10. Where would we be without our mothers. Call them often and if you are unable to then it is time to write. Then send your words off to the Universe so they can carry your words to her.

9. Get involved in something. If you are feeling alone reach out and see what finds you. There are these incredibly amazing people out there that are feeling just like you, maybe not just like you but they want to understand. They see the value in all life and leave the judging and comparisons off the table as they learn to get you and all of your wonderful uniqueness that you at times get too scared to display. There is safety in finding like minded minds that are not only inclusive they thrive on each other’s individuality. I love the life we each bring to the table and that should be celebrated and explored. Just be you.

8. Stop watching tv and buying into Hollywood. It’s popularity took over to help entertain the masses to distract them from how depressing life has been. Stars were born to captivate and entertain and make our cheeks hurt from smiling too hard. There was a time in film where no hero ever died and every maiden found her prince. Now we are obsessed with blood, violence, gore. There is a whole community who gets off on violent displays at the expense of other humans and I just can’t get past that. Real people are kidnapped, raped, murdered beat and now Hollywood is capitalizing off of them. These movies if they insist on being made she go back to the victimized to help them live normal lives. But we don’t want that. We feed off their pain. Taking away their spirit while we profitted of the gains compassionate humans wouldn’t want to do that.

7. Love your body like its on loan, because realistically it is. Take care of it, love it, value it and learn to love your body for the gift it is. I think it’s so strange that their was a time when we lived organically but we turn our nose up and say living in the dirt makes you poor. The dirt is rich with the promise of life yet we prefer nutrition wrought with chemicals and fillers. Exercise in the way that moves you. Walk, stretch, run, play. Do all the things you can do while you are alive because you will leave this body one day.

6. Be good to those that are good to you, and I mean go over the top. Good friends are sometimes hard to find and the type I am talking about are your ride and die’s. When things got heated and some girls were bashing me online my ride or die was singing my praises. Ticking off my accolaides and accomplishments explaining how she knew their accusations were a lie. Friends like these need to be celebrated with every breath in your body. Cards, gifts, flowers, glitter just little ways to say I appreciate your body.

5. It’s ok to be different. The right people will find you. Yes sometimes it is hard watching others live these happy fulfilling lives but that is social media. Don’t allow it to rob you of your light. If it becomes too much make changes. I shut down my Facebook that I had since the beginning of time. It became therapeutic for me. I had so many people on there I had met on vacations, bars, college etc. To me my brain says Facebook is more intimate then Instagram. When it became too much, the virtual bullies out in full force I shut it down.

4. Redecorate your space as much as it takes for it to feel like a home. No matter how out there or extravagant your decor do it! Chances are whomever is going to inherit your house is either going to redecorate, bulldoze it or sell it so why not have a space that immediately fills your heart with joy.

3. Sit down and enoy your Grandparents and listen to their stories, their lives. They have made it through some of the most powerful times in history. The Depression, numerous wars, a Presidential assassination, not to mention Martin Luther King. This generation (at least in Canada) are having their truths ripped from them in so many ways. They would have witnessed the treatment of our Indigenous youth and how they disappeared. Some may have kept slaves or had knowledge that their Grandparents did. Some would have witness classmates getting beat or children of colour getting carried to attend comcentration camps. Today’s Grandmother was the gatekeeper for all of the sins of yesterday and that would be am incredible weight to bare.

2. Always, always make time for the living. Especially the ones who make a difference in our world. I have met some of the most incredibly friends in the most unlikely of places, some have gone and some have stayed. Some were violently taking from me embodying the guardian angel they have become. When you learn of their passing you scan your brain trying to find the thing that will explain. I have answered the door at midnight trying to save my addicted friend (please find some rest and peace), went sporadically for a cup of tea then becoming the last to see him alive, and then there were the cries for help that I clearly did not see. Did I conjure up the dream of a girlfriend, please wake up. I am sorry. I am here now. I can hear you. Please don’t go! We are always too busy for those who need us till they are gone and we scream out why. Most people reach out for us but we are too busy to find the time.

1. That in the end nothing else matters and when that day comes you take nothing with you. That all that matters are the people’s lives we touched along the way and the tales of lessons learned passed on through generation to generation. That when we get to that final goodbye maybe all that love and kindness we experienced we get to take us and we leave our regrets far behind.

Life is hard but it is only through experience that we can learn to understand and maybe begin to create a new world. We as humans don’t have to accept the path our ancestors have forced us on. We can look deep inside each one of us and look for the truth and love in which to begin again.