stale bag of chips

It has been a while since my last post.  My last post was when snow glazed the ground, now it is just about time for spring cleaning.   I discovered old things that I had forgotten about deep inside my computers memory; writtings or rants of my past.    I found this one and thought I'd share it, and maybe add a new perspective on things.    So here is a little taste of what it was like being a 21 year old me:


It’s stale.  Like the dissatisfying non-crunch you would get from a nacho chip that lived too long in a “left-open” plastic bag… that kind of stale.    When that bag of chips was bought, the intensions were good, to eat, enjoy and savour all before the expiry date 40 years down the road, or perhaps before the accidental – bag-left-open scenario, which makes the satisfying crunch make more of a deflated sort of sound.  

That’s where I am.   I’m stale.   I’ve been left in a heavy circulating existence without the means to free myself from my chip bag life.   Three years since graduation…with nothing to show for it.   I left the trivial pursuits and high school antics with hopes of achieving some glorified goal.   At the time I was sure I’d figure it out – like yesterday.  But I still haven’t.    I’m creeping up to my expiry date, the day when I turn my life over to Walmart and accept the blue smock with my wasted pride lingering over my shoulder snickering.  

If I were a bag of chips, I’d be something delicious.  I’d have flavour that would make your mouth water and enough salt to keep you thirsty and a hint of spice that you’re pretty sure you’ve tried before somewhere exotic.   I’d be organic, and have all sort of healthy stuff in the fibre of my being, so you could indulge in me and not feel guilty.  
I’d be a ridiculously good bag of chips.  

I’m not a bag of chips.   I’m a twenty one year old women gasping for fresh air.  I have the heart of a lion and the stubbornness of an ass.   Both handed down to me from two parents that are, “just so proud of me.”  ..For doing what exactly?   I don’t know if I’ll ever understand this pride they so willingly bestow upon me.  Maybe it comes with maternal instincts.

   I am a firm believer in if you have the means; you can make your dreams come true.    I don’t have the means to do just about anything.   So here I sit, in my plastic bag existence. Waiting.  For the means. To end this plastic-suffocating-routine of an existence. 

Every year around this time, I find I spend double the amount I would normally on coffee.    Tim Horton’s draws me in with the thrill of rolling up the rim – to see please play again under every single rim!   My logic is, if I upgrade to the extra large coffee at Tim Horton’s my chances of winning that ten thousand dollars pretty much triples.    – I haven’t won …and I haven’t finished a coffee yet!      I see this yearly ritual as an opportunity for God to reach down from Heaven and timely grant me my means to an end!  But, no such luck.  The positive to Roll Up the Rim time is that I branch out and try something new- like wasting money on coffee I wont drink.  

I imagine life like a circus.   Busy patrons racing around trying to take in all they can, those zealous for winning spend everything at the whack-a-mole trying to win an oversized bear filled with cardboard, or the thrill seekers find the haunted house and run out of it screaming.  Currently I’m stuck on the Ferris wheel.    It’s an easy ride, safe.  However it is so strange how every time you go around everything looks exactly the same.  It stops and starts and gets you no where.    I’m more of a rollercoaster kind of girl.  I love the anticipation for the drop and the satisfaction of completing the figure eight without loosing your lunch.   If life is short, then why not take as much in as you can?    Chip-bag existence and a Ferris wheel life are safe and stale.   I want spice and organic life to ooze from me and for my heart to race and feel a sort of satisfaction only received after achieving something great- something you had to get off your butt to do. 


I wrote this about 3 years ago, since that time, life has taken an exciting turn. I am completing my 2nd year at University and I've had more life experience and spice added to my exsistence.   I travelled to New York City... not yet a world traveller but on my way to be.   Perspective is everything... This I am a firm believer in, and I think sometimes you do just have to get off your butt and just do it.  


happy march!