Push

Obviously, I didn’t want to come out in the first place if it took forever just to get born. It took the help of a village witchdoctor, herbal remedies, and uterine massages in order for my parents to conceive after six years of infertility. It took my mom nearly two days to give birth to me, and, as the story goes, a nurse placed her palms over my mother’s eyes because she was afraid my mom was pushing so hard that her eyes would come out of their sockets. After a roundabout search for the local doctor, who was found inebriated on a nearby curbside, one of my uncles brought him to the hospital where he performed a Cesarean. He seemed to have quickly sobered up and gained focus after several of my family members issued a traditional death threat. All of this was done with the intention of forcing me out of the womb.

Ever since then, I’ve always needed some kind of push to get anything done. On a more positive note, although it’s done with a dour look of reluctance, I like getting things done and I’m able to do it well if I want to. The hard part is wanting to, mainly because I have difficulty being enthused about life to begin with.

About two weeks ago, after playing terribly at an APA match, I started to feel a strange pain right by my heart above my rib cage. That night it was difficult to breathe. Each intake of breath gave me a stabbing pain. I couldn’t get up from bed without it feeling like gravity was pulling my left lung apart.

After spending three days vegetating about the house, my boyfriend Prescott rubbed me with some Icy Hot (poor guy patiently rubbed it around my breasts for what seemed like an eternity), taped a heating pad on my ribs, kissed my forehead, and forcibly drove me to the Emergency Room. The doctors performed x-rays, blood tests for clots, EKGs, but couldn’t find anything wrong so they sent me home with a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and I was bed ridden for about a week.

As much as I like staying home alone, I hate when I’m instructed to stay at home alone to do nothing. My phone had died the previous month, so I was cut off from people in general. I spent the first day destroying my brain cells with Facebook video games; the next day I researched possible self-employment opportunities, since making money is the only part of a job I seem to enjoy; the morning of the third day I broke down in the shower due to not finding any self-employment opportunities. Prescott was soaping his hair next to me. I told him he was insensitive. He said it’s hard to tell when someone is crying in the shower. I wonder. He then held me in his arms and suggested that I could use more Icy Hot.

In retrospect, although the events of the first few days sound closer to misery than uplifting self-discovery, isolation and having time to think was actually good for me.

My friend Sandy wrote me an email:

you're not a failure.  you're a gifted human being who just needs to figure out that life is only what you make it, nobody else cares. really. nobody else knows what goes on  inside of you except you and the more honest and open you are about it, the more things will happen for you.  but i am the last person you should be taking advice from. i do know some stuff, even if I cannot always follow the same advice. maybe the things you value are not like the rest.  so nurture those things so that you can live up to people's expectations.  besides, too young to be worried about failing. 

talk soon, whoa! where the hell did that come from. hey, want to take roadtrip to AZ and watch spring training baseball at the end of March?

Road trip suggestion aside, Prescott said something similar but suggested I start writing a blog just so that I have some sort of outlet. He said, “You have trouble talking to people, you’re shy, but I think you’re smart and funny. You’re multi-talented. Start writing. See where it goes. Maybe you’ll feel better.”

So, I’m writing to document the process of actually "trying." It’s a way to be honest and open. The plan is, to do what I like doing (and things I should do) but to push myself to do it a little better.

Art

Pool

Chess

Linguistics

Cooking

Etc…

Who knows or cares really? I know I’m not getting paid, but maybe something good will come out of it. And if nothing, at the very least, I could be proud of the fact I started a blog that didn’t repost blogs so that I can write a paragraph long commentary about the reposted blog.

Cheers.