How to Handle a Break-up in Your Twenties

Cry.

Get it all out. Don't even bother trying to play the part of the person who couldn't care less - unless you do. If you're hurt, cry. What's important here is to allot an amount of time for mourning.

I'd say give yourself a week. An entire week. Allow yourself to slack off, cry yourself to sleep, become engorged with chocolate and ice cream, or survive on cigarettes, coffee and weed as I have. You get the point, give yourself a week to hit rock bottom. Listen to love songs, stare at their Facebook profile pictures, wait for their name to appear on the screen of your phone, begin text messages that you have no courage to send (don't send them unless you know exactly what you're doing), reminisce about all the things you could've said...would've said...should've said.

And then, by the end of the week, let go. Let go of their face, of the detail around their eyes. Let go of their scent and the shape of their nail-bed. Because it's gone now.

Thinking about the ghosts of their presence will do nothing but drive you to the madhouse.

By letting go, this is what I mean:

- thank God for their presence in your life - it was there for a reason, we may not be ready to know
- accept that what you had was beautiful but that the reason for it's end is telling.
- it ended because it had to
- release the memories from your mind
- do not torture yourself by regurgitating these memories
- put them in a box and hide it away at the back of your mind

Now,

Find assurance or comfort in the fact that life is a very curious thing. There just might be a time where you become two people that are now ready to take on the world together. Consider the time apart as prep. You had to develop on your own to become the person who just might fit your once-love's life.

Go out with your friends. I know how much I hate when people say that. "Keep busy". "Find a hobby". "Call up an old friend"

You really don't have to do any of this. What I do recommend is a daily joint. When your body is numb, somehow, you're able to repeal thoughts that might hurt you. Or you find the answers you were searching for.

If you don't smoke weed then just do what you love. If you play the piano, you hammer away at that thing. If you play soccer, you take every chance you get to run around on that field.

Eventually you will have filled the void with other things. With things you love, or help you grow. And then just like that - you've forgotten what it was like to be unhappy.

I'm only two days in. Wish me luck.

How to Choose a Summer Music Festival: Toronto

It seems that within the past couple years music festivals in Canada have been popping up all over the place. Our neighbours down south are used to the privilege of summer music festivals, what with Coachella, Lollapalooza, and The Governor's Ball to mention a few.

Coachella, L.A. 2012

But last year Toronto was bestowed with the great honor of hosting several summer concerts performed by world renound DJs and bands. NXNE, Toronto Jazz Festival, Digital Dreams, VELD, and the Identity Fest at Echo Beach were some of the lot hosted in T.O. From The Flaming Lips to Steve Aoki, Toronto was bumping and shakingn all summer long to the beat of some fantastic jams.

VELD, Toronto 2012

That was last year. The bar has been raised. The ante is up. What kind of musical festivals can we look forward to this summer?

Well,

• VELD is coming back along with Digital Dreams, and although the lineups have not been disclosed, it can be guaranteed that after the success of last years' events, they will be rolling in bigger and badder.

• The Canadian Music Festival featuring over 800 new local and international artists is being  showcased in 55 venues throughout Toronto's city centre (April)

• Waterfront Blues is back for round eight in its celebration of blues, jazz and R&B (June)

• NXNE, in it's 16th year is back for the killing - rock, indy, grunge, you want to hear it and they'll deliver. (June)

• Osheaga is being hosted in Montreal once again for the vagabonds and wanderous souls who love to travel and explore the vast realms and fellow cities within Canada. (August)

For complete lists of Canadian music festivals check this out:

www.musicfestivaljunkies.com

For events tending more to families, skim through this:

www.hotoronto.com/festivals


Now, on to choosing one, or some, for those who have the pocket change.

1. Decipher your chosen genre of music. Jazz? Soca? Reggae? House and Techno? Rock?
2. Give yourself an expenditure limit. These festivals do not come cheap. Be prepared to dish out $80 minimum. Depending on the length of the festival (some last up to 3 days) and the number of popular headliners will alter the cost of tickets/wristbands.
3. Browse through the links I have posted. Check out the individual websites for each music festival. On them the lineups will be released as well as the starting dates.
4. Lineups, lineups, lineups. Check them out and figure out where your favourite bands or DJs are performing!
5. Consider accomodations, commute time and accessibility.
6. GET. EXCITED.

This might just make your summer the most memorable one yet. Good luck choosing. Sometimes it becomes excrutiatingly difficult trying to decide between two or three festivals because several of your favourite artists are performing at each. Don't forget, there is always next summer!

Peace. Love.

What is it about Time...

Ever wonder about where you'll be in the next six months? The next year? The next couple years? Ten years?

Ever wonder about who you are and how much you've changed?

"I would've never done something like this a year ago."

It is through experience that makes us wise. What's that saying?

"Through bad judgement comes experience. Through experience comes good judgement."

Or something along those lines...

Time changes things. Everything. You are the sum of your experiences. The more you experience, the more you change. What if you do not want to change? There are aspects of your person that might never change. They are engrained: values, morals, etc.

Your quirks may change, your interests, your taste in music, but there are fundementals of your person that are comparitvely unique and make you who you are.

What do you hope never changes?
What do you wish to keep forever...

Move, Eat

How many of us would absolutely adore to experience what these three guys did? I couldn't count the number. Now, if only we all had the means to do so...

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

And the best part of travelling the world? The food. Ahhh yes, the food.



Live it up!!

The Help!

My mother's been updating me with more details and gossip from the book "The Help!". She can't get enough of it!

And now with Emma Stone starring in the upcoming "The Help!" movie, I'll definitely be able to acompany my mom in all her excitement.

Step back and take a look around

Maybe if I ask the questions, you'll ask them of yourself.


C'mon humour me, just think about it:



What does music mean to you?

How does it affect your life, mood, day, etc.?

What is one wish you've had for a long time and are yet to see come true?

Why hasn't it?

In ten words, describe who you are, right down to your core...

What does love mean to you?

Who in your life do you love? Do they know?

What makes you cry?

If something is making you cry, cry. Let it all out. Let it all go.

What puts the biggest and brightest smile on your face?

Or who?

Imagine it right now...

Smile.





Life is too short to wait around and feel disappointment. Make of life what you may. Never hold back, for one day you will look back and sigh to yourself.



Live and let live!!


I send you my love and my hugs and warmth, and if no one told you you were loved today, I DID!

YOU ARE LOVED!!!!

When is Enough really Enough?

Sometimes, maybe it is the smart thing to quit while you're ahead. I am neither ahead nor behind nor moving at all, so at this point although giving up does not seem to make any logical sense, it is really the only option I have left.

Except that,
I've tried. Oh yes I have tried. I made it almost a little more than a week, I believe, without talking to him at all. But it's impossible. I gave in like he had the first time.

I know he wants her. I know she wants him. (At least that's what it looks like.) I have no idea why he wastes his time with me.





So, I've decided to FUCK IT...whatever that means.

Visuals: Cheese & Crackers?

Transcendental

Time. Ultimately transcendental. What is it about time that heals? What powers does it possess? With time memories fade, people grow, people change...

But what is it about time specifically that fixes? How does it know how to make the pain go away? Is it only a temporary mender, as it knows that one can never be completely happy, and that sequential unhappiness is inevitable however the "when" and "for how long"'s go unknown.

"When"..."how long"...There it is again: time.

Such a mysterious and captivating thing. With time one learns to let go. One stops missing. One forgets. One moves on.

How does time do it? But what's more, why don't we possess the power to control it?? To speed it up or slow it down when we need to.

It has a power all its own and is completely out of our reach. Like love.

Time and love are immeasurable as they will never be tangible. They are out of our grasp and cannot be contained or sped up or slowed down.

What is it about time and love that go hand-in-hand, that are interchangeable???

It must be something. There must be some sort of answer. I'm yet to find it, however.


Sidenote: sorry this got so deep haha