2002-2007: Years of living with a cast on my soul

2002-2007: Years of living with a cast on my soul

In blogs of the past I’ve shown glimpses of points in my personal history, but I want to explore something more holistic. I have been recently alluding to an era that has in the last few years ended. I have wanted to write about a lot of the things that have happened during my undergrad years but these things always seemed too close to me and have been quite sensitive. Now I feel enough time has past that I can write some of my confessions with some degree of distance. I will take this in parts, detailing the distinct “aspects” of my life during this time: (1) long hair and the persona I tried to create (2) social life and group dynamic, (3) weddings (4) University days (5) illness and recovery.

(1) “Hiding behind my hair today”

I used to have long hair. I guess it had been my aspiration since adolescence

grow it out. It was part of a holistic movement towards poetry, music, eastern and western philosophy, meditation and the cultivation of a bohemian aura. But there was certainly enough heavy metal in my motivation as well. I remember loving the Wayne’s World era of style and felt this was who I was. Also my Uncle John is one of my biggest inspirations and he has long hair. Long beard too but I’ve never grown mine that long.

I started growing my hair in the fall of 2000 after Gordon convinced me to let him give me a buzz cut, for which I had to pay him. I remember feeling some degree of satisfaction when in the spring of 2003, during exams, I was able to put my hair in a ponytail. I had to use hair pins to keep it in place but it was a sign that I had achieved my dream of having long hair.

What all this meant has to be understood in the context of finding my own concept of self. In the wake of my manic episode and Gordon’s suicide I had lost a lot of things in which I previously oriented myself. Playing guitar was also part of this overall attempt to create my sense of self. I believed that having long hair and playing guitar was who I was. Certainly it was part of me. There is nothing wrong with establishing yourself in these expressions as long as you don’t completely identify yourself with these things.

But the overall picture was of me sedated on psychiatric drugs, spending my weekends partying and sleeping and playing guitar. I hardly left my bed after a late night party. Even if I wasn’t sleeping I would daydream. I would eventually get up and do some work. The Smashing Pumpkins song “Nothing and Everything” with the line “Hiding behind my hair today” best symbolizes how I felt. I was still at the mercy of my moods and the dreamy effects of sleeping most of the day made these days so surreal. I was hiding from the world from behind my long hair. It was really an artsy (one might even say Brian Wilson-esque) time of my life, as I was writing songs like never before.

But it wasn’t always artsy…sometimes it was truly demonic! My favourite memories of my long hair in this case were of the times I went to karaoke and sang “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath and banged my head while singing and air guitaring, or the time Chalmers and I headbanged to High-fivin’ MF by Local H. Another moment I cherish is the photo-shoot with Jen and the pictures of me in a long trenchcoat wearing my top hat with my hair down. I had achieved a dream here as with the artsy life and got Jen a good mark to boot!

But I was fragile then having put so much stock in fleeting structures, and my illness was still a problem. Sleeping all the time wasn’t helping matters.

Today, being on my CPAP machine, I sleep a lot better and so I don’t feel as sleepy now. And I am in better control of my moods. As for my hair it got to the point where it was no longer necessary to have it long so I had it cut short. I always knew from the beginning that the day would come when it would have to go, that the days of being this way were numbered. That was why I was so adamant that Aleks take pictures of me with my hair down because I knew it wouldn’t last forever. Did this destroy my sense of self? It shook it up a little but I have come to certain realizations over the last few years. These came from the events that in effect were the collapse of certain structures that were in place that had given me my horizon: graduation from King’s, friends moving on, grad school foul-up. In the wake of these collapses I found who I truly am, and I rejoice. Who am I? It cannot be reduced to any given structure but rather the complexity of the givenness of my Being, with all the gifts and challenges that it constitutes. I will always have the times I had long hair, because I will always have as part of my Being all the things that were. I realize my gifts, dreams and challenges but more importantly I have a confidence now that wasn’t present then.

(2) Moving Days

I want to talk now about my group of friends or rather the group dynamic from my perspective. I grew up with Aleks and Chalmers. And for all the time I’ve known them they have been an “odd couple” their friendship thriving on argument. So when the two of them started talking about moving out of their respective parents’ places, and into an apartment together, it seemed only right and natural though at the same time completely foreign. Living on one’s own was still a new concept to some of us at the time. But I was pleased that they were going to try and find a place and I thought of all the fun we could have.

But an omen came on the day they moved. A few days prior, Chalmers and I went to the epic Toronto Rocks concert, aka Sarstock, and from all the smog etc. I picked up a lung infection, (how ironic), I was unable to help with the move. That day Sean had filmed a mockumentary called Moving day. I thought it was brilliant the first time I saw it, (though this opinion dwindled with each time I saw it). But my absence from the film sort of awakened something in me, something that is always there in social settings but it was more present to me at this time. It was a feeling of being an outsider.

Aleks and Chalmers had cultivated something of a following and as loath as I am to admit it, I was jealous. I often in those days compared myself to them and the twofold response was feeling like I wasn’t as good as them on the one hand, and the other was a feeling that I was just as good but was denied the attention they got.

But I had my role in that group nonetheless, Aleks’ then girlfriend Becky saw me as a kind of Jiminy Cricket, and I was certainly a voice of reason for some of the group. I for instance knew that Trevor was not to be trusted. I got a bad feeling from him from the moment I met him. But I tend to keep things to myself and people tend not to listen to you if you aren’t assertive, so there you go.

So I would come to parties and not feel like I was good enough, all the while connecting to people one-on-one, which is more my way. But I think that Aleks and Chalmers sensed something of what I felt and had a Taedes Night, which involved eating curry, and watching Clear Cut. As the protestant grace goes “For what we’re about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful” and I truly was.

That apartment saw a lot of ups and downs with or without my presence, but the lowest was a party during Slack Week. There was a huge party. Aleks was elsewhere. I had prior to this formed a friendship with Trish. She was one of the people that I had been connecting to one on one at parties and we talked. She and I went out for coffee (no it was NOT a date). I talked about how I wasn’t being listened to etc, and she talked about Steve. I defended Steve but told her that she had to make up her mind whether she was happy or not. So at the party we seemed to be on the same page at first. When something, I can’t remember what, happened and as usual no one was listening to my advice, she was right there too trying in vain to get people to listen to me. But as the night wore on and everyone got drunker and drunker things really started to degenerate. Soon Trish was flirting with Trevor when Steve wasn’t around, and I was getting madder and madder. But let us not get ahead of ourselves. Trish and Steve were in the kitchen along with Trevor and people were trying to tickle poor Steve in his drunken state, but it degenerated even further when Neil and Steve got into a mock wrestling match. Before my very eyes, Steve put Neil into some kind of lock and there was a bloodcurdling CRACK!! Steve immediately broke the hold and was horrified at what he had done

Neil lay at my feet trying to get someone to call an ambulance. The crowd was stunned so he pulled out his phone and called one for himself. I was so scared to move. But when it came down to it, I was the one who flagged down the wayward ambulance. Doesn’t justify my cowardice when it came to calling him an ambulance, not does it quench the fiery guilt that I didn’t accompany him to the hospital, but I did something at least. Neil’s arm, we found out later, was broken.

But this was not the end of it. Steve understandably left the party but this only brought the poor guy further pain, as Trish and Trevor continued to openly flirt. Cowardice again prevented me from being the hero, and I sat by fuming that nobody seemed to see what I saw. In the end they had sex right there in the apartment as we all slept.

This was a very dark chapter of our friend’s circle so I will tell a happier story. This is the story of Steve and Chalmers living together. There were a lot of parties then, but there was a wider group forming where many different circles intersected. Steve met Lindsay, who was a classmate of Jen’s, then and they have been together since. Some of the best parties I’ve ever been to were there, and I felt like I could be myself there, which was different from Aleks and Chalmers’. It was the kind of happening where no one person could really command all the attention, as the place was bigger and the diversity of people always meant pockets of conversation. I always enjoyed going to this place. Towards the end the diversity tended to dwindle but these were good days. It was during these days that I grew to know and love Jer and Julie.

Steve and Lindsay’s apartment was another hangout. Now here is where I felt like I was coming into my own. Not for any outward reason, just my confidence was growing. One of the best things about these days was our poker nights. I would often win though I would just as often lose. But looking back I can see a big change for the better

I have talked about this “outsider feeling” and not being listened to. I will now talk about the discoveries I have made in these regards. The “outsider feeling” is something that comes over me when I don’t feel connected or engaged. I tend to retreat into myself when things aren’t going well, or I am bored or feel like I am not needed. Once I disconnect I start to feel as though no one understands me, that no one cares. It gets worse the more I identify with the “voice” that tells me this.

A lot of it is based on the notion that I should be the centre of attention, or the “smart one”, the person you should listen to. If I feel I am not, I tend to feel I have failed to be “wise” or “great”. I have tended to expect too much from myself and overlook my good qualities all at the same time.

I’ve learned many things this past year. I have learned that I don’t have to be “great” or an “expert” to positively contribute. I’ve learned that I have contributed in places where I felt like an outsider. I have learned to notice when I am zoning and to stay present. My motto now is “Wherever I go, there I am.”

(3) “Those Wedding Bells”

I want to talk now on the subject of marriage. I have been to a number of

weddings in the past few years and each one had its own idiom but it seems that the one’s that inspired the most emotion in me were the ones of Jen and Nathan, and Aleks and Anna.

Jen’s marriage had the unique position as being the first of my closeknit circle of friends to get married. Jen has always been a 2^nd little sister to me and so there was a lot of transformation in the way I saw her. She was no longer a little girl but a young woman about to make a lifelong commitment of love. Her wedding day seemed to hold so much hope and yet there was a horizon of dark clouds. The wedding took place at Windemere Estates and there was I am told a lot of fuss over whether they would be able to have the ceremony outdoors. Finally it was decided: Jen’s dad and a man I admire greatly reportedly said in an authoritative voice: “It will not rain.” And so it didn’t. At least not till it was long over.

The ceremony was beautiful. Nathan wore his Mountie uniform and Jen was glowing with a radiance only a happy bride can emit. Afetr the ceremony came the dinner. Now this dinner had with it a running gag. A young lad from Germany was supposed to be sitting at the table with Jer, Steve, Chalmers, and I, but he had apparently been ill after eating “FIVE QUESADILLAS!!” So Jer looked at Chalmers, and Chalmers looked at Jer, a thought was being shared with mere looks. It was decided that somebody clearly had to eat the food young Cornelius wouldn’t be able to eat. After all Dr. and Mrs., Essex had spent a lot of money on that plate. So we divided up his plate, all the while putting up the front to the waitress that young Cornelius was still among us just off at the moment. Another funny moment was Aleks and his dad doing the Lumberjack song together with their cousin

I laughed a lot that night and had more than I used to drink at that time. But towards the end of the night I started to feel melancholy. It was the kind of melancholy I usually get at New Years at the countdown when I realize there is no special to share the moment with. I was on the dance floor having this feeling when Becky came, danced with me and then started crying on my shoulder because the realization that Jen was leaving to go up North to Cape Dorset in Nunavut where Nathan was stationed had just sunk in. I comforted her while I too felt like crying. But the truth at the end of the day was that it was a great day.

Aleks and Anna’s wedding was probably the happiest occasion I have been involved in. I was the Best Man and Chalmers was the M.C. and we spent some of the best quality time together getting things prepared. The wedding was held at are resort in Elliot Lake so Jer and Julie drove us up there. It was quite a road trip out there and we were all in good spirits. We finally arrived and I was amazed at how beautiful the resort was. And I soon felt how communal the whole thing was going to be. Chalmers and I shared a bedroom. Fortunately I had my CPAP machine. And we started to practice our speeches. I was timid at first but a few people were brought in for me to practice in front of. It was immediately clear that it was going to be emotional.

We did sort of a dress rehearsal of the speeches while Aleks and Anna do their respective things. Ed, Anna’s dad, could tell I was nervous so he gave me some gruff encouragement. I gave it another shot and I felt the confidence in my delivery come.

The ceremony itself was lowkey but had the energy of something of immense importance, both obviously to Anna and Aleks but also to Chalmers and I. I will explain. Chalmers was the odd man out in terms of number of people in the actual wedding party. It was looking like he wouldn’t be up with the other groomsmen but Aleks made it clear that he would despite the oddness of number. For me, the responsibility of being the one to present the ring and to sign the registry meant a great deal. It meant that I was part of something larger than myself. It meant involvement. For someone who can at times feel like a loner, this had profound implications, as did my speech. I had the attention of everyone and my speech made an impact on them. I brought from within them laughter and tears. Ed said to me afterwards, “Do you feel scared now?”

And then there was dancing. I have never been found of dances. Brings that melancholic feeling on. That didn’t happen this time. I was too engaged, too involved and had far too much fun, to care about any of that nonsense.

The next day I woke up and went to the dining room for a communal breakfast, and then Aleks made an announcement to the effect of.: “Alright ladies and gentlemen thank you all for coming and I wish you all a safe drive home but there’s one more thing. I would like to announce that today is my best man Todd’s champagne birthday so let’s all wish him a happy birthday”. I had nearly forgotten that it was my birthday, so wrapped up in doing what I could to make Aleks’ day special and my heart swelled with love for Aleks that he’d do this for me. It was this and the gesture at the Nathan’s lot in North Bay where we camped afterwards that made my day. All they did was put a storm candle in a pudding cup and sing happy birthday but it was the best birthday ever

(4) King’s College

Finally I want to talk, perhaps for the first time, about my home away from home,

King’s College. When I first starting going there, I was an emotionally and mentally unstable young man on the verge of a manic episode. When I left I was a burnt out young man that had triumphed over so much and now had a University degree to show for it. Graduating was my proudest achievement given how much I put into it and the challenges I faced along the way.

I met people there, people that will be apart of me forever. I met my good friend Des at orientation and I gravitated towards him. He told me of his accident and how he damaged his back. I told him of my experience with mental illness, though I scarcely knew what was to come. At orientation we had a dance and that was the last time I ever got drunk. I met my friend Leah that night. I probably hit on her but I don’t remember. I was that drunk. I was dropped off at my house by the student counsel carpool and I remember the student counsel president say “Always a pleasure, Todd!”

My first lecture was Philosophy and this introduced me not only to my calling but to my very good friend Professor John Heng. In his class I learned about Plato’s understanding of the soul which fed my belief in reincarnation, and my imagination was moving me to have déjà vu moments all the time. Leah and her friend Alisdair were in my psychology class where they told me to download Blue Oystercult ‘s Don’t Fear the reaper and Bad religion’s Infected” these songs as well as the London Theatre Orchestra version of the Dr Who theme song and Judas Priest Stained Class Album are woven into my psyche as being associated with some of the better and worse aspects of going insane. I eventually had to drop all my classes except history with my good friend Derek. I came back from the hospital and then again when Gordon died. I came back because this was the only place that felt like home at the time.

The following year I took John Heng’s philosophy course again. I knew I wanted to do my phd even then but I didn’t know if I wanted to do it in anthropology like my uncle John, or philosophy. John Heng invited me to his office after I approached him for advice. This began a long standing tradition between us within a larger tradition of master and student. He asked me to listen to my heart and my heart said philosophy. I still took anthropology courses as well as a truly amazing Religious studies course. My year returning to Kings garnered me some really good marks. My next year wasn’t so great markswise but I started to make some good friends and began learning some important lessons particularly in logic my best subject that year. My fourth year there I made firm friends with Kyle, Ian and Julia, as well as the infamous Dean and Ronan. Our lunches at Christina's pub were the highlight of my week. My friend David was also befriended at this time. This was the year I relapsed into psychotic depression but still managed to do pretty well. I had dabbled in existentialism and also in research in UFOs. This triggered my old psychosis, and I started having major anxiety attacks something that had not been properly addressed yet medically. I eventually returned to “normal” and I even feel that that phase of my illness is behind me. But I returned to philosophy believing continental was the devil. It didn’t take much to convince me otherwise. I was back with Nietzsche and fell in love with Schopenhauer. Mind you I was feeling some sympathy with Marcus Aurelius and Epicurus. But it was the Heidegger course in my last year that sent me down the path to explore what I want to do for my masters. In these later years I made even more friends such as Josh, Sammy, Mandi, Alessandro, Christina, Simon and Rachel.

Truth is I never left King’s. It was the first place I went for help deciding what to do after I was thrown out of library school. Again I turned to my mentor John Heng and again he told me to listen to my heart. Once more and forever my heart said philosophy. I still attend lectures, and eat my lunch in the immortal cafeteria, wondering what its walls would say if they could talk.

"We come to your table"

“We come to your table”

I would like to talk about a phenomenon in my high school days: The Euchre Table. No, this isn’t a Catholic thing, but it was in its way every bit as sacramental as anything I’ve experienced in a church. It was a place where we played euchre. For some of us it was the only place we really belonged. I speak for myself mostly but we were the kind of guys that didn’t quite fit in with the larger population. We were misfits and outcasts and we gravitated towards each other.

Before there was a table (grade 9) we ate lunch at various places as the cafeteria was quite crowded then. For awhile we ate in the art room which we were forced to share with some real freaks (even among the freaks we were outcastes), one of whom had the brilliant idea of crushing a bologna sandwich in the pottery equipment, banning us from this particular sanctuary. We moved to the resource lunge and two other “charming” individuals followed us. A mishap with them outside towards the end of the school year resulted in Aleks breaking his arm.

In grade 10 there necessitated a split lunch hour allowing us to eat in the cafeteria. I was becoming increasingly friendly with Chalmers and would spend a lot of time with him. I was trying to get away from Aleks but the three of us are bonded by mystical forces so we took to going to the cafeteria together. We convinced our friend Jason to join us. The three of them taught me how to play euchre and thus I was inscribed in a tradition to last the rest of our time at high school. Soon Weber and Shephard joined us as well as Neil, and Marr. Soon we had a full congregation.

In those days, the euchre table was the only thing that kept me sane on my bad days with my illness. I knew who I needed to be playing euchre: the space cadet, the guy with an insane laugh and amazing luck. Playing euchre and being with friends was a good distraction from my mind’s obsessions and good structural grounding for my destabilized sense of reality. I often think that leaving high school unleashed my illness because of the loss of this kind of structure.

This was more than a place to play cards. This was a place to be rowdy young men discovering themselves. We would ordinarily scare away people such that there was a distinctive radius of empty seats surrounding us. When some people decided to sit at our spot, we would sit around them and deal out the cards, and eventually convince them that they were dealing with some ornery SOBs and untl they took the hint and left.

We got into numerous classic arguments: The Chumbawamba lyrics (“better times” or “best times”) what the name Big Ben actually refers to, which way is North on our walk home etc. Towards the end of high school having spares meant more time in the caf. In fact some of us never really left.

The Table wasn’t just a metaphysical entity either. There was an actual specific table that was ours. We would often come downstairs to the caf. (some of us faster than others) and find that the Table had been switched with another table. Our Table would be the one bearing condiments. Did this deter us? Hell, no. We simply and brazenly switched the tables back.

There were often two games going on at once. One was the real game and the other the game to determine who played the winner. There was always a great deal of bravado over which team was the best: Jay and Weber, or Aleks and Chalmers. Now I know that Aleks and Chalmers were the comeback kings, but Marr and I knocked Jay and Weber out of the official school tournament.

Chalmers’ style was (and is) unique because he would make it on very little and still manage to to at least get the point. Often his partner (usually Aleks) would nearly shit himself upon discovering just what Chalmers had made it on, or upon discovering what was buried in the kittie thus preventing a serious euchre.

I talk about a sense of belonging because it is something that I have been searching for for a long time. My eyes are now open to the places I did belong qua young man: The Table, the band, Weber and Wes’ place, with my close-knit group of friends, King’s College, etc. But my feeling now is that these people and places which will always be a part of me, must give way to an unfolding future. So I search for something new while the old clings ever to me.