I’m curious, do you have a bucket list? I can’t say I do per se though I’m sure I have one in my head somewhere. It’s probably full of all the typical things many of us hope to do before we err… kick the bucket.

While I currently don’t have any intentions of writing one, I do like the idea behind it. I’m no stranger to wanting something but holding back because of fear or shall we say… lack of balls. So, I thought I’d share one random thing I would like to do.

As some of you may have read, my boyfriend has brain damage. I won’t get into anymore than I already have, but having seen the devastation F.A.S.D. (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) causes to individuals and their families, I have this need to raise more awareness about it. In fact, a year or so ago I almost packed up modernemotive to go back to school to specialize in it. Somewhere along the way I realized that while F.A.S.D. will always be in my life, I can’t live and breathe it. But, there’s lots of stuff I can do from the outside to help raise awareness.

Funnily enough, one of the reasons I left the corporate world was because I felt like I was doing absolutely nothing to better society. Sure, the money was fabulous, the pats on the back for great work were nice, blah, blah, blah… but at the end of the day, I was just putting money into the pockets of the big corporations. I stopped giving a shit if a campaign, website or competition we designed went above and beyond the expectations. I stopped giving a shit when we got awards for great design that served no purpose other than to look cool and drive sales. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the above. I still do freelance design work here and there and enjoy it. It’s just not the only driving force for me anymore.

Anyways, what do I intend to do to raise awareness? I want to take my creative skills and design these highly emotive awareness campaigns. One idea is to put together a stop-motion video. A PSA I guess you could say. I have this dream it will become one of those crazy successes both online and offline. Yes I know my expectations are set high but in reality, even if it just gives all the F.A.S.D organizations out there another tool to share their message, I’ll be happy.

What’s stopping me? Right now… lack of knowledge. A storyboard. A vision. It’ll come though… when the time is right and I can do it justice. The cogs are already turning.

So friends, tell me one thing you want to do. Perhaps it’s something no one would ever assume about you. Perhaps like me it’s something close to your heart you just need to do. Or perhaps it’s just something as simple as a wanting to visit a certain country or learn a new skill. And while you’re thinking of your answer, perhaps the more important question is… what’s holding you back?

I’ve gone back and forth on whether to share the truly personal sides of my life. There’s always that internal battle of how personal is too personal when you have what may be viewed as a business blog. Perhaps that’s true, but one thing I always respect… whether on blogs, within people, businesses or whatever is transparency. Yah, this blog represents my company to a certain extent, but it also represents me, Adele.

The last two years of my life have been one heck of an emotional ride. I’ve gone through a divorce, the death of a pet from extremely devastating circumstances (RIP Sock-a-Roonie), leaving a pretty decent paying job, a period of feeling homeless (I wasn’t but I didn’t have a bed to call my own for some time), buying a condo within 3 weeks because I was so desperate for said bed, meeting the man of my dreams, discovering my pop had terminal cancer (he’s currently in remission – yah!), losing friends due to circumstances beyond my control rather than losing something else on the other side (gotta love that double-edged sword)… the list just goes on.

Anyways, back to that man of my dreams. Those words sometimes piss me off. I often resent them to no end. Why? Because shortly into our relationship I discovered he had brain damage. He was born with a condition called ARND (Alcohol-Related Neurodevelopmental Disorder) which falls under the FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) umbrella. Perhaps some of you know of it, for those that don’t, to cut it short, his maternal mom (he’s adopted) drank alcohol while pregnant and this essentially damaged his brain permanently. You wouldn’t know it to look at him or be around him, he’s extremely smart and we’re fortunate in that he’s considered high-functioning, but I won’t get into the clinical side of this. Quite frankly, it often confuses me. All that needs to be said for now is that the section of the brain which allows the left and right side to communicate is damaged which causes a myriad of challenges.

So ya, sometimes when I look at the man of my dreams, I get pissed off. Not so much because I view him as “damaged” but because it could of been prevented. If the alcohol hadn’t been able to destroy him before he was even born, our life would be oh so different. I get pissed off because “someone” (god, fate, whatever floats your boat) put him in my life to go on this wonderful ride only to later tell me that that to make this work we’ll have to face challenges most would run from. I wish I had the words to describe these challenges, so rather than try, I’ll share with you a song that brings a lot of clarity to me when things are fuzzy.

Truth is, we’ve been on this huge mountain climb since the day we met. Sometimes the trip up it has been exhilarating – memories I’ll always remember – and sometimes we’ve stumbled and slid down the mountain a little. Yet we always got up, dusted ourselves off and starting climbing again. Even when our pain and fears were too heavy to carry, we kept climbing. I don’t know if we’ll ever reach the top of the mountain together and perhaps along the way one of us will be too tired to keep climbing, but hopefully, one day, we’ll both reach the top to experience it’s beauty. I’m told it’s the most amazing feeling of freedom there is.

P.S. I don’t know if I’ll keep this post up forever. Perhaps one day I’ll wake up and decide it is too personal. But for now, this is me, my life, the life of the face behind this blog, Adele, not modernemotive, but Adele.

P.P.S. I know in the grand scale of things, we’re pretty lucky. There are much worse battles to face, this world ain’t perfect, but sometimes, just sometimes, you have to be a little selfish and only think about your little world. You live in it after-all.