August 24th

Today would have been Emma’s birthday if she were alive and turning another year older. The time is 6:00 am. I work at 8:30 am. I am thankful to have a distraction today: work. Tomorrow I’m off, too. Thank god for that.

Fake freckles

It’s so quiet at 7 am on Saturday morning. I put on neon pink eyeliner and dotted my cheeks and nose with fake freckles. I didn’t know it til now, but this is what I’ve always wanted to look like. I start work at 9 am and the two hours of silence ahead of me calm me down. 

Work/summer ending

After work I turn the music up to the maximum amount that the TV will allow me. I try to forget every table. How’d I get so lucky, though, to work for the creme-de-la creme of diners in the east end of Ottawa? An institution, really. 

I get treated with respect there. I’ve worked enough restaurants to know that this is the golden dayshift I’ve been searching for. I don’t take it for granted. I thank Jesus every day I get to go to work. When I’m not at work, I think about working. I talk about working. Work, to me, is easily the best distraction from my miserable thoughts that I can think of. Art is great and all, but I am consumed in my little job and it really means everything to me.

My foot hurts but the pain makes me alive. Outside looks like a jungle. The vine in the backyard snakes around the fence and the flowers stretch towards the sun.

Meanwhile, at home, my feet are bare and the balcony is hot. The sun makes things sparkle. A guy leaves his number on my car and I tell him I don’t want a boyfriend and I’m asexual. He leaves me alone after that.

Jesse

I crushed on him for 10 years before we dated for real. I met him in 2011, we dated in 2021. He was Chelsea’s roommate. Chelsea was my friend from elementary school, my drinking buddy. We knew each other in grade 5. He was dating a girl at the time when I met him. I don’t want to mention her name. 

Things Jesse taught me:

1. Don’t spit on the ground
2. Don’t put up with bullies

It is important to note he was obsessed with me. Once, I left him, because he was still dating what’s-her-face, and he said, later, “I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I knew you would come back to me.”

I have never been more in love with anyone and it absolutely devastated me when Jesse died. I miss him. All my old poetry is about him. He called me his North Star once and I wrote it into a poem.

Friendship

You cannot take away from other people because you think your problems are worse.

Things I learned about ending a 15-year-long friendship:

1. You need time alone to grow

2. Being honest with yourself is important

3. It’s okay to feel a little sad about this chapter in your life ending

4. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries

5. People can have their opinions but you know how you feel

Summer 2025

The wind smells like flowers. Corn and cherries are for dinner. The summer hits with a heatwave, the hottest I've ever seen it. After that, it rains and the temperatures return to normal. My parents take off for the cottage in Quebec and I'm home alone again. They take me off the door at work. One day I look at the schedule and my name isn't on it. I'm a server again. It took 3 years to get here. I'm proud of the work I've done.

I walk around the mall with my headphones on, listening to some whining boys sing about tragedy and heartbreak, my favourite tracks. I adorn myself with sparkles and fake lashes, thick lines of make-up, highlighting the beauty mark I have near my eye in slick black.

People bug me but there's nothing I can do about it. I bide my time in the mornings and look out the window for signs of life. This summer, my intentions are to protect my boundaries and grow.

Bruises tell a story. Mine are of self-expression and divine self-care. The ghost-girl I dance for is my little sister. Every time I dance, I wish she could dance, too.
I choreographed this routine because this song reminds me of you. Don’t let it go to your head. But then again, you think you’re better than me, so why would it?
Grief moves through the body in an electric way. First I feel fat, wet drops of tears coating my shoulder-blades. Then I feel myself trot across the studio, grab a pole with all my strength, and fling my body across the room in a motion that leads with my hips and everything sparkles as I spin around and dizziness doesn’t exist.

I feel the floor again beneath my clacking 8” heels and land on my tip-toes. Still here.

Clown painting

She used to have this clown painting. She painted the perfect face of a clown, it was yellow and green. It had a big red nose and jagged teeth. I took the painting with me to Montreal and lost it there, it was stolen. I’ll never forget her signature at the bottom, her full name. It is the one thing I regret: losing that clown painting.

She Said She’d Haunt Me

She used to say she’d haunt me. This was before she died. I didn’t know how much death might hurt. That I’d feel my skin being ripped from my bones. It is instant and slicing and death never goes away. But I see her flip-flops, the purple Gumby ones I’d saved, one of the very few things I have left of her, and I think how proud she’d be of me now.

Ghosts

I watched a cloud overtake the sun as I stared up at the sky in a baby pink velvet mini-dress I got at Value Village. I adorned my right ankle with a thin silver anklet before setting off into the day.
That morning was all silence and the scent of gasoline escaping from car’s exhaust pipes. The hot pavement scorched the bottoms of my feet as I scampered in-between lawns. 
I was trying to take a photograph of a nearby cherry tree when a summer wind blew a Jasmine-scented floral aroma in my direction. I inhaled deeply and bent into another position for the snapshot of the pink tree. 
In the late afternoons, I used to come to this abandoned swimming pool and watch the boys skateboard in the emptiness of it. The small pools of rainwater made the skateboard’s trails look like glitter in the sun. Once I found a mixtape at the ledge of the pool. It was labeled, “For the ghosts,” and we listened to it, over and over again. Trying to make sense of the track-list, trying to summon a ghost.

Garden State

There are construction workers filling in a forest with a neighborhood behind my parent’s house this summer. There are large machines and it reminds me of Garden State when it rains.

My coworkers squabble and I tell them they’re like my parents, trying to be funny, but they probably thought it was sad. Which it is. But it’s also kind of funny. I mean, you have to laugh. That’s how I look at it. Life is funny. One second you could be up and the next down. That’s just how it works.

In the stunning early morning silence I practice gratitude and mindfulness and study such things on the internet and in magazines and try to become a better person. Who I am doesn’t bother me anymore like how it used to.

Love

When I say love ain’t shit I mean it isn’t to me. I don’t mean to say that Jesse was a bad boyfriend, he wasn’t. It means maybe I don’t need the type of love that’s always shoved down your throat in your childhood in stories. I don’t need to have a boyfriend again. Tried it and it wasn’t for me. 

Music

Jesse made me a playlist on Spotify before he died. He titled it “Harleen Quinzel”, and in the description he wrote that I was the love of his life.

Sitting here listening to it now, I feel guilt and regret. The first 2 songs are my songs. The opening song is Fake Love by Daniel Jang, who is a violinist and the entire song is strings and keys and when it fills the room and all that’s left of Jesse is the stupid tattoo on my wrist and this playlist he left for me, it eats me alive.

The next song is from a band I kept a secret from everyone but I suppose it doesn’t matter now: Her Space Holiday. And the track is, “Something To Do With My Hands”. That one cuts out quickly at the end and the next songs are all Jesse’s picks.

“Play this when I’m gone” comes on and the irony doesn’t escape me.

I guess I know what love is, then. And it ain’t shit. Here's it:

20 years

It’s been 20 years since my little sister, Emily Grace, was killed in a car accident. 

Here is proof. The car on the left is the one in which my mother’s mother, my grandmother, was driving, when she fell asleep at the wheel and also died on the scene.

I was in the passenger seat. My foot was broken. I woke to my grandmother whimpering, “Someone help me, get me out of here,” I heard her die. All I could say though, was, “Where is my sister?” 

When my parents arrived at the hospital in Quebec that day, I got the answer. “She’s in heaven, with grandma,” My mother said.

I was 15 years old. This happened on August 2nd, 2005. I called her Emma. She was 13 turning 14 in 22 days. Her birthday is August 24th, 1991.

She was funny. We used to walk 15 minutes to Chapters with our girlfriends Kelsey and Hannah every day, and we’d talk about everything. We’d discuss death, even. Emma said she would haunt us on the toilet so we’d jump up and get pee everywhere. One of her famous jokes was, “What’s the matter, Grandma? You piss your Depends?” For anyone who doesn’t know, Depends are adult diapers.

My grandmother always called her “bold”.

I never wanted sympathy. I learned that I’m truly alone. I’ve come to the final step of grief: acceptance, and I’m happy and well-adjusted. I’ll never forget her, though. I posted pictures of her here, in case you needed proof she was hilarious.

ETA: I know I post that car accident pic too much, but I can’t fucking believe that happened to me.

Spring

Other than critiquing pole videos of myself and listening to a triple emo playlist Spotify made me on my birthday after choosing a variation of emo for every category they suggested, I haven't been doing much. At the end of every day, I rip my eyelashes off and contemplate existence.

This spring has so far been epic. Lots of rain. The hot weather is just arriving now. Finally I opened my window. This is probably my favourite time of the year. I love how sunrise is at 5:30 am. It's my favourite thing about spring.

Beautiful

It’s beautiful: even when it’s raining, even when it’s snowing for the millionth time. It’s beautiful and there’s no other way to look at life if you ask me. If I wanted to think a negative thought, the mood stabilizers would prevent it. The doctor upped my dosage three summers ago when I was acting erratic after Phil passed away. 400 mg of happiness. Once a month. Injected into my arm. At the outpatient clinic in the Montfort Hospital.

It could be worse. I could be drinking straight whiskey and doing drugs, but I’m not. Every day I am thankful to be sober and mindful of my existence. I can breathe, I can see, and I feel like myself again.

Fake plants

Every plant in my garden is fake. 

Jesse Larocque

Tomorrow would have been Jesse’s birthday. I am forever changed by what we went through. I love you, I miss you. I do this all in memory of you.

No one will save you

At some point, you have to take control of your life, no matter how bad your childhood was. Blaming someone else for your problems never works. I would know. Running around doing nefarious things on the streets taught me that you only have yourself in this world. No one will save you. Barely anyone helps you. You’ve got to help yourself.

Driving

I have cat-like agility when it comes to driving. I like driving. One of the jokes we have about driving is: we’ll drive to IKEA (which is on the other side of the city) during traffic so we can talk the whole way.

One time a bus driver stuck his hand out the window and told me to slow down. The fastest I ever drove was 160 on the way home from Toronto. 

One time a lady got out of her car at a red light, walked up to my car, and asked me why I drive so crazily.

I drove drunk only once. I never got caught but I did smash into someone else’s car and had to pay for the damage.

I got sued for $1 million dollars after rear-ending someone on Ogilvie. Insurance covered it. I had to go to examinations for discovery. After that, my father and I spoke with the lawyer for our insurance company and she said it was a bogus claim. We never found out how much he got in the end.

Sadness

Sometimes, when I think about the restaurant that I work in, sadness overcomes me. Sadness from all the secrets from the customers, the workers and even my bosses. It consumes me so much I cry. There is a lot, but not much I can be specific about, but it all amounts to a lot. A lot of sadness, that is. This is a rare occasion, on which I think about it all and cry. In fact, I think this might be the first time. It’s unsettling and discomforting. I’m soft, in the end, even though I may look tough.

Safe, healthy

A lot changed. I chopped off all my hair. I got a new tattoo. I feel like a newer version of myself, one I like better. The winter is coming to an end and the clocks spring forward today. 
I’m still schmoozing tables for tips at the diner up the street. They asked me why I liked it so much there. “I was a waitress without a restaurant,” I explained. I’m still posing on my crooked pole and taking photos with the self-timer in my buzz-cut and boots.
My boss grabbed my hand and told me to slow down. I applied her advice elsewhere in my life, as well as at work. It has helped me. 
My apartment is so beautiful at 4:45 pm when the sun is shining right through the window. I never take days like this for granted. It feels better than anything knowing I am safe and healthy.

Nice

That's what would of done you in: expecting acceptable commentary from someone who looks like they don't know how to be acceptable in the first place. You have to hold your tongue. If you can't think of something nice to say, you don't say anything at all.

Love

When someone tells me they love me, I don’t care who it is, or what our relationship is, I always tell them I love them back.

Day 1

Somehow, I lost myself. It happened sometime after high school ended and it lasted for a very long time. I am not uncomfortable in my growth. It makes me uncomfortable to not grow. Today is day 1. 

Government

While Donald Trump is yelling about tariffs on the news, I am furiously building my second ever greenhouse in Sims 4 on my laptop from the corner of the room, seriously doubting the goodness in the world. Politics never interested me. As far as I’m concerned, there is little to nothing I can do about the state of society. It’s not the government’s fault your life is fucked up, something I learned early in life. Not in Canada, at least.

Winter

Statistically, Ottawa is the coldest capital in the world. Tons of snow is crippling the US, where people deny climate change, but there's barely any signs of winter here. Ottawa's notoriously colder than Toronto, too, which is on Lake Ontario. The time I spent in Toronto, the winters were mild. Now the winters are mild here, in Ottawa, which bodes well for me. I like winter, especially a mild winter. The cold, fresh air makes me feel alive.

2024

This is what I learned about myself last year: I do have bipolar I. I did experience mania and depression before I was medicated. I don’t want to fight over it anymore. I have come to the realization that I must accept my diagnosis. In doing so, I have become curious about the disorder. Usually when something’s broken, I say, “it gives it character.” I’m not broken, though, just different.

Mental illness

In my opinion, everyone has mental illness. It’s just the degree to which it affects you.

Now dry your tears and go to work. Because that’s what people do. 

5am Girl

5am Girl is available for sale! Hard-copies and digital copies available
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5am Girl is my diary transcribed from October 2019 - June 2022

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The news

I could be anywhere else in the world. I could be demonstrating during a protest. I could be in war-torn countries, third-world countries. But I'm here, in Ottawa, safe as milk. Ottawa is one of the 10 safest cities in Canada. I've never felt unsafe here, even walking around the street late at night by myself. The problems in the world infuriate and confuse me. I watch the news only to turn it off.