Healing Brown Bear

08/02/2025

Ending off talking about my people with my literal soul sister, Siu. 🌈

Siu is without a doubt the most magical being I know. Period.

When she came up to Sarnia to visit us a few weeks because she was in London I was so excited I almost couldn’t sleep the night before. 🫶

Siu is the friend that really encapsulates adult friendship for me.

As our friendship grew I learned so much about myself. I learned how to be gentle, how to take up space, as well as how to better hold it for others, and I learned that I didn’t need to ache for kinship, I could forge it.

The amount of self-love this person has brought into my life is… unbelievable. For that I am beyond grateful.

In October of 2024 I performed Siu & her Ocean Heart’s hand-fasting ceremony. Under the Full Moon Clover & I wove the rope to be used, and thought about how lucky we were to be partaking in such an important event.

What ensued was a weekend of seeing just how large Siu’s heart is. I think there are some people who would be faced by this & would feel a certain level of possessiveness over this sort of friendship.

But I didn’t.

I simply stood in awe at how much love, community, & kinship this one human had made for themselves just by being a kind & true being.

What a beautiful thing to witness.

Because of Siu I left that weekend with even more lifelong friends. We laughed. We went on mini little field trips. My wife felt comfy being my wife that entire trip.

That was because of Siu.

I just simply adore them.

I am beyond thankful for a friend that showed me how easy adult friendships are meant to be. That listens & holds space, that sends songs that remind them of me, that draws original artwork for me & my home.

When Siu stopped by a few weeks ago, it was like no time had passed. Distance & adult life makes connecting as frequently as we like difficult, but that doesn’t change the strength of our bond.

Ultimately, Siu is a friend that makes me a better friend to everyone else I love & care for. I doubt I would believe myself even half as cool as I do now without Siu.

& that’s really, really cool to me. 🫶

07/31/2025

Oh did you not think I was going talk about more people that I love & that made me, me this week? 🤔

This is Ruth, when she came down last October to visit us here in Sarnia. ✨

Ruth is a chaotic little Pisces & is exactly why the Astro Bird for Pisces is a Piping Plover.

What is more Pisces coded than a cute, small bird running around & screaming repeatedly? 🤣🫶

But for real- Ruth is one of the few friends I have from my good ol’ soap cult days, & let me just say: she made working in the Eaton Centre a whole lot more bearable.

In fact, one time, while closing, I dropped a box of shampoo bars. The shampoo bars exploded into soap noodles & as I laughed at the bars and said “same” my laughter turned to real tears.

It was rough going my guys. The Eaton Centre is not for the weak of heart.

As I stood there with tears streaming down my face, Ruth quickly scurried up the ladder to comfort me…

By licking the tears off my face. 🤣

& I can’t even fault the method, because it worked.

Ruth is the only person who could do that to me & make me burst out laughing. To be fair, I think Ruth is the only person I know that would jump to that for comforting someone.

Truthfully, Ruth is one of those friends who actually can get away with a lot more than I would normally let anyone get away with, and that’s simply because I adore her.

In short: the soap cult definitely gave us our fair share of brain worms, but we’re still here, & for that I am so thankful.

Especially because there really is no one I love to see winning quite like I love to see Ruth winning.

There’s something special about getting to know someone when they’re in the trenches & then getting to see them put the work in to dig themselves out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Ruth lately, to tell you the truth. Mostly because I keep thinking of a particular text convo we had after a really rough close, while on the Go Bus back to Brampton.

A bit of manic rambling about how we deserved better, & what exactly I was going to do to get there. I

t’s funny how the outcome looks so different know, but the dream is still the same.

& of course I had to put Chiquitita as the song, Ruth’s FL bop. 🫶

07/29/2025

07/29/2025

Ok but who made Kyraith into the Kyraith you see today?

Let’s talk about it. ✨

Meet Keely or as I affectionately refer to her as, Keeks. 👌

Part of the inspo behind Virgo Astro Bird ♍️

I say part because we both do be September Virgo Queens 👸🏻

Keeks, or as Anubis calls her, Aunt Keeks, is a real one & a day one. My ride or die since pretty well the very first day of elementary school in Sarnia.

We grew up together, and I mean literally, grew up together. From trick or treating every year with one another, to Canada Day spent altogether, to birthday parties spent snacking on our fave foods. Keeks was there through it all.

That’s really important- because as I noted a couple weeks back now… my childhood was a lot, like… a lot, a lot. But through it all one thing remained consistent, and that was my day one bestie.

I’ll say it plainly, proudly, & with my full chest:

I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Keeks & her family. Period.

My parents used to say to me growing up “it’s a very thing to find a lifelong friend so young, stay close to her, it’s a blessing to have this.”

And though adulthood, as it often does with childhood besties, has us living on opposite ends of Southern Ontario, we still know that when we do see one another again, it’ll be like no time passed at all.

Knowing in our heart of hearts we’ll always be those same two girlhood best friends that scream cried Cross My Heart when Mariana’s Trench rocked Bayfest. 🤣🫶

07/24/2025

There was always an expectation of greatness for me, and while I could easily understand how or why that could easily be crushing for some people. But for me, it simply wasn’t.

It’s funny because when I say I know I deserve to do great things, it’s never from a place of entitlement. Simply put, it’s just a fact to me.

All this to say- my whole life has been motivated by this fundamental truth. But especially this past month WHEW. When I say big, huge MOUNTAINS are have been being moved behind the scenes.

& while I’m not ready to drop the big surprise just quite yet I can say with all my heart that when I do… it may just be the greatest thing I’ve done so far. 🫶

07/16/2025

So what does a better life look like?

A better life looks like wearing sleeveless shirts for the first time in 10 years.

A better life looks like a community of some of the raddest people you have ever met surrounding you, cheering you on just as much as you cheer them on.

A better life looks like pouring into cups that are deserving of my efforts, and realizing that having a little bit of ‘save the world’ in me isn’t a bad thing but needs to be metered & directed.

A better life looks like friendships I never could have imagined all those years ago when I was just a ‘weird kid’ who felt things too deeply.

A better life looks like finding happiness where you are, realizing happiness is not something outside of you but something you build within you.

A better life is choosing grace, most importantly, for yourself. You can be an old soul, but still acknowledge that in this current iteration this is indeed your first time on this earth.

A better life is sitting in golden hour sun, breathing deeply, and thinking about the times you used to turn your stomach into knots too impossible to undo.

It’s not easier life. It’s not a ‘perfect’ life. But it’s a real life, & it’s better.

Every possible previous version of me is so damn thankful for this life I get to live. 🫶

07/14/2025

Sorry- I don’t think there’s an artist I love as much as Frank so you’re going to have to deal with hearing him again this week. 🫡

Last week I talked about the cliff notes version of what brought me to be the human behind the bear, typing this to you right now.

A lot of people along my journey ask how I did it, kept pushing forward, what kept me going…

The answer is simply that I never stopped believing I was capable of living a better life than what I was.

I didn’t know what that would look like, I didn’t know what the steps would be to get there, but I knew I couldn’t stop. I wanted better, so I was going to find better. I wouldn’t simply demand better, I’d work for better. I’d learn my lessons, and take my lumps.

I’d sit & make friends with the shadows, learning each time how to hold my breath & plunge even deeper into the parts of me that had been kept under a tightly guarded lock and key for so many years.

It didn’t matter what I had to do, it didn’t matter what odds I faced, I kept going.

Because I’m here anyways, so I might as well make the most of it.

07/12/2025

Do I need to put a TW still? I’m gunna anyways. TW besties. 🫶

Ohhh adulthood. What the f**k even?

I don’t think anything could have prepared me for the work I would have to do in adulthood to undo the things that happened to me that I never consented to.

Like I said earlier this week, I was always called an ‘old soul’. What bothered me so much about that is it felt like people would acknowledge my emotional intelligence in one breath, but not acknowledge how that made me experience life around me.

It’s a very wild experience to be very aware of how bad you are being f**ked up, but have absolutely no power to do anything about it.

So adulthood came, and work was to be done. But adulthood came with more than I could have ever bargained for when COVID happened, & not just because the whole world stopped.

Because my wife became disabled within the same month of my brother coming to live with us from the age of 16-18 in Barrie.

It was only this year that we finally got Clover an official diagnosis, a blessing for sure. But I feel the need to say: I was a 24 year old when this happened. I was 24 years old when very suddenly my wife was very sick. I was working, I was raising & supporting my brother, I was care-taking for my wife. I will probably take the things I felt & experienced in those days to my grave.

& things kept falling apart more and more. I got laid off, again, so we came back to Sarnia, lured with false promises of support & and safe place to get our feet underneath us.

Just for the family member who did this to kick us to the curb, changing all the locks on the house we were staying at (our pets & all our belongings inside), & gave us 48 hours to get our things. This was a month before Christmas.

So we f**king did it.

I never thought I’d be back in Sarnia, never wanted to. To be dealt blow after & blow, and land back here felt like the ultimate punishment. The absolute only thing that gave my peace, quieted my mind… was drawing.

I fell into it when things felt overwhelming & kept trucking through. Clo pointed out I could easily make prints, even stickers, so I printed a few stickers & mailed them to friends, & they loved them.

07/10/2025

TW: ya- we getting into besties.

I knew talking about the teen years was going to feel a certain way… but I didn’t expect to open up my high school yearbooks, just for the first one to have the signature of someone no longer with us, right in the centre of the front page.

The next thing I clocked was how drastically I changed in my face from Grade 9 to 10. I was SA’d during that year as well as abused, amongst a lot of other stressors & traumas.

That’s when I developed PCOS & you can see the cortisol puffiness of that in my face, though looking at that photo I’m not entirely sure I hadn’t been crying just before that. It was a rough time.

But then Grade 11… I’m an entirely different person. That’s because for the first time in my life, I was being loved so f**king right. The trauma & the stress didn’t get any easier at home, but I always had my love Clo to call.

I used to have horrible nightmares, particularly when my room was in the basement. Clo used to call & sing me to sleep every night.

I still remember so vividly what it was like to fall in love, how magical it was to know without a doubt I had found my forever human. There weren’t a lot of people who understood that but from the get Grandma did. She had found her forever at our age, she knew what it was like to fall very deeply in love young. She was one of our biggest supporters & advocates.

I would not be half the woman I am today without Grandma. I know if she were here, she’d tell me to stop with that line of thinking. She firmly believed I’d become the woman I was meant to be, come hell or high water. I miss our phone calls everyday. I am so thankful I got to fall in love with her too.

Clo & I moved out together right out of high school. We were tired of the control maliciously exercised with the “my house, my rules” that got tossed around simply because I wasn’t liked. So we got our own place. A little basement apartment with bare concrete floors in Brampton. Clo commuted to York, I commuted to Ryerson, and we both worked 25 hours a week. It broke us tremendously, but it was still so much better than what we left, because we got to put our heads down on pillows in the same bed.