You guys are really sweet.

Last week I posted about how sad I was feeling and some of you sent me some really really touching emails and they made me feel a lot less alone.

That post was hard to publish because I didn’t want to bring my readers down. But at the same time, I wanted to explain why I hadn’t been posting lately. And also to be honest, because I know I’m not the only one who has been struggling with feelings of depression lately and I find that knowing that we’re not alone makes it a little more bearable.

Some of you wrote and asked if I was actually sad or if I was joking because it was “hard to tell” because I was making jokes about it.

I am sad.

*I stole that photo from Thing 1′s fb profile picture because a) I’m a jerk and b) It pretty much sums things up these days.

But I’m going to be okay. I know I am. I’m even starting to feel a tiny bit better this week. The sunshine helped a lot.

This weekend was jam packed with distraction and inspiration.

Friday night I saw a friend’s choir do an hommage to Jaques Brel, which was brilliantly done and especially moving.

Saturday I went on the Candyass and King Red Light District Walking tour, which I intend to tell you all about in great detail later this week.

I also went to see Shoshinz & Cherry Typhoon’s play in the fringe festival, Annoying Visitor. Which I enjoyed immensely.

And Sunday, I went to the Atwater market with a friend, and a walk along the Lachine canal with our silly dogs.

From Sunday Morning In St-Henri, posted by Jennifer-June Chapman on 6/17/2013 (8 items)

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This morning I have my first pre-Production meeting for a really exciting film project that I am going to tell you allllll about soon but not now because I don’t have time and also the details aren’t all ironed out yet.

I will say this about it though, because it’s so exciting that I can’t keep it to myself,

The project was proposed to me by somebody who read, and was inspired by, this very blog!

How flippin’ exciting is that???

A film project based on posts from The Lady’s Lounge!!

Really, I’m exploding with joy.

So, I’m off to prepare my notes, my mind and my hair.

Thank you again for all the kind messages last week.

I was really touched.

Things are looking up, slowly but surely as a whole new world opens it doors and I intend to walk right through them and to bring you all there with me.

xx Jennifer-June xx

P.S. Don’t forget that tonight is the draw for a pair of tickets to Friday night’s Candyass Club Cabaret. If you’re interested in entering, follow this Link: Give It To Me Gingham Style

I’m trying really hard to keep it together here and it hasn’t been easy lately because I’m very very sad and every time I try to write a post, it comes out depressing and sad too and, as much as I want to stay consistently present on this here interweb, I don’t want to make it sad along with me.

You know technology can be so sensitive and volatile and honestly, the last thing we need is a global system of interconnected computer networks all crying at made-for-tv after school specials about bullying, or infomercials for classic rock love ballads of the 90′s compilation CD’s.

I’ve been fighting off a depression for the last couple of months and I’m trying really hard not to let it get to me. I’ve managed to keep showering and eating (and eating and eating and eating…) and I make my bed (and I use the term “make” very loosely) every morning, which I’m thinking is a pretty good sign.

When I feel myself getting stuck on a loop or in a rut or the neck of a bottle of Fumé Blanc, I try and snap myself out of it by forcing myself to exude some kind of semi-positive energy.

I keep updating my facebook status with announcements about all the amazing (and they really are amazing) things that are going on in my life, as some sort of public affirmation that everything is going to be all right.

I alternate between these,

and photographs of the delicious healthy food I eat between bottles of wine, bags of Que Pasa Chips and buckets of Coconut Bliss.

Vanessa’s homemade (From scratch) veggie burgers with pickled mustard seeds and Turnip Fries.

I’ve been seeing my therapist weekly (the poor thing) and trying to work out these feelings of worthlessness and despair.

I’ve been forcing myself to spend time with the people who are most important to me.

I’ve been trying to channel my sadness into creative energy by writing songs (or parts of them) and keeping my eyes open for the little bits of beauty that are so easily overlooked but surround us everyday.

I try not to focus on the loss that hurts my heart so very much and I remind myself constantly of everything I have to be thankful for.

Like the fact that TRUE BLOOD is coming back THIS SUNDAY!!!!!!!!

And also how blessed I am to have had and raised these three beautiful baby girls who I love with all of my heart.

They are my family and my world.

I know I bitch about them sometimes on account of them being lazy, selfish, mean, imperious princesses who leave a trail of filth behind them for as far as the eye can see but…

Where was I going with that? Oh yeah…

I am so lucky to have daughters who consider me a friend (and not always just a maid), who reach out to me for guidance and direction.

Daughters who call me every day, even though we live together, and sometimes don’t even ask me for money.

Sometimes.

These daughters who send me little love messages and Good morning texts to make sure I start the day off right, like this one:

And that’s the stuff I want you know. That’s the stuff I want to share with you.

That and the chance to win a pair of tickets to the next Candyass Club Cabaret. Whaaaaaat? You heard me.

Go here: www.theladyslounge.com/give-it-to-me-gingham-style

I don’t know who this picture belongs to, it’s circulating all over facebook. The owner should feel free to yell at me for using it and charge me royalties on all the millions of dollars that this site makes. Or they could tell me their name, convince me that it’s theirs and tell me which URL to link the credit to.

I could just refrain from publishing it, except for it pretty much sums up how I’m feeling this very second. I’ll let you read whatever you need to into that…

The other day I was walking down the street and I saw this graffiti so I took a photo. I am not sure why I wanted it. I think I intended to refer to it for comfort or confirmation of some sort.

Photo by Jennifer June Chapman

Is that weird?

Yes, the title of this post is a metaphor for my life.

But it’s also a segue to a moldy sunflower sprout post.

A couple of weeks ago Montréal was on a boil water advisory, during which, I realized that I had been soaking my sprouts in un-boiled tap water, rendering them inedible.

I didn’t have the heart to throw the mostly sprouted seeds in the garbage because I’m super zen and all-loving and I recognize that all living things have the right to blah blah blah blah…….

So I did what any good buddhist (even though I’m not buddhist) would do.

I left them in the jar to rot to death, in the confinement of a sweaty man made sprouting jar, as nature intended them to.

As the days passed by I began to resent my rotting sunflower sprouts for not dying quickly enough for me to evict them, to make room for new edible sprouts, but still didn’t have the heart to throw them out. I admired their perseverance, their determination and sheer will.

So I plucked a few of them out of the jar and planted them in a pot on the back balcony.

But there were tons of them still struggling to survive and I didn’t know what to do with the rest of them because I STILL couldn’t bring myself to dispose of them like meaningless trash.

Some of you might think that’s weird. And it probably is.

Some of you might think I am projecting my own feelings of unworthiness and rejection on to a pile of moldy seeds. And I probably am.

Some of you might also suffer from OCD and tend (as I do) to anthropomorphize inanimate objects, therefore understanding completely why I stood there for what felt like hours, paralyzed by guilt, tear stained cheeks, stinking sprout jar in hand.

Although I’m quite certain that, technically speaking, sprouts are active, living organisms, making them animate objects so… this might have less to do with my OCD and more to do with me having a very big heart. And a soul. Which clearly some of you do not.

So being forced with the life changing decision to make, between potting 50 some odd sunflowers, on my relatively small back balcony, or setting my seeds free in the wilderness to fend for themselves, I headed off to the train tracks by my house.

I have no idea if they will actually grow, but if they do, I’ll be able to see them from my front balcony and it will make me feel so good inside.

I will smile every morning when I step out into the sun and sit in my chair, sipping my coffee, and admiring the big beautiful yellow petals.

I will feel like something I did mattered. And I will be reminded that I am a good person because I valued the lives of those sunflowers, as insignificant as they may have seemed, rotting in that jar.

And then, because clearly going to therapy once a week really isn’t enough, I will feel like maybe, maybe somebody someday will in turn, as insignificant as I am, value me that very same way.

Only not actually that very same way because if somebody carried me to the train tracks and dumped me there, it would only confirm all of my negative core beliefs about myself and reinforce my fears of rejection and abandonment.

By the way, while I was valuing the lives of moldy seeds, I met these guys:

And just as I was leaving my sprout seeds and my new snail friends, I reached over to pick up my hand-shovel and my empty sprout jar, I stood up and stepped of the curb and right onto one of those snails, crushing him to death.

My eyes welled up with tears and I fought back the urge to vomit as I ran back to the house, where I called my therapist who gently insisted that snail murder didn’t qualify for an emergency appointment and informed me that my attempts to bully her into seeing me daily would no longer be tolerated.

Photos by Thing 3