I’ve realized recently that I love being part of people’s special moments, and especially, being part of the planning process.

This past Saturday was Tabitha’s bridal shower – my third and last bridal shower of the year. It makes me a bit sad to think that I won’t be taking part of planning another bridal shower in a while (if at all).

During the bridal shower, someone began talking about this woman in NYC who became a professional bridesmaid – a bridesmaid for hire. She is the prime example of someone who takes what she’s good at and advertises herself. 

Which got me thinking, why can’t we all just do that? Advertise what we are good at shamelessly just because we’re good at it. You can’t lose anything.  

Another example of this is the guy who became a Professional Line Sitter after having realized that people will stand in line for just about anything. He will stand in line for you so that you won’t have to find yourself standing outside of an Apple Store all night just for the latest iPhone.

This is what I call true innovation.

Among the people I know, people are constantly being innovative. Annie has taken her love for baking and created Gastronomic Relevancy, Lauren has Boxit, Clement is on his way of making a website, Caroline sells her designs on Etsy, and my friend Tanya designs tshirts for her company, Afrolemodele. I’m sure there are others I don’t know about.

I came up with the most ridiculous venture I could think of this morning while talking to Tabitha. I decided that I should be a professional Proposal Expert.

The idea:

There will always be moments in life when you’ll want to take the next step with someone. Maybe you want to ask a girl out. Maybe you want to propose to your girlfriend. But the question is, how? You want to make it special and memorable, but the only problem is that you’re lacking ideas, and perhaps help.

That’s when I come in to help.

I can help these guys create unforgettable moments by planning and executing the event. All they have to do is show up looking good. I’ll make sure the flowers are there, the timing is right, and the mood is perfect. In short, I’ll be in the background making sure everything goes well.

I don’t even have to limit myself to a guy asking a girl out or a proposal; it can also be for a special wedding anniversary, or a surprise birthday.

It’s to help create a special moment between two people at the start of something wonderful. Or to help you express your love for that special person in your life.

Part of the package will be complimentary photos and a video of the entire thing.

What do you guys think? I’m quite half-serious about this. I’ll have to think of a name and create a website first, before advertising myself. This could either be a hit or a flop, either way, it’s something I can work on while looking for a job/finding out what I want to do with my life.

When we went to visit fontana de Trevi in Rome, I knew what I wanted to wish for. I had thought about it long beforehand, back when we were planning where to visit when we arrived in Rome. I wished for Aaron to get better. (I know what you’re thinking, now that I’ve said it, it will never come true! Luckily, I don’t subscribe to this superstition. Or maybe my wish has been answered.)

Less than a week after coming home from my grand adventure in Europe, Aaron was admitted to CAMH. It was Annabelle’s idea. She gave my mom a list of hospitals to choose from, with pros and cons on each, and in the end my mom agreed to CAMH because she believed it was the best hospital for him.

They went through the emergency room and he’s been there since, being switched from department to department, depending on how he was getting along.

I’ve had a very hands off experience with this entire thing which my mom might resent me for. She thinks I don’t care enough about Aaron and that I’m happy he’s in the hospital (as oppose to being unhappy like she is. She thinks CAMH is a prison). Call it what you will, selfishness or uncaring on my part, but I haven’t visited Aaron much this entire time. I’ll talk more about this later.

It was during this time that Aaron was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Hearing this diagnosis scared my entire family. First of all, it’s genetic. Second, we wondered whether Aaron would ever be strong enough to battle this. It really is a sorry affair to have someone in your family diagnosed with schizophrenia. There are a lot of tears, accusation, and depression passed around. My mom has taken it especially hard; she describes Aaron as “being an empty shell”.

I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s feeling. To see your son deteriorate and become this empty, emotionless, shell of what he once was. As we were cleaning out Aaron’s room after he went to CAMH, she found childhood pictures of him and pictures before his illness. Feeling sentimental, she stuck the pictures in random places in the house: On the fridge, by the front door, in her room, in the living room. I took a long hard look at these pictures. I can’t help but ask where Aaron went. The person in CAMH is not Aaron.

Aaron didn’t go to the wedding though he was one of Vinay’s groomsmen. It might have been the week before, or very recently beforehand at least, the wedding when Matt and Aaron got in a fist fight in the hospital. After that, there were no questions of him coming to the wedding. Isn’t this a really depressing thought? I thought about Aaron’s absence during the wedding, and wondered whether he would have enjoyed it. Probably not.

So where am I going with this? I wish I could end off with saying, “So this is why I’ve filled up ten prayer journals to date because everyday I pray that God will heal Aaron and I have faith enough that this will actually happen.” 

I do believe God can heal Aaron. But I do question whether it’s in His will to do so or not. (Maybe someone can help me out on this with a comment.) Rather than pray for healing, I want to pray for peace in what God has planned, whether it’s Aaron becoming a functional member of society or whether, and I shudder at this thought, Aaron stays the way he is for a long time.

Let’s be honest. This is hard.

Tonight, as my mom was taking Aaron out to Tim Hortons (he has a free pass every now and then, meaning, he can leave the hospital for short amounts of time), he ran away from her. He jolted out of Tim Hortons and ran down the street. She chased after him in her car and even stopped in the middle of the road, abandoning the car, to chase him on foot. Eventually a kind couple wound up helping my mom and after an hour or so, they managed to get him into the car with the promise of going home.

Which she actually took him to. When they got home my mom pulled Annabelle aside (I was at work) and told her Aaron was downstairs and together with Pedro, they got him in the car and went to the hospital together, where in the parking lot, Aaron took off again. It was dark at this time, and Annabelle stopped my mom from chasing him. Instead, she called the hospital for help, and they responded by calling the police. Frantic, my mom insisted that they look for Aaron themselves so they drove round and round the vicinity of the hospital until they spotted Aaron at a streetlight.

Annabelle was suppose to meet up with Vinay, who is just coming in from Thunder Bay. Instead, she had to chase after Aaron and comfort my mom who was hysterical. I don’t even know where to start. I feel bad this had to happen to everyone – to my mom who is absolutely distraught now, to Aaron who wants to be free from his prison, to Annabelle the newlywed who can’t be with her husband, and even Pedro who probably was looking to rest after work.

Doesn’t this sound completely fictional to you? It’s hard to imagine this could even be real life. Then again, we all have our own problems to look after. 

It is fair to say that I have become very disenchanted with my career, or rather, disenchanted with putting a career first and foremost at all. In the past few months, this thought has been creeping into my head, but I’ve always brushed it away thinking that it was nonsense. What reason would I be disenchanted when I haven’t begun at all? Then again, a stronger inkling would say, “Is it really that important?”

And I guess, now I’ve resigned to thinking that it isn’t that important at all.

In the past few months, weeks, days, and minutes leading up to Annabelle’s wedding, I’ve immersed myself completely into helping her prepare for it: Shopping for décor, shopping for gifts, putting together the wedding favor, planning the bridal shower, getting our eyebrows done, planning the surprise flash mob (which, I’m happy to say, she says was her favorite part of the wedding). I enjoyed every minute of it, even in the days when I felt overwhelmed by the amount of things we had to do.

It was in the middle of this wedding fever that I realized it’s ok that I’m disenchanted with my career, and that it’s ok to embrace this feeling rather than pushing it away. What became more important to me were the people who I was around, the people I could help, and the people I decide are important to me.

Last night marked the end of my classes.  I left class feeling meh, and walked away from my friends deciding I would celebrate quietly by buying tea at Tim Hortons by myself. It was one of those moments when I couldn’t help but think, “So, now what?”

(Tangent: People are often confused when they realized I’m still taking a class. The answer is yes, I am, and it’s been the biggest struggle. In the midst of assignments and tests, I’ve been helping Annabelle for her wedding, planning the bridal shower, planning lesson plans for my practicum, working, and who knows what else.)

Deep in my thoughts, I almost walked passed someone who ‘seemed’ homeless, asking me for change. As usual, I made sure to reply, “Sorry”.

But then he asked, “Can you buy me dinner?”

I stopped in my tracks. I’ve never been asked by someone who ‘seemed’ homeless to buy him dinner before.

So I asked, “Sure, what do you want?”

“Can you buy me that chicken sandwich?”

“Do you want a drink with that?”

“I already have coffee. How about water?”

“Ok, I’ll go get you something.”

Then he added, “Can you get chili with that?”

I wasn’t sure if hew as changing his order, or if he was asking me to buy him two different things. But I wasn’t about to get him both. When I came back outside with his chili I noticed that he had what seemed to be an iphone/ipod headphones on, which meant that he might not have been homeless! I had been duped.

We exchanged names, shook hands, and as I walked away, he pulled out a small flute. This seemingly homeless man might have just been a subway musician.

I didn’t let it get to me. I let it go thinking, “Well God, it’s not my place to judge whether he could have afforded the meal himself or not, or whether he’s actually homeless or not. I did what he requested of me, and that’s that.”

Anyway, I told my friends what happened. One of them told me it was my destiny to run into this guy (jokingly. This is her way making sense of things).  And my other friend told me that I should have been more mad for being duped.

One of my fondest memory of going to Istanbul with Tabitha and Selina was that one morning when we had our coffee fortunes read by a friend we made. He made some tall claims, but despite that, I often think back to my coffee fortune.

“You’ll be able to get what you want,” He said peering into my cup. “Because you’re lucky.”

I don’t know what I want yet. When I figure it out, at least I know I'll have luck on my side.