I can’t fake it anymore as an adult, even craving every single person I meet to like me it is still more common for me to use snail mail [you should see my stationary collection] or my fingers on a key board to express affection, to reassure people I care.

I know it is difficult for people first getting to know me to understand how I can open my heart so freely in writing and then presumably close it off in person. I’m not a particularly closed off person, but if you don’t know me, let’s just say I [can] take a while to grow on people. I have friends who ask if it is okay before they hug me and some who just do it. I’ve had friends convinced they could break whatever it was holding me back and would try to force affection on me, mind you, in a caring way; but still not for me.

This runs a lot deeper for me than simply tensing up when someone hugs me. For years I couldn’t look people in the eye when I spoke to them, I know that to most it comes off as being rude, for me it was from feeling insecurity and fear.

Although it was something that always bothered me about myself, when it would come to my girlfriends, I always wanted to be able to be affectionate with them when we’d have sleep overs and give hugs without a back pat or loose arms but for the most part I couldn’t. I’d send them an affectionate note saying how much the weekend meant to me instead.

I think the best of example of just how bad it is would be how I used to treat my cat. In 1999, there was an incident that made me realize that I had an actual problem, I wasn’t just a cold bitch on the outside. Gus has always been a needy cat, she was the runt of the litter and she is spoiled rotten. But she never used to be. When Gus would jump in bed with me and try to snuggle with me I’d push her away, I’ve always been a non cuddle sleeper period, and mostly a non cuddle person in general, so having a cat putting her paws in my eyes and mouth was all fun and games during the day but when I was trying to sleep or read and she’d sit down right in the middle of whatever book I’d be reading, I never really thought anything of it; just pushing her off. I thought she’s a cat they’re supposed be independent why does she even want so much attention.

I was living with someone who also had a cat, this cat hated Gus, this cat wasn’t so much mean as she was just a total fucking terror on four legs. We never got along, myself and that cat, but she had a close relationship with her owner. It wasn’t until I saw how affectionate he was with his cat and how affectionate he was with Gus that I realized that I was depriving my cat of affection. I ignored it at first, it wasn’t as if, except for pushing her off the bed, that I was mean to her. It was years ago so I don’t remember exactly how it happened but Gus must have been trying to get some affection out of me and I wasn’t having it and this person basically yelled at me “Corinna, pet your fucking cat!”.

It didn’t happen overnight but just opening up to my bloody cat changed me, actually letting her jump up on me when I’m upset and comfort me, letting her sleep with me and not tossing her off the bed when she was ready for me to be up and walking all over me. How did I live without that before? With it being eleven years later, I’m glad I changed this behaviour towards her when I did. But then again how do I live with so little human to human contact? I have found being a good three years into my thirties now that it’s something that bothers me, a lot. And it is something that I have for a few months now been working on because I want to learn how to get over this before it’s too late, before people are gone from my life forever and I never got to give them one of those hugs that I’m starting to get better at giving, the ones where I will actually pull you in tight to me. And so far it has felt good every time I have been able to do it.

Today I feel like my head is back on straight. I was genuinely scared. I’ve been trucking along hitting little bumps in the road here and there but hadn’t blown any tires or anything. Ran low on gas but was never left stranded. And then suddenly it was like someone threw two massive boulders straight into my face about two seconds a part.

Shit happens and all but it was so EXTREME.

And for someone who is used to disclosing everything on my blog it has been a trip not being able to write exactly what happened.

We didn’t really talk most of the weekend, Adam was still pretty distant and I was still pretty sick, I didn’t eat solid food until Tuesday. I was on my liquid I have killer anxiety diet. I’ve probably lost another five pounds but I’ll gain it back, I always do.

I scared a lot of my friends and I feel like a total cunt for that, I haven’t felt that suicidal since my last actual breakdown which I looked up with my search bar, it was at the end of February 2008. But through seeing my psychiatrist for a few extra appointments, I’m doing my best, which at times throughout the week my best hasn’t been my best, or good enough, but late Monday night Adam started to talk to me again and I’ve started to process what happened from a much clearer place with eyes wide open, hindsight and awareness of red flags I missed.

I hate it when the most cliché sayings in life turn out to be true but sometimes you really do have to [almost] lose it all to see what is staring you right in the face.

I don’t even know where to start, or what to say. Hold On by Tom Waits is playing and the lyrics

when there’s nothing left to keep you here, when you’re falling behind in this big blue world

will not stop running through my mind. That song was on our wedding CD and it took me years to realize exactly why Adam had put it on there. It wasn’t as obvious as his other Waits pick, Blind Love.

There are obviously things that I have for the most part chosen to not get into on my blog. Mainly my marriage but I fucked up really bad. I did something horrible. I more than hate myself right now. I’ve been granted forgiveness from Adam but forgiving myself and the other person isn’t coming so easily.

We are just like any other couple, we aren’t perfect. I love Adam more than anything on earth. I can’t even picture my life without him, we’re talking about a man who in 2003 picked me up from my psychiatrist’s office for our second date. But we still have some serious issues.

I met Adam after a year of events so fucked up I was still recovering but I was doing fine in general and I wasn’t suffering from any post traumatic stress anymore and I also wasn’t looking for love and so when we started to walk past each other on our way to work. Things happened to put us where we were at the times we were, it was just one of those things I guess. And I remember that I trusted him almost right away and I honestly can not say there are very many people I trust, period. I never worried if he would call me, I never doubted if he was into me I never had any anxiety I just knew.

This has already been a whirlwind of a year, we’ve been working hard on keeping it together financially and I was happy or as happy as I ever can be, for a while, for longer than I ever remember being before. When I was in Bali last September I felt better about myself than I think I ever have, I missed Adam like mad, but there are things that happened there that reassured me that the odd feeling I was having was indeed a form of happiness. Sure my temper still reared and rears its ugly head at times but I have had so much peace come into my life in that last few months that I never saw coming, situations I thought were never going to end, resolutions were found, because that is who I am, I am forgiving almost to a fault.

I’ve been able to keep pretty happy, until now. And instead of doing what I always do which is fucking talk about it, or write about it, I let it allow me to do something that isn’t me, that isn’t who I have ever been. I told Adam everything that happened because I have always told him everything. We haven’t been married seven years but we’ve been together for seven years and a lot of shit happens in seven years and with the combination of our pasts we’ve ended up in a tough spot and I handled it in a way I never saw coming.

I am so lucky to have a man who stays with me when I am so damaged. When I fight suicidal thoughts almost daily, I fight them fucking hard, I talk about it, because the tattoo for the friend I lost is on my fucking arm and there is a fighter in there somewhere who does not want to die but my brain won’t shut the mother fuck up. And having lost someone to suicide I need to be able to say “I can’t stop thinking about just renting a car and driving away and doing what PH did” and you don’t even want to know about the other demons haunting my head. Adam is always there for me, I don’t even know why, I don’t. He has seen me almost unconscious and put into an ambulance and I could have once again died because I’m a fucked up freak.

I knew that I was in a weak place re: my last post and what happened which was not an internet bully situation left me pretty upset, I have been told by more than just my psychiatrist that the way I was treated would mess up someone who suffers from no mental illness. I allowed myself to be vulnerable where I generally never ever allow myself to be and the fallout from the biggest mistake I have ever made – and I guess I should at least say that NO I did not sleep with anyone, I know this is a cryptic post but more than just my feelings and emotions have been affected by what happened.

And then I made it worse in the most idiotic moment of insecurity I ended up making myself look like someone that is so far from who I am that I’m having trouble even processing some of the cruelty that was tossed my way today. Shit happens in life it is what you do to fix it that really matters and when the other person refuses to take responsibility for their actions and puts it all on me I’m not going to fucking take it. It takes two to tango and I’m quite frankly sickened by the attitude of the person. I say really stupid shit when I’m hurt and upset and I was hurt and upset and confused and that lead to me being called so many things I again just don’t believe I’m needed here. I’m horrible, I hurt my husband. But I resent people who will not take responsibility for their actions it drives me insane. Of course I know I can’t make anyone do anything, people do what they want to do when they want to do it, I learned that lesson years ago. But it doesn’t make it any easier. The things that were said to me today I may have deserved at the time but it was the first time I think maybe ever where I felt helpless in the sense that someone, anyone, thinks that I am a terrible, horrible person. I hate myself enough I just don’t need it. I thought I was making a new friend, I thought no matter what happened that this person was at least my friend, although a new friend, still a friend.

I fucked up, bad, in a lot of ways. I’m really struggling, I’ve been hiding it, I was afraid to admit I was starting to slip emotionally because I have been able to handle everything that has been thrown my way better than I ever have before and there have been genuine moments when I’ve been proud of myself, and I just took a million steps back and I hurt, Adam hurts and I know we will get through this, that has already been discussed and as I’ve mentioned before nothing is posted on this blog that Adam doesn’t read or edits before it goes up. I will learn a lot from this, I believe very strongly that whether it is a positive or negative situation that comes into my life that it holds lessons that I must find. Every person I meet is a teacher of sorts. Some are seriously shitty ones, but man do I learn a lot from the douche bags and bitches. Thankfully there are no bitches in my life at present.

I was already being eaten alive by my anxiety because of the bullying trigger and I fucking hate myself for showing weakness in a place that I’ve never shown it before. I’m just sorry, sorry I did what I did, sorry I’m being so misunderstood, sorry I’m alive. I know I have it good but the smorgasbord of triggers I’ve had is bowling me over. I’m hanging on for dear life right now. I see my shrink again on Monday because I’m on a suicide watch of sorts which is even MORE fun for Adam. yeah worst fucking wife in the world award.

So, I guess, go a head, let me have it, I deserve it.