Kolvenblog
“We live by the sun, we love by the moon.”
-revised quote from the creators of Tomorrowworld
An April Fools’ Wedding
I prayed.
And ate some really good potato salad.
Wondered whether the beans were vegetarian. Then decided not to care.
I danced to the Harlem Shake, Gangnum Style, the wobble, and the Cha-Cha with my drunken mother. I realized how forgiving I have become of her. I am not sure whether it is my maturity, my impending degree in Psychology, the fact that I have not been living with her for almost a year, or that she could somehow be tolerated in small, measured doses, but I’m finding my changing attitude to be quite healthy for the both of us.
I met one of my baby cousins for the first time. His name is Sean Preston. Like the famous one.
I had the most magnificent talk with one of the most miraculous women I have ever met - my grandmother. We talked about life and family and love. She told me about how our family traveled here from Germany and Ireland and Spain hundreds of years ago. She told me stories about how our family used to be rich and powerful, even royal. “Where did that all go?!” I laughed. “Your grandfather’s family blew it all,” she laughed back. I opened up to her about how I felt as though I was at a crossroads in my life. She smiled and reassured me that I would find the right way. “Balance.” She trusted me more than I trusted myself. But I knew that she was right. I hoped that she was right.
I saw an entire side of my family that I had not seen in years. It made me sad to realize the minuscule significance that they had in my life. Family should never be that way. But the unexpected comfort that I felt with them reminded me that they will always be family, no matter the distance or time between us.
All in all, I had a blast. Even better, I had a blast with the people that should and do mean the most in the world to me. It is interesting to consider how nothing stands in the way of family, not time or distance or busyness, not wine or Prozac or over-protectiveness, not even a broken down Nissan Sentra on the side of the freeway in rush hour running late to a wedding on April Fools’ (of all days!).
“Family is basic, it’s what you can always come back to,” my silver-haired grandma explained to me. And I know that she is right.
Prozac: Day 19
I feel as though I could rip off every smothering layer of my body and dance my naked soul to the ocean just to escape these jaw clenching jitters. The physical limits of my body can no longer contain the buzzing of my mind. Could be the caffeine. But it was only green tea. I don’t understand. One moment my mind is suspected in a carefree abyss with no future and no past. A never-ending tub of warm water pulsing to the slow and steady beat of my heart. Calm. Manageable. And the next I have the mind to jump out of a window, wide-eyed, shaking. I wonder if I could ever move enough to break free of the tension, the jail of my body and mind.
Just take it one day at a time.
But even that’s too much.
I’ll just take it one hour at a time.
One pill at a time.
Yes. One hour at a time.
Prozac: Day 7
Increased dreaming; increased nightmares
Sweaty palms (expected)
Dilated pupils, constantly
Running yesterday induced severe spike in heart rate and blood pressure…
…then again that could have been due to me not having run in weeks…
Memory loss: easily distracted and nearly impossible to get back on track
Vivid dreams. Oh God, sometimes getting dream state confused with reality. So real. Every night it is a trip. Sometimes a scary one.
Slightly numb emotionally. But pretty much like that before.
Giddy first two days, now it has subsided to rational optimism.
Any physical exertion induces strong heart beat.
Very calm. Relaxed. Indifferent, even. Shit that used to matter…somehow doesn’t matter as much anymore. Forehead relaxed.
Slight trouble concentrating. Slight obsessive thoughts. Not to worrisome yet.
Increased dosage this morning.
Let the therapy begin…
“I…I don’t think I want to do this anymore…
There! I said it!”
“Goooooood…” my immortality breathed, grinning at me with eyes that were just too large.
I raised an eyebrow at her, “You’re not making me feel any better.”
But I didn’t know if it was her creepy enthusiasm that made me so uneasy, or the fact that I had been secretly feeling this way for awhile.
My conscience didn’t give us much time to revel in our joint epiphany.
“You lazy bitches. We have so much potential and you’re willing to throw it all away just because you’ve burnt yourself out. Think of the prestige. Think of the money. Think of the success! All gone because you’re impatient, distracted 20 year olds.”
“Yeah and? You would really rather see us waste six, seven more years of our youth doing this stupid shit?!” And she threw the stack of statistical outputs towards her, numbers and chi-squares and regressions and graphs and more numbers filling the air.
My conscience angrily dodged paper cuts and smoothed down a lock hair that fallen out of her perfectly shaped bun. Her face twisted into something too ugly for her usually prim composure. “You’re making a mistake and you know it, Megan. You’re going to regret it.”
And that cut me like a knife. What if she was right? What if I do regret not pursuing my Ph.D.? What if I am just burnt out right now? I mean, with my 12 hour a day schedule this semester, I should have expected it. I should have naturally expected to start hating everything that I’m doing…or-
“Megan, if you actually enjoyed what you were doing, you wouldn’t hate it regardless of how busy you are. You’re forcing yourself to do all of these things. Just face it. Listen to yourself,” my immortality begged, “Do you really, truly see yourself in school until you’re 30? Doing this?” and she pushed yet another stack of those damn statistical outputs toward me.
“But that’s not theonlything you’ll be doing! Sometimes you have put up with stuff that you don’t enjoy to get where you need to be!” even my eternally composed conscience was losing patience with us.
“But,” my immortality bit back at her and turned softly to me, “that’s not the only way to get where you want to go. What do you actually want to do with your life, Megan?”
The sudden question made me swallow hard. “Uhh…well, I know that I want to help people with eating disorders. I know that.”
Just thinking of fighting Ed for the rest of my life sends an excited shock of chills down my spine. I refused to have my years of suffering go to waste, and, even more, I refused to sit back and let him ruin others’ lives as well. A little supersticious part of me wanted to belief that I was put on this earth and put through that suffering for a greater reason. But as hotly as my passion for eating disorders burned, I had to admit that my immortality was right. I can’t see myself in school until I’m 30. I want to get married and travel and have children in a timely manner. And as much as that might sound like “opting out” to the typical left-wing liberal feminist, for me, it’s not. And as much as I plan to dedicate my life to my work and helping others, I desire a life defined in broader terms, one defined by family and friends and a personal life.
To be realistic, I don’t know what I’ll want 10 years from now. I don’t know what regrets I might have or wrong choices I would have to live with. I don’t even know if I’ll be alive in 10 years. But I do know that I do not enjoy most of the things that I find myself doing day to day. And I do know that this is what I will be faced with for the next six to seven years if I continue down the path that I have been.
“There are other options,” my immortality keeps echoing.
But…”you will regret them,” my conscience echoes back.
Perhaps the only thing that I am sure of is my own indecisive uncertainty.
I drove
the entire way home without the radio on. But it wasn’t one of those accidental quiet drives home where you awkwardly realize halfway that you had been sitting in silence with yourself, washed so deeply away in thought. No, I knew that my car was eerily silent. But I needed it. I imagined that my brain would not even be able to handle the bombarding hum of audio. It surely did not possess the capacity. Not after this day. This Monday. I nearly had to count on my fingers to believe how few days had passed in this gruesome semester. Six? Six. Not even ten days had passed. Red light. I squished my eyelids together, trying to see if a drop would come out. Alas. Too tired to sob it away. Too tired to be anything but numb. I tried to smile to myself, to remember what that felt like but it was as cold and stiff as a lost friendship. I gave up and just tried to focus on my hands wrapped around the wheel. They seemed smaller today, weak. It’s okay, I would be home soon. But home to do what? More work? I suddenly realized how tight my jaw had been clenched. As I pried it back open, I counted the number of panic attacks I had had today. I counted the number of times I wanted to quit. I counted the number of times I tried to convince myself I would fail. I almost counted my calories. Whoops. Just one day. One day of many. I still wasn’t entirely sure I was capable of the load that I placed upon myself for the next four months. I still wasn’t sure I even knew what I was doing. Regardless of my questionable sanity, this was the bitter reality in which I would have to live. The thought pressed hard against my chest, pushing out the air from my lungs. Sour. I would have to live with. Have to. Because quitting meant failing and failing meant…I couldn’t even venture there. An angry pain bounced between each rib before settling in my stomach. I can’t fail. I can’t…
“I’d give up music for you.”
I let out a gasp. Such a powerful statement. Giggle.
“I’d give up sound for you.”
Another giggle.
“I’ll be your sound.”
“…raver problems.”
I just want to blog and complain about everything that I hate in life.
Which is a lot.
I had an odd, vodka-fueled dream last night where humans and high functioning zombies were attempting to live in harmony with each other. Well, actually, the humans were attempting to enslave the zombies and use them for their own benefit. Naturally, they were born enemies and their relationships were stained with distrust and resentment. I came across a zombie who had already been enslaved and chained up. However, I noticed that he was playing with some sort of ninja star weapon connected to a large chain that he threw around like a whip. It frightened me as I passed and I found myself dodging this way and that to avoid getting cut. I pondered what insanity had led his human owners to allow him to practice using such a dangerous device and I voiced my concerns to them. “Eventually, he will learn how to use that weapon against you,” I warned them but they were surprisingly naive and brushed it off like nothing. I feared for them. And myself. But eventually my dream came to an end, as all dreams do, and I was left to consider the significance of what my sleep had told me. I considered the fact that, in order for those humans to be safe, they needed to take that weapon away from their slave. This one simple act would grant them complete control over their potentially dangerous property. They would be free to do whatever they wanted with him and he would be utterly defenseless, forced to submit to whatever treatment they saw fit. It eerily reminded me of our government’s current attempt to take away our weapons and it sent an angry chill down my spine. We were the slave zombies and they were the humans. They were trying to take away one of our last claims to freedom - the right to bear arms, to protect ourselves, from them. They wanted to leave us defenseless against and, thus, submissive towards whatever injustice they decided to throw upon us. They had figured it out. Take the weapon away from the slave and take the last ounce of their freedom. Take the weapon away from the slave and you’ll have complete control. I laid in bed, eyes wide, wondering if perhaps I had uncovered a great and dangerous conspiracy, wondering if perhaps I, alone could save the whole of the American people. I thought of the naive, ignorant slave owners, or so they seemed, and the poor, clumsy zombie unknowing of the power that he yielded. I turned over and let out a yawn. Perhaps, after all, it was just the vodka.
Life is not money.
Life is experiences.
Saying that you have $10,000 in the bank is not the same as saying that you have a happy life.
Saying that you traveled the world and raged face at Tomorrowland? That is a happy life.
One
of the most important things that cross country taught me was to never give up. Even when it hurts.
…
Especially when it hurts.
