One year anniversary!

Holy cow! Has it been one year already? My first post dates back to May 21st 2012. Happy anniversary to Walking Solo in Montreal! My God, so much has happened since then. Especially my frame of mind. I may have mentioned it in a post somewhere, but there is a reason why I started this blog. I was in a bad state. Following a bad break up, I was going through a very bad depression. It was consuming me and my thoughts to a point that I couldn't bare being by myself in my apartment. I had no appetite and I couldn't sleep. So what did I do? I walked.

At first, I walked as far as my body could take me. I wasn't in any hurry to go home anyways. I walked around the places I knew at first. Funny enough, now that I was just wandering around, I felt like I was rediscovering all these streets that I knew because I was noticing all these places I used to walk by, but to which I never really paid any attention. Oh how I wished I was still with my ex then, because I wanted to show her all these places and go on these little adventures with her where we went and tried out all these places and hung out like we used to. So, I took pictures of what I was doing and what I saw and started to post these things on this blog here as if I was describing to her all these neat things for her to go and discover on her own if she ever felt like it. That was my main reason in the beginning.

Over time, this has changed. Though I still try to write things as if I was sharing these moments with someone through my posts, the audience started to change. I shared my blog with my family at first. Then it was my friends. But, those who really picked up on it were my co-workers at my previous job. They encouraged me a lot and it encouraged me to keep going and venture into new areas of the city and finding more and more places. I still had trouble sleeping, so I spent my nights organizing my pictures and writing my posts.

I did a lot of hard work to climb out of my depression. I had some very good friends who gave me a kick in the butt now and then to get out of the house and do some activities such as yoga. Then I decided to go back to playing dodgeball again like I used to back in Ottawa because I remember how I made the great friends I have over there right now. And I had a hoot! My new team was fun and really helped me get back on my feet. I owe them a lot in my recovery. Then I went to some other events where I met more people and suddenly my circle of friends started to grow. Eventually I didn't feel lonely anymore. I felt much better about myself and I was starting to feel normal again.

Nowadays, I switched jobs, my new co-workers aren't as interested in what I write, my blog is getting less attention and quite frankly, I barely have the time to go walk around anymore. The frequency of posts has slowed down to several a week to just one a week at best. I have new hobbies that take up a lot of my time. I started working out again, but at home instead of a gym. I started a pretty good small collection of comics. I've read all the Walking Dead graphic novels so far, the Criminal series and many others by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips who write amazing noir stories. Several by an awesome artist by the name of Ben Templesmith of which my favourite one is Fell. And there are many others such as the Hollywood dark humour trilogy Blue Estate, Transmetropolitan, Saga, etc. I also intend on finishing my childhood collection of French Tintin comics. There's that and also a growing watchlist that I have created on IMDB with tons of old black and white film noir such as The Killing, Killer's Kiss, M, The Maltese Falcon and many other classics that I felt were just missing from my general movie culture.

Anyway, so as a whole year of blogging has gone by, and now that I am out of my bad funk, I'm afraid I won't have time to write posts anymore. Well, maybe I will, just not as often as I used to. There are still many cool areas to discover in Montreal that I have yet to write about. Some are still in drafts that I have left lying around in my account and which I need to finish. But, don't expect to see a new post every week anymore. Except for my cooking blog. Thought I have been extremely lazy of late for cooking food, I will keep on posting every new recipe that I whip up on there. If I don't post anything during a week, it's probably because I either didn't have time to cook, or I used one of my existing recipes.

You know what's funny? I look back at all my posts and I swear I can remember every single one of those moments. I look at the pictures and I feel like I am back there on the day I took it and I can still feel the air, the smells and this godawful feeling of emptyness I had in my chest. I am glad this is over. I'm going to turn a new page on my life now.

Keep on checking out my blog from time to time. I'm not done with it yet.