Help Wanted

            “So, Caroline. Why don’t you start by telling us about yourself?”

I sip my vanilla soy latte, taking a moment to carefully construct my answer. “Well, I’m Carrie. West Coast born and raised, but I’m always following opportunities for personal and spiritual growth. I’m a born marketer and a creative free spirit, with a passion for all things digital and social media. Especially social media,” I smile brightly.

The blonde interviewer—Amy? Annie?—with the French manicure smiles encouragingly. Nailed it.

“Alright, Caroline. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Carousel Media is very excited to be interviewing you for this new position within our company. Now, can you elaborate on what part of the Digital Content Strategist role speaks to you, particularly at Carousel?”

I nod confidently. I am poise. “Yes, of course. Carousel Media is a company with a proven track record of excellence and high standards. I read about your recent decision to do away with the sandwich shop in your staff cafeteria and only source organic, vegan options for the new kale bar—I love that. Kale is my favourite food!”

The Lucky Ones

so the eight month countdown begins
in the city of skyscrapers
so tall that the neighbourhood sidewalks
have never felt sunlight—only summer rain,
and the finest of Canadian winter snow
along with the pounding of everyday footsteps

"show me maps which show me the way home,"
he says to no one in particular, just another
in the city of wanderers
alive with seventy-six languages
telling 2.65 million stories, all of which
can be found in the same great book—our book

she finds laughter in the smile of the stranger
at the fruit stand by the stucco apartment, found
in the city of chances
(it's smaller than you would think)
taken on a whim, inspired by stories passed down
and sometimes just the spark of desperation

he sees every tearful airport goodbye
(and sometimes the more tearful hellos)
in the city of reunions
by coincidence or chance? set against a backdrop
of once-upon-a-time strangers falling in love
in the bars of basements and rooftops alike

she listens to a cacophony of hopeful ideas,
the excitement spilling over onto sidewalk adventures
in the city of genius
often found in glass-housed workshops on the 59th floor,
but also alive in the spaces between
in the moments separating the words thought and spoken

as for me? you will find me, listening
just another, eavesdropping in quiet wonder
in the city of storytellers
recounting tales in Queen Street coffee shops
filled with the soundtrack of our heartbeats—
us, the luckiest of the lucky ones

Third Year Revelations

Third year taught me about some calculus on funny (non-existent) shapes, and how to draw passable pictures for topology real analysis, but mostly, it taught me to not to take myself so seriously all the time. I have found that things like to fall together exactly when you think they've just about fallen apart. 

o1. Good things come to those who wait... and those who bang their heads against the right walls for long enough.

o2. Perils of being a math major: chalk dust. It will get on all your black clothes, no matter how hard you try.

o3. Sometimes it just takes one. To my mentor: I probably wouldn't still be a math major without your unending patience and support. Thank you for seeing me through, and for always putting more faith in my abilities than I ever did.

o4. Having biweekly episodes of self-doubt and crises over whether you're pursuing the right degree are more normal than you would think.

o5. People are most beautiful at their most vulnerable.

o6. The world actually doesn't revolve around abstract algebra, contrary to not-so-popular belief.

o7. The most interesting things are those that confound you. These are the things that capture the imagination.

o8. Plausible deniability is always your best bet.

o9. People are usually pretty friendly if you ask them for help. Everyone likes to feel that their expertise is needed.

1o. If you're going to prank call someone, don't put your name in your voicemail message.

11. In the toolbox of abstract algebra, the First Isomorphism Theorem is the hammer.

12. And in the toolbox of analysis, it's the Triangle Inequality.

13. You will never, ever regret being a little bit braver.

14. Learn to laugh at yourself.

15. If you've got nothing else interesting going for you, name drop algebraic geometry whenever possible.

16. Learn to accept a compliment gracefully, and it will take you far.

17. People are always more open-hearted after midnight.

18. Sometimes the best way to deal with your problems is really just to pretend that they don't exist. Sometimes they just change, but sometimes they go away.

19. If you're feeling relaxed, you probably forgot about something that is due... tomorrow.

2o. Everything is more beautiful at night. But if it's still sparkly in the daylight, then you know it's for real.

21. Find the people who will walk with you, even if you don't know where you are going or where you will end up.

22. The stereotypes about mathematicians are stereotypes for a reason. (That's not always a bad thing, though.)

23. There is something beautiful about sitting in a darkened room by yourself.

24. Post-midnight driving, feeling like you're all alone in the world with nothing but the stars and city lights, makes you feel like you're on top of the world.

25. The ones who matter are the ones who will celebrate with you over your successes and hurt with you over your tragedies, and likewise.

26. Don't follow emotions; follow truth.

27. Hurting does not mean that you are sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. It means that you cry and scream and do whatever it takes, and then you get out there and love people in spite of it.

28. There's always going to be someone who is suffering more than you. But still—your pain is no less justifiable; your pain is no less real.

29. If you find someone who can see through your mask and your feigned happiness and call you on your made-up disguises, don't let them walk away.

3o. You can't just pick and choose your favourite definition of continuity... you must suffer through them all, because sometimes preimages just won't cut it.

31. Surround yourself with talented people. Sure, you'll suffer from feelings of mass inadequacy, but how else are you going to be better?

32. Just don't ever respond to your emails! You'll just be the eccentric unicorn in the department and people will have no expectations of you, so they'll be pleasantly surprised on the off chance that you ever do respond.

33. Persistence goes a long way.

34. You are infinitely more awesome in a good pair of heeled boots.

35. John Green is, surprisingly, usually right.

36. Campus is stunning at 4:00 AM.

37. Never leave an assignment question blank. Write something, even if it's nonsense. Sometimes your TAs are too hungover to care.

38. It is just as much about who you are as a person as it is about the numbers and title on your transcript.

39. Don't ever let yourself think that you are too good to start from the very bottom.

4o. Go to every single interview that you are offered, even if you think that the job and company are a joke.

41. Just because you wear a blazer and rent office space in a highrise building doesn't mean that you are a real company (ask me about this interview nightmare).

42. The Chinese Remainder Theorem is everywhere. EVERYWHERE.

43. And the Euclidean Algorithm... you can run, but you really can never escape the backwards Euclidean Algorithm.

44. If you can't teach, draw pictures. Lots of them. Preferably with coloured chalk.

45. You are no special unicorn.

46. Sweatpants are—you guessed it—still not okay!

47. Figure out your own standards for ethics instead of listening to someone else's.

48. Learn how to say no without giving excuses. It is always enough and you never need to justify your decisions to anyone but yourself.

49. Everything is really the same thing, except with more or less levels of generality.

5o. It is absolutely okay to be a quitter. Sometimes it's necessary for your sanity.

51. Just aim to be irreplacable.

52. At some point you will begin to feel lucky, even if you don't believe in luck. Never let yourself forget that moment.

Toronto. Ottawa. Markham. Waterloo. Halifax. Vancouver. London.

I am so proud to call you my friends—you successful, talented, driven people. We're no longer those kids who spent summer nights watching meteor showers, playing board games and philosophizing until 2 A.M. I will miss you this summer, but I am so happy to know that you are all out there chasing dreams and doing amazing, exciting things, and I cannot wait to hear all about your adventures when I see you again. God only knows when will be the next time that we will be in the same city at the same time, but I hope we will always be able to say hello.

So I wish you luck—

I hope you have the time of your lives. 

I will see you soon.

Ransomed

“we slot in the pieces where they fit, instead of where they belonged…”

There was always another project to be hung on the living room wall upon completion. It would serve as a reminder of the many hours spent in deep concentration, searching for the perfect piece to slot into its place on the glass tabletop.

You loved those puzzles, and I would always tease you about it. “Child’s play,” I laughed, while I sat beside you and watched you work. But every time you asked me to join you, I said yes. I wanted to know why you loved it so much—enough to spend entire evenings immersed in it; I wanted to understand how you could find your way through seven hundred tiny pieces and fix them into something wonderful. Maybe I just wanted to understand why you loved at all.

You always seemed to be searching for something bigger than a puzzle piece. Sometimes I wondered if we were even looking at the same picture—where I only saw a cacophony of colours and shapes that never quite fit together under my fingertips, you saw a project to be completed; something that would be beautiful if only you could put it together as it was intended. You thought you could fix anything, and sometimes I thought you could, too—if not with perfectly placed fingertips or a well-timed sarcastic comment, then with a grin that danced all the way up to those hazel eyes.

You thought you could always find perfection—and once upon a time, I thought that you were right. I glimpsed it in the moments when my hands found yours, the first time you said my name that night after I said yes, the moment when I realized that my life was different—better—with you in it. All the imperfect pieces that blurred into a perfect picture—everything we wanted, or so I thought. Somehow, you, with your perfect vision, could find the parts where the pieces didn’t quite line up—every little crack.

Did you always know that the misplaced fragments would catch up to us? We kept building and building, slotting in the pieces where they fit instead of where they belonged, the picture eventually becoming so distorted that even you could no longer find the beauty in it—you, who found beauty everywhere that you looked. And then there was me, left to wonder if we were ever even whole in the first place.

After the heated words exchanged that night, after the glass frame had shattered into a million pieces that neither of us could fix, did you know? Did you take a second look after I took my coat out of your closet for the last time? I took the corner piece from the unfinished project on your coffee table and slipped it into my left chest pocket, to be held ransom in the very way that you held my heart.

I would call it a fair trade.

It's a wild life

I don't really have triggers. It's been one hell of a year and after this, I usually feel like I can handle anything that comes my way, with the help of a very big God.

But the word "needy." You took it too far.

"Needy" takes me back three years' time, to being seventeen and crying my eyes out every night, wondering about my self-worth because the one I trusted turned around and told me that I was too emotional, too needy, too clingy, that I acted irrationally, that I asked too much, that I was too much.

"Needy" takes me back to the very first time that I was broken. When you're seventeen and feeling everything for the first time, everything is magnified—the highs, the lows; the feeling of being on top of the world, spinning around in the kind of wonder only first times bring—felt as deeply as the hurt when he turns around and tells me that he never loved me—in fact, that he hates me. It's a cliché, but when you're seventeen and fearless, you believe you're in love, even though seventeen-year-olds (and twenty-year-olds) don't know anything about love at all.

"Needy" takes me back to 4 AM conversations with heavy hearts and a lot of missed phone calls; to fights that started at midnight and lasted until we could no longer stay up and we were so exhausted and broken and frustrated with each other that there was nothing left to say. And I would see him the day after those fights, and he couldn't even look me in the eye. And seventeen-year-old me believed that it was because I asked too much.

"Needy" takes me back to a toxic friendship that I thought I wanted in my life, except I had no idea who I was actually dealing with, and the supposed friendship was what I now recognize to be emotional abuse. Friends don't tell each other that they're worthless; that they're dragging each other down; acting like an idiot, useless, not worth talking to, not worth respecting—and now I can't believe that I ever believed any word of it. But seventeen-year-old me didn't know better.

"Needy" takes me back to my biggest mistake; to the first time that I was vulnerable and honest and open-hearted, and how it burned me and twisted my views on relationships for the next two years; how I went on to spend a year and a half in a relationship where I was forever afraid of feeling too much because I was so terrified of being the girl with too many emotions; too many problems and way too many feelings.

You asked why To Write Love on Her Arms matters to me. It matters to me because I know that my story is not unique, and that my pain is echoed by girls all around the world who have been hurt; who have been told that their emotions are too much; that their existence is too much; that they should shut up and stop feeling so much, or else they will never be loved.

But now I know that there's a God who created us for better things, and that we're all here because people need other people.

You could have never known. And you'll probably never read this, but on the crazy chance that you do, you need to know that your words matter, because your words hurt.

we never go out of style

i want to spend the coldest night 

dancing to the sound of deafening heartbeats

amongst glittery lights + strangers' laughter

with the most wonderfully reckless people 

and the most perfectly flawed boy

i could see us doing that again 

in this lifetime

oh, valentine

the witching hour

sitting by myself, downtown tonight
in a coffee shop of studious strangers
listening to songs for lovers, dancing
in my head, with no one on my mind but

you, taking in the darkest shade of night
and all its infinite possibilities
and me, wondering about the time and space
between you and i, and whether

it could be epsilon-small tonight
i will not be the one to say yes so easily as
this winter night magic is catching up to us
but i will not run too quickly from it

instead, maybe i will run
just quickly enough to rival the starlight
just quickly enough for you to give chase