28 years old

Today is my birthday, and the first thing I did was a prat fall off my bed, reaching for the snooze button. My new kitten Schrodinger was very alarmed, especially since one side of the futon was on the floor with me, while the side he was on had catapulted him up in the air. Poor little guy.

Schrodinger just came home on Sunday, and he’s still getting used to life here. He missed his sisters and mom for the first day, but now he’s just being a regular kitten, goofing around and playing with his huge collection of toys. I can spend hours just watching his hilarious antics. He sure does cheer me up. Life already seems very different. And when the dog comes, it’s going to be even more different. He’s a really funny cat, he gets pissed off if his litter box is too dirty, he just mews and mews until I clean it.

Anyway, hmm. Every birthday I try to write what I’ve learned about life in the past year.

What have I learned?

I’ve learned that sometimes fulfilling your dreams means you have to go into a different direction than you imagined. I’ve learned a hell of a lot about writing a screenplay. I’ve learned that it’s best to be who you really are, instead of pretending to be someone other people might prefer. I’ve learned about psychiatric service dogs and what they can be trained to do to help mitigate my illness. I’ve realized that I’m a deeply spiritual person, and also that even though I firmly believe in something (ie, and afterlife, the being some call God), other people are also entitled to their own beliefs. I’ve learned a lot about living with bipolar disorder.

I hope this next year will be good. A lot of things happened when I was 27. I got my BFA. I finished the first draft of my first feature. I had a dissolute unemployed summer. I worked briefly in a homophobic office. I moved back to Saskatoon, and got my first nice apartment and decent job. I started hanging out with an old old old friend again. In all, it has been a good year.