A Perfect Adventure

Saturday was an absolutely perfect day.
These kinds of days are so rare and so blissful, that it's important to me to document, so as to cite it later when they skies are a little grayer.  And so....

I started it off at friend’s place, because of course all great adventures start after a sleepover with your best friend.  From there I got coffee with someone the Universe has placed into my coven — as in I met her by chance and have run into her accidentally a few times since.  Finally we are connecting with out cosmic aid, and it was an hour and a half of pet photos, stories of travels, and comforting each other about frustrations that we thought we were facing alone.

Next up was the Drama Book Shop, where I bought a play for the acting class I’ve been taking — oh right, I’m taking an acting class — and I discovered after years of being a patron of their business, they have a shop dog.  His name is Chester.  So obviously that was ideal.

Then I went somewhere to buy a present for my best friend, which I will not describe as she has yet to receive said present.

Next to a cheap pharmacy for lipstick and lemonade; then etsy to quickly snag yet another mug from the wonderful Allison Fretheim Ceramics (they sell out within minutes of being released), and then I made my way to a doctor.  As always I resent how necessary it is for me to go to one (and by one I mean at least five types on a regular basis with copays of $50 per visit), but I did so, spoke up about some issues I’ve just been enduring, and scheduled two follow ups.  Adulting.

As a reward for said adulting, I headed to a showroom for treats I’ve been eyeing for years.  On the train there, I saw two people signing.  After smiling at them and trying not to seem creepy, I signaled for their attention the way one should towards someone who is deaf, and said “hello I know a little sign and this is making me very happy.”  They brought me into their conversation, and we were happily signing all the way into Brooklyn.  I got off at their stop…needing to head back into Manhattan; but the whimsy, the kismet, and the bliss of communicating with someone in another language made the trip into Brooklyn well worth it.
They also told me about an Sign Language Center that offers classes, which I plan on taking.

In this happy whirlwind, I finally made it to Glossier, the showroom extraordinaire, and bought the gems that had caught my eye.  I then waited way too long in front of what I thought was the bathroom, and actually may have just been a door to a stockroom.

A photographer, a small and sweet young woman, saw me waiting and asked if she could take my photo in a mirror nearby with flowers.  I said sure and so we did an impromptu photoshoot.  It was delightful and flattering.

From there, I went home, got a tad lost, FaceTimed with my best friend as she finally dyed her hair, and then headed to a friend’s place for dinner.

I thrive in this weather; this day of not quite heat, but still a break from the air hurting your face.  I thrive with my friends; the delightful souls who’ve accepted all my weird little quirks and lengthy backstory and let me love them as much as I do.  I thrive on following chance paths that remind me that days like this are possible.

I face a lot physically.  There are days like today where I have to spend $100 on meds to breathe.  Just breathe.  I pay to live.  And so it's incredible when I have a perfect day, a residual of all the work I've put into getting this far, a dividend of the life I've been investing in.  I document it so as to remember, to have something to look back on when the weight of the fight feels too much to bare, so as to remember how lucky I still am.  Every day may not be this kind of adventure, but these days are well worth the wait and the work it takes to get there.

(the beginning of the journey; this one and the next)

Tiny Turmoil

I’ve been quiet.  These past two weeks, I have spent my nights will a little fur-ball of purrs and cuddles.  I found a cat, at a very inconvenient time.  I found her and decided to save her and she has since been the only thing on my mind.  That and needing to make more art.  And my spark has been dampened.  I haven’t been  making as much as I would like to, perhaps because I am doing it one day of the week, and thus the others pale in comparison.  I need a vacation from this life, but there are also forces in it that ground me to where I am.

Every year for the past four, I have moved to a new city.  I enjoy starting over.  Adventures, meeting new people and getting to collect new pieces of me as I adorn myself with the gems I’ve already found — but I think I am staying.  And we’ll see what the job will be, where I will live, and who’s at my side (cat, human, or friend).  Time will tell.

Some Amazing Souls

Hey loves.

It’s been an eye opening week.  It started with a flu/plague that knocked me out with a fever for four days straight.   I’m on the upswing now, which is great, but honestly, I am more excited about the amazing support that I received from my coworkers/friends.  When I was first feeling ill, I rested my head on a break room table, and I think I had over half a dozen people asking me if I was okay and insisting that I let them do something to help.  All of them have checked back in on me, and though these seem like easy gestures, they really show how much I matter to those I work with.

I left LA because I wanted a community, and moments like this remind me of why moving here was worth it.  Since my junior year of college I’ve lived in a different city every year, and I don’t know, I think this one may just stick.

Speaking of college, I saw a whole slew of SU Drama alums last night.  I didn’t love college.  I was a pioneering teenager, working four jobs while adapting to having no family but myself, as I awkwardly transitioned into the fiercely independent woman I am now.   So big shocker, it can be hard for me to look back on those years.  There are a lot of eases and experiences I wish I’d had; college memories feel like walking into a grocery store starving, with just four dollars in your pocket — and that’s still more than most, so it’s not a complaint.  Still, I’ve found the easiest response has been to move on and not look back.

Which is what made last night weirdly amazing.  I tend to leave worlds behind me, so venturing back is always a surprise.  The groundwork is the same, but time begets change, and I am proud of the people they’ve grown into.  And because we aren’t still in class together, stuck seeing each other for another few years, there wasn’t a need to force a connection that wasn’t genuinely there; and contrastingly, the amazing ones stood out.  It was a chance to reconnect with those whose values align with mine: those that have spent the past few years creating opportunities for themselves, who truly know the struggle of trying to make acting a priority while knowing that a steady “job-job” needs to come first.   Empathizing about experiences we didn’t have know years ago was a surprise last night.  As was realizing there were those who directly witnessed my awkward cocooning but never doubted the butterfly I’d become.  I am grateful for the night, and those I can still love.

I should also mention the evening was a mixer for the alumni of a specific class we all took, and the teachers were so badass.  I know it’s their jobs as casting directors to have these impossibly precise memories and infectious personalities, but still….after three years to remember my name without hesitation and to genuinely care what I’ve been up to….they have renewed my awe of how amazing they are as people and mentors.

So it’s been a great week.  My ethos as a human is to connect.  Wether that’s through acting, writing, or love, it’s what makes my soul purr: and I definitely am now.  I have a community with amazing people to love.

[a bathroom selfie with two of my butterfly buds]

The Most Important Post I'll Write for Awhile

I feel alone in this city, which is ironic as this is the most received I’ve ever felt.  People here don’t compare my passions to their own, feeling as if me loving something unusual to them somehow threatens their own passions.  Instead they very easily accept that what matters to me….matters to me, and more than that, they’re happy someone’s loving it. 

For instance, although hermit crabs are more common as pets on the east coast, fewer people here question how I could love Spencer as much as I do.  

In turn, this also makes change less terrifying.   Last week, for example, I started drawing with our store's iPad Pro, and suddenly coworkers and strangers asked if I was a visual artist; quickly I realized I was the only one laughing at the idea of that being true.

I had changed myself overnight and it was accepted effortlessly.  Back in college, you couldn't change your hair color without worrying about how it would be seen.  So it's odd to me, how in an environment so willing to see you as anything you so choose, that I still feel unhappy.

Perhaps it signals the end of me discovering myself: I found what I wanted and that’s who I am. And if having those choices validated doesn’t satisfy my craving for more, then I’m already onto the next item on the agenda.

When I was a kid I knew the type of person I wanted to be, and it seems I’ve finally grown into the shoes.

So that just leaves walking somewhere.

When  I visited Philly in April, almost a year after being away, I started crying when one of my friends/mentors noted how much I had grown; as much as I wanted that to be true, it was hard to believe. 

Life is monotonous here.  Every day looks the same, feels the same, so it’s only logical to feel like you’re the same, too.

But consider a rock at the edge of the sea, longing to be pulled into the magnificent chaos.  Every waves makes a promise as they come towards it, and every wave breaks its heart when they leave it behind.  It’s tortured in the monotony, with each little splash teasing it with the salty taste of adventure. 

And yet.

Each wave that brushes against it helps it glisten in the sun, tugging away at its imperfections, subtly chiseling it towards is truest form, where it’ll only bear the weight of what defines it the most.  And eventually the day will come when the final wave convinces the rock to let go of the final burden rooting it, and the rock will be carried back with the wave, towards adventure it longs for no longer.

So that’s my final business here.  I have to let go of the final piece keeping me here, so that I can move on to greater things.

And I know what it is, too.

I met a dog in our store the other day, and when I kneeled to pet him, he climbed onto my knees, lifted his front legs and hugged  me.  His owner commented that he likes me and that he’s such a loving dog; and how shocking it is that when she found him, he had been stabbed.

The pup had been recently groomed and when he walked away I could see the scars from his wounds.  And yet if his owner hadn’t told me, I never would’ve known.  That dog was more loving and more forgiving than most people.

A few days ago I tried to find a book I hadn’t finished.  My room is still in the pandemonium of moving five times in a year and no longer owning a bookcase, and so I couldn’t find the book.  But I found another I hadn’t finished and I tossed it into my bag instead.  I take so long to read that I continued where I had left off rather than restarting the book.  The book as a whole takes common children’s stories and breaks down what the symbolism means in adult psycology.  This particular chapter was about “the mistaken zygote,” a.k.a. The Ugly Duckling a.k.a. the trauma we face when we are abused as children and have to grow up too fast in the face of not receiving the unconditional love and care that we need in our developmental years.

I also have been watching The West Wing, and there was an episode where a character works with a psychologist who diagnoses him with PTSD.  The worst the doctor says to him are such: “What we need to get you to do is be able to remember the [traumatic event] without reliving it, and you have been reliving it.”

The book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, phrases it incredibly as well: 

“There is another issue to be dealt with.  Mistaken Zygotes learn to be survivors.  It is touch to spend years among those who cannot help you flourish.  Being able to say one is a survivor is an accomplishment…And yet there comes a time in the individuation process where the threat or trauma has significantly past.  Then is the time to go onto the next stage of survivorship, to healing and thriving.”

Now I’d be too nervous to say the threat has past, but I met a customer who understood quite a lot of this and confidently told me  I didn’t need a restraining order.      I’ve been here for a year and was only stalked once.  It triggers me, I’m still coping with the trauma, but I am safe.  Definitely safer than I was then.

The book continues: “One can take so much pride in being a survivor that it becomes a hazard to further creative development.”  For me, I think it’s that I went so many years on my own, people not knowing how hard my life was, before and after the abuse, that saying I survived validated the struggle I still felt I needed to prove.  

But,  “at some point, allying with it exclusively begins to inhibit new development…Liken it to a tough little plant that managed — without water, sunlight, nutrients — to sen out a brave and ornery leave anyway.  In spite of it all.  But thriving means, now that the bad times are behind, to put ourselves into occasions of the lush, the nutritive, the light, and there to flourish.”

That’s greater than “making survivorship the centerpiece of one’s life.”

That dog did it.  He is a creature made entirely of love, and still he was betrayed and almost killed by those he had chosen.  Miraculously he survived, but he didn’t remain in his abused state, bowing his head to those he feared would hurt him again.  He forgave and trusted and let go of the burdens rooting him to the shore — and now is as happy as he could be.

That’s my next step.  I didn’t just accidentally bump into all of these themes in the span of a week.  They’re the waves that have chosen to come towards me, highlighting that which I’m gripping to tightly, which in turn is gripping tightly onto me.  They splash me with the importance and safety of letting it go.  Ultimately, I’d rather say I’m happy than say I’m a survivor.  So if I can change myself overnight, tomorrow I will wake up in the direction of health, moving  a step closer towards being a thriving individual.

A Happy Check Point:

Hello my loves.

I’m in a good place today.  I’m hopeful.  I’ve slept enough, it’s not unbearably hot in my apartment yet, and tomorrow is Spencer’s birthday.  (Don’t worry, more on that will come.)

As far as work goes, I love my job.

Yesterday I got to help a crowd of people easily understand ideas so complex that if I told them how complex they were, they’d insist they were too advanced; I’ve found that people’s biggest obstacle in learning is themselves.  So getting past that and helping them learn was incredibly rewarding.  

After that, I spoke to a young guy I swear will change the world.  We discussed how people value the wrong things these days.  Certain sports shoes are popular out here, for instance, and he was saying that people only like them because someone told them too; a blog post, a celebrity, a friend.  That most of the people he knows gets them just to look at, not even to wear, and, again, not because of their own passion.  And he added that he knew two people who were killed for their shoes.

I was speechless at that point.  What can you say when you’re confronted with a society that values shoes more than a human life?  We talked more on what matters to him, and how he cares about originality; someone who follows their own happiness, not what others say they should value.  He was a magnificent soul and I hope the right luck finds him, because he absolutely is a visionary.

And this was someone I’d probably never meet outside of our store. 

Demographically we have little in common, and yet — I want to say spiritually, but by that I don’t mean some greater force guiding us, but rather the yearning that we both feel as humans to make something out of this short time that we have to be alive — and so spiritually we completely understood one another.  Nowhere else would I have been given the time to get to see this stranger so truthfully.

I’m so happy restoring from back up can take a few minutes :P

I also met a law student who was studying for the Bar Exam, and every time she was waiting (for her appointment, for the answers about her computer, etc) I would quiz her on what she was studying.  In that small time, I could see her kindness, and tell that she’s going to be an incredible lawyer.  Not one that entered that field for money, but rather one who prides herself in defending children and victims, who speaks up for those that are voiceless.  She is selfless.

And I also worked with a fellow poet, and got to share with her my new favorite gadget for creating.  She also complimented my look, and in the spirit of honesty and not vanity, I get that a lot at work….and that’s exciting.  I am different and always have been, and it’s great to know that it’s manifesting into something notably confident and distinct.  It gives me hope that when I start acting again, that when I walk into the room, they’ll see that too, and perhaps that’ll give me opportunities that I long for.  She also had that look to her, not my style per se, but something completely different and thus compelling.  It was a wonderful way to end the day.

So I love my job.  I get to connect with strangers, as I enable kindness, growth and art, both within them and myself.

So it’s no wonder then that I don’t want any other role.  That’s why I’m not in Philadelphia right now.  There was one position there that went to someone else, and I don’t want to move there an wait three years for another opening in the role that validates who I am and who I want to be.

So instead I’ve been looking for cities near Philly (so I can still see my love bugs there) but where I can also work this job and towards a career in art.

Have you guessed it yet?

I had an interview this week for a store in New York.

And I almost started crying, it sounded so amazing.  Their trainer team is twice the size of mine, which means the community openly embraces coming in to learn.  And most of what they do (PHOTOGRAPHY WALKS IN CENTRAL PARK) is so unbelievably brilliant and beautiful that I can’t believe it’s real.  They’re ideas you’d entertain for half a daydream, and then realize there’s no way that could work…and yet a someone there it more thought, and found a way to turn those dreams into a reality.

Soooooo clearly I want to be there.  To work in an environment so open to possibilities and growth and change?  That’s my dream.  I’ll hear about what’s next soon and will write more then.  But I’ll say this: it feels like the right path for me.

***

When I was seventeen, I was taunted about wanting to study theatre in college.  An unwanted authority boomed that I’d be “missing the boat to [my] life.”  I skipped the fight and instead wrote my response in one of my notebooks: that “there are enough people in this world and enough things to do, that you might as well do the thing you love.”  I still stand by this.

And I know New York is another city, but my main complaint here is that I can’t get anywhere on my own.  I want to explore, and to run errands, and to feel safe after the sun sets, and to get places without it taking two hours in each direction…and this city is isolating.  You don’t talk to strangers, or make friends in line at coffee shops….and that’s clearly a huge part of who I am.  I want to feed that part of my soul.

And I also love moving.  Not the act of dragging everything I own from place to place, but being somewhere totally new.  Being frustrated with something from your old world and going somewhere where that isn’t a problem.  It solves things, it creates new opportunities, adds new places to explore, and best of all: there are new people to meet.

The store in New York that I’m talking to…has over seven hundred employees.  Just that alone is awing.  Seven hundred people with a common shared experience to talk about….how can I not find at least a dozen new best friends?  Not to mention the millions of others who live in that city.  How could anything feel mundane ever again?  Life wold be extraordinary.  And I’m hoping that dream is another the store turns into a reality.

Here's some of what I've created at work this week:

25 Things I Wish I Had Known Back in College:

Things I Wish I Had Known Back in College:

1. It’ll never be this easy to find friends your own age with similar experiences.
2. It’ll never be this easy to find friends, period.
3. For my entire life I’ve been able to make friends at school.  Sure, you may not feel connected to everyone you meet here, but it is not this easy when you’re in the real world.
4. There, not everyone is trying to make friends.  Here they are.
5. It doesn’t matter if they are in your major or not.  They feel different because you don’t know them well yet.  So go get to know them.
6. Trust me, it’ll only get harder to find the time for others.  Go get coffee together anyway.  It’ll be worth it.
7. You may pretend you are a lone wolf, but we both know that you need others caring about you to thrive.  The best way to find this is to make time for others.
8. When you find someone really important to you; find someone else just as significant.  Spend as much effort getting close to as many people as you can, because you’ll be lucky if any of them last past graduation. 
9. And when some of those loves do leave, you don’t want them to take all of the nostalgia from these four years with them.
10.  You’ll never agin know this many people in one city.
11. You’ll never again have the feeling of being a senior on campus.  Or a freshman, sophomore, or junior, for that matter…feeling this comfortable with your age, like it grants you the right to be here.  Like this campus and education are your birthright.  
12. Relish in this sense of belonging.  It’s a rare thing.
13. Focus of surviving, not the struggle.  Others will understand it in their own time, and it’ll feel validating when they come to you for help.  Find a way to make these circumstances bring you closer to them, rather than using them as a reason to isolate yourself.
14. Learning to make coworkers your friends is a skill that you learned; one that not everyone has.  Cherish when work feels like an odd activity with friends.
15. Also those work friends (and bosses) are incredible.  Learn as much as you can from them and love them fully.
16. Oh, and you’re introverted.  So you don’t have to go out and you can stop looking for excuses not to.  
17. Know, however, that you’ll never again have the option to go out to a safe location that you’ve been before, where you’re surrounded entirely by a group that knows and respects you.  So if you are gonna to go out, this is a pretty great place to do it.
18. Oh, and go for the friends, not the boys.  People make parties sound like they’re only about finding someone to hook up with….but if we see them everyday at class and don’t like ‘em, seeing them drunk isn’t going to help.  It’s perfectly fine just go for friendship.  
19. Academic courses can be taken pass/fail.  (Damn you class freshman year on human genetics)
20. Be articulate.  If you need space from someone, tell them you need space.  Don’t just disappear.  You may later wish you still had them in your life.
21. Take every opportunity there is.  And if it’s not given to you, make it and do such a good damn job at it that those who were chose wish they had instead what you did.
22. Go to others’ graduations.  It’ll help you remember that your time there is limited and to make the most of it.
23. Make new memories with your old friends.  That’s what will make room for both of your growths.
24. Travel during breaks; go home with friends.  You’ll never have this many places to crash, nor will all aspects of your life be as easily be set to pause.
25. It’s okay that not everyone knows all aspects of you.  If you find someone that only understands one piece of it, then relish in that one piece and make time with them.  It’s better to have many people that you go to for one thing, than having one person who knows it all but leaves.

Me as a freshman (top left), sophomore (top right), junior (bottom left), and senior (bottom right).

and a bonus: What I’ve Learned From Writing This List:

1. I miss being surrounded by people who know me.
2. And having something in common with almost everyone I see.
3. I miss others’ willingness to connect with someone new.
4. And I really miss having a best friend.
5. I miss being able to get everywhere I need to be BY FOOT. 
6. And common goals; like tests and evaluations.
7. I’m nostalgic, tempted to go back to school just to have a community again.
8. And though I spent so much of college stressing about casting and plays….not once on this list did I mention anything about art.
9. Art is a given, I really am much more concerned with surrounding myself with people I love,
10. And living life on a path with the fewest regrets.

I Am 24

          So I’ve been 24 for almost a month now and I’m feeling a weird mid-twenties funk.

For instance, I’ve met a few cute guys, asked their age, found out they’re 19 — and then broke into Mother Goose-esque life advice.  Whereas the older friends I used to go out with are either in panicked existential crises or having babies.

          And I’m all for a good ole “what am I doing with my life” panic, but to be honest, I’m a little too starry eyed for my older friends; I still have time to figure out what I’m doing with my life (and I’m definitely not about to have a baby).  But my newly discovered hangovers won’t let me spend all night out with young ones either, so what am I supposed to do at twenty-four?

Perhaps this a time to try things out?  I can see from my older friends that permanence is down the road….so maybe now I get to play around and see what I want to stick?

          Hmm so let’s see.  Where do I currently stand on the topic of me?

Recent Discoveries Include:

• people mattering more to me than “success” at art; so I’m going to be moving back to where my people are.  
• I know that I need art in my life; so I’m working on ways to bring that back into my every day. 
• I’ve decided that I want to practice yoga and dance….overall finding ways of being active that I don’t detest; so I’m going to look into financial options for this.
• I need nature in my life; so I’ve been making gardens and hiking a priority and have my tattoo as a reminder to go find trees.
• I love my hermit crab.  Spencer is the only man/maybe-woman that I need in my life.  I want him to be happy and spoiled in every possible way.

And for the things I’m still trying to solve:

• I need a last name.  I haven’t comfortably used my legal last name for the past six years, under the philosophy of “why keep a ‘family name’ when they’re not family.”  So I need to finally get the decisiveness (and finances) to make the change.  So in the spirit of 24, let’s start trying.  As of this moment I am officially Heather Boysenberry Aubrey Willow Allen DeLune.  Hopefully one (or none) of them stick and I learn a little more about who I want to be.
• I need to learn to balance my art with my work; I’ve gotten quite good at finding a way to love my “day job”; but I also haven’t memorized a script in a really long time.  I’ve been writing, photographing, even making short movies, but not doing anything professional.  And that feels important to me.  So I’m going attempt a theatre company with a friend and if that doesn’t work I’ll move onto (and come up with) Plan B.
• Dating.  Fine, I’ll acknowledge this.  And I hate it.  I’d Eternal-Sunshine myself, if it were possible.  I don’t know how to move onto something else when I have the memories of something that was so much better.  So I’m not going looking for anything else; but I’ve also accepted that they also were the good ‘ole days and are behind me now.  So romance is on pause.  And if someone comes along and unpauses it, great.  But I’m not gonna force myself into it.
• Moving.  I’ve decided that I want to do it but I’m really scared about the how. I have so much stuff and don’t know how to by myself get it across the country/sold, and I don’t feel comfortable asking anyone for help.  I feel like I’ve drained all of my resources on this coast… I also don’t know when I’ll be transferred, or even IF I will be transferred within my current role…. And if I can’t, I don’t know if I’d rather a) just move to Philly and quit…, b) move to Philly but transfer into a different role and abandon the career I’ve been working towards, c) find a different city and store that will have me within my role, or d) not move, wait a little longer and hope that another role becomes available.  ….So to avoid this panic attack let’s all just put good energy into the Universe that I get the transfer.
• I need to be cleaner; it’ll help a lot of my anxiety.  Hopefully owning less will help; plus learning more tips and actually following through on them.  Maybe I’ll try a reward system to motivate me!
• I want to be happier.  And I think writing all of this down is a good step.  Now I have a list of things to accomplish.

           So that seems like plenty.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress!  

Also this is a picture from the moment that I first realized I was home.

My Life is Changing

I’ve lost a lot since being sick, and have had a lot of time to think about what matters to me and why I’m still fighting.  It’s not art.  I thought it would be.  I thought that being in this city to pursue what I’ve been working towards my whole life would be the reward.  But it’s not.  I’m not finding student films to audition for, nor writing screenplays as I am on bedrest: Instead I’m dying to jump into someone’s arms.  To spend time with people that love me.  To make scarves and crafts for the people I love.  Anything to show them how much they matter to me.  People are everything, I’m realizing, and I’m willing to give up anything to be with them.  More than any career, I want people to love, and it’s terrifying to release myself from a goal that I’ve had for over a decade, but it’s also a relief to know what I really want.  And that’s a family.

So I’m not saying I’m going to go out and get pregnant and raise a bunch of spawn to feel loved, but rather I’m willing to make changes to my life to be with those that I still have left.  Because this has been some of the hardest months of my life (and I haven’t had the easiest of lives) and those that are still here, willing to hold my hand and listen to me as I cry, they are more important to me than any possible career.

I don’t exactly know what this means: I still only know how to express myself in writing and feel more connected to acting than anything I’ve ever found.  But I would rather have a life without artistic success but people that I love, than achieve success alone.

So we’ll see what the future brings.

Tomorrow I move to a new home, one that I never planned on having, without the people I thought I would live with.  So I’ll see how it fits into my future. In the meantime, I know  I am willing to do whatever it takes to keep in my life those that I love, though I don’t know yet what that means….or if that’s enough not to lose them.  But I have to hope it is.

So change is happening and change will continue to come.  But if it brings me closer to those that I love, then I have to love change, too.

image by Tobias Tovera

(Almost Officially) Discharge! I'm Going Home.

And so my loves, here we are.

I am going home today and leaving the hospital.

I am not perfect; we don’t know how to fix me; we haven’t even completely relieved my pain.

But.

We have done all that we can here.   

An important friend of mine introduced me to the game Minecraft.  There isn’t necessarily a “correct” way to play the game, with a list of objectives, or a character insisting you follow them….instead you are just thrown into a world….and need to survive.  Or not survive.  You can play against zombies or with no risks at all.  It’s literally anything that you want it to be.  The only requirement is that you play.  And to “play” is follow whatever task you make for yourself.

I like mining for diamonds.  Sometimes this involves following danger to its lair; other times it includes intricate tunneling systems.  And sometimes it’s just luck.  You’ll be searching for some other simple necessity like coal: usually abundant, often connected in rich veins, ready to reap.  And you’ll happen to stumble upon a diamond.  Just sitting there.  Magical and smiling.

Discovering the source of my pain has been like searching for a diamond.  (Or maybe something rarer in Minecraft like an emerald….I don’t know how the statistics play out, but you get the concept.)

And my doctors and I have created intricate tunnels, trying to find this diamond of my pain.  We followed the forged paths to where we have seen diamonds before.  We have trailed danger, knowing that it is often the zombies protecting the treasures….and yet there we did not find the diamond causing my pain.

And so….we continue to play.

We can either change our objective to something easier instead of finding that very specific diamond….or , if it’s really, very important, -which this is to me- we continue our search, but in a new location. 

Because after spending twelve consistent days in the hospital, twenty total this month, looking everywhere for my diamond: I don’t think I am going to find it here.

So I am going to collect the tools that I have harvested while searching.  In Minecraft it’s things like iron and redstone.  In this case, it is my doctors and the medications they’ve recommended. And I will take those tools with me, and use them to further my search.

I will find the diamond that’s causing me so much discomfort that it’s forced me away from my friends, society and home for the last month.  But, like in the search for diamonds in Minecraft, sometimes you need to go rest in the safety and comfort of your home; let the zombies rule the night; and then go searching again when you are more comfortable in the daylight.  I miss my home.  My bed and my little patio.  And maybe the diamond will  be easier to find than I thought.  Maybe I’ll be out, Minecraft-metaphorically harvesting coal, and I’ll happen upon the diamond.  Just sitting there.  Magical and smiling. 

Who  knows?  Plus my co-excavators in this dig, the doctors, are happy with their redstone and iron and don’t want to find my diamond.  They are changing how they want to play; so I will find other diggers to help me.  There are always more people out there, and more tunnels to build in search of my diamond.

So I am going home today.  I am not perfect, not fixed, and still in pain.  But oh my goodness, I am so ready to search for my diamond somewhere else.  Because later today, I will go outside for the first time in 288 hours, and I will feel the sun on my face, no IV tethering me to a wall, and I will feel so free.  

Being here helped me, yes, but I’ve harvested all of the resources that I can.; now it’s  time to incorporate them back into the life that I love.  

And I can’t wait to share those new adventures with you.  So, a few deep breaths and papers to sign, and then here we go!

Update on My Life

Oh My Glob, That's Mathematical

Where I am in life: a diatribe about art, hermit crabs, and a picture of a stranger's pet.

(first: Rylance with Spencer in the bottom left corner;

second: a customer's dog, who was placed in my arms in all her cuteness)

also click here for more information about the SLUSH fund

dream plant life

image found on here but originated from here