Who Nose How the World Goes? (Rethinking Rhinoplasty)

After this whole surgery situation and the hellacious recovery, I just can’t see myself getting a nose job. After I was hit in the nose by that jock while playing a miserable game of volleyball, my nose healed crooked and it’s always bothered me. I have enough facial afflictions without the added nuisance of a gnarled nose. Of course, that nose break is what ultimately led to this surgery. Did I mention that jerk never even apologized? After I got back from the doctor and went back to P.E., everyone noticed that my nose had doubled in size and turned a particularly putrid shade of purple. All the guys in my class asked me what happened and I told them that the dude had fractured my nose. They went back and told him so he came around, looked at my nose and smiled, almost as if he had accomplished something spectacular. I mean, his face didn’t so much express pleasure in actually hurting me, just that kind of dumb mixture of mischief and masculinity. You know how guys are. Any time we can tear something up, we feel good about ourselves.

I could see his inquisitive eyes darting across the swollen landscape of my nose, thinking to himself, “Whoa, I did that? Freaking sweet. All those bench presses are paying off!”

I really don’t like jocks.

At least I got to sit out of P.E. for a while.

If I would have known how horrendous my healing period would be, perhaps I would have considered throwing in the rhinoplasty along with the other two procedures. Like, let's just get all of this over with and out of the way! Of course, that notion is out of the question because I can’t pay for that right now. It was always something I had imagined I wanted to do in the future after I had secured myself financially and saved up for the procedure. But after that week of hell, I just can’t see having a nose job and going through all of that again, not to mention the recovery will probably be worse ‘cause I’m pretty sure they actually break your nose to reshape it and that will involve a lot of pain and discomfort and black eyes and swelling and bruises and no thank you. I guess that says something about me, right? Maybe I’m not that vain. I’m sure some people wouldn’t care what price they had to pay, out of pain or pocket, to fix themselves up purdy. But not me. Eh, I don't know, or maybe it’s not so much that I’m not vain but I’m just a huge baby. I'll either have to come to terms with my Owen Wilson looking beak or I can man up and realize a few weeks of dizzying pain might be worth a lifetime of great looking snout. Given, of course, that there aren't any complications. It is me we're talking about, after all.

It’s like the butterfly effect has played out on my face. Who would have known a simple punch to the face in high school would have caused all of this agony all these years later? Fracturing my nose caused my septum to deviate so drastically that it has affected my breathing, sinus drainage and even provoked a long dormant birth defect to come out of hiding and set up shop on my throat. And if you want to talk about proper breathing and how it affects the mind and body, there’s no telling how I've been affected. If I never would have had my nose turned into grape jelly, maybe I would have turned out completely different. I would have been able to breathe and have more energy and feel better physically and mentally and emotionally and maybe I would have finally found the motivation to lose all of this weight and gain some confidence and be social. Maybe I’d be a better artist or writer. Maybe I would have done better in school. Maybe I’d be an all around better person.

Eh, I know it’s silly to think such things. Perhaps I’m even being a little bit overdramatic. I tend to get that way but I blame it on the nose. In fact, I’m going to start blaming all of my problems on my nose. Even the paranoia I feel over having had my nose broken can be blamed on the broken nose. Like I said, silly to think such things. There’s no way of knowing how I would have turned out, healthy nose or not. And maybe all of the health benefits of breathing are overall good but not so much that it would completely devastate a person if they had a little blockage in their right nostril. I mean, it’s not like I wasn’t getting any air through my nose at all or anything. Although those scans of my skull were quite revealing, showing I was only getting in half the amount of air I should have been. I really wonder if that has contributed to some brain cell death. I gotta blame my life being in shambles on something, right?!

Sometimes I wish I could see that guy again so I can tell him what he did to me. I don't know how much satisfaction that would bring, though, because he didn't care about me then and he certainly doesn't care about, nor even remember me, now. It's not like he'd fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness, insisting on paying all of my medical and dental bills ('cause, remember, he also chipped my tooth). It's not like he'd express remorse over his actions. If anything, he'd probably produce that same twinkle in his eye that I saw that day in the locker room when he inspected his handywork and grinned. "Whoa, I did that? I was the cause of all of your years of intense sinus pressure and a disfiguring goiter? Freaking sweet!"

It is weird to wonder about how I might have changed others just like that guy changed me. Simple actions, simple words, simple intentions might have a profound affect on others, whether the results are immediate or don't manifest until days, months, years later. I like to think I've influenced people and hopefully it's always been for the better. I mean, we all influence others to some degree. I just find it fascinating how I might have left my mark. Was it something I said, did, wrote? What if my mere presence is enough to change someone's direction? How powerful and powerfully scary is that? When I think of things like that, it definitely makes me want to reevaluate my behaviors and beliefs, especially with the kind of characteristics I've been exhibiting lately. You know, it's all fine and dandy for me to be a Negative Ned but it's not like I'm trying to push my agenda on anyone else. I definitely don't encourage people to be as cynical as I am yet I can't help who I've become. I'm trying to get back to that sweet, kind-hearted kid, the boy who believed in love and life, the one who dreamed and felt good about his future. The boy who was alive.

Who nose. Maybe this surgery will just be the impetus I need to make some changes. If it's true that my downfall happened the day my nose was demolished by some guy's baseball bat of an elbow, then doesn't it make sense to think that things could be looking up now that the problem has been corrected? Or is that too much to hope for? Uh oh, there's that negativity again. That's why you should never dabble in depression, kids. It can be habit forming. I guess its going to take a lot more than a straightened septum and a week of recovery to shake my cynicism. But, I guess, if everything does have a ripple effect, maybe the surgery has kicked off the current of causation that will eventually evolve me from dead to dapper. And maybe I just haven't reached the ripple of rethinking yet, that place where I can finally feel good about who I am and what I'm about. Maybe, if I'm patient enough, it'll all wash over me and I'll be clear, calmed and cleansed.

Maybe this will be my next big break.

So to speak.

Poetic Mashup

Sometimes I'll write a few poems that don't come out quite right. Either I had a really great idea or a few awesome lines and I'll work with it for a while but somewhere in the process, I realize I either lost my interest in the subject or took things as far as I could. Basically, they aren't that great. At the same time, they are decent concepts and I hate to never share them because, and this will sound cliched and lame, but each poem is sort of like a baby to me and I don't want to think that some babies are more worthy of showing off than others so I thought I'd share some of my less enthusiastically written poems that I've been tinkering with over the past several months. Some of them are okay and some of them are better than others but none of them turned out how I would have liked. Although these guys don't deserve their own entry, I believe they do deserve some acknowledgment. With that being said, here are a few poem fails that I've been working on over the past several months.  Click the link below to read them.

Bright White Light

The day after my surgery, I had to go back to the doctor for a follow up. I was surprised when he pulled out a wad of bloody gauze (I'm assuming) from my nose. I didn't know anything was up in there. Of course, I was out cold when he put it in there but it was still weird to have a foreign material extracted from my body when I didn't know it was there in the first place. He mentioned my deviated septum was the worst he had seen in a really long time. He also said the cartilage had began turning into bone and all sorts of nasty stuff was happening up in there. To sweeten the deal, I had two extra holes in my sinuses filled with a thick, white mucus. Good thing he got all of that straightened out. So, that was the first visit the day after surgery.

Today, I went back for my one week follow up and it was awful. The appointment was for him to suck out everything that had been collecting over the duration of the week: mucus, boogies, blood, any clotting, etc. First of all, the nurse stuck those numbing strips up my nose again and then laid me back in the chair. After a few minutes, the doctor came in with the usual, "Hey, how are ya?!" to which I responded, "Miserable!"

He took the strips out of my nose and then the nurse came back in and he got out his suctioning machine and proceeded to clean out each nostril. It was so bad. First of all, those numbing strips suck because I felt all of it. Well, I suppose I thought it hurt but without those numbing strips it could have been a lot worse but it was still really uncomfortable. And then the doctor had this light he stuck up my nose that was so bright I literally thought it was going to blind me. I squeezed my eyes as tight as I could and yet the light was still as bright as if I had my eyes wide open. It made me tear up, as well as his suctioning. Gosh, it felt like he was going so far up my nose I swear he was fondling my thoughts. And he was moving my nose around too and remember, this was only a week ago he had cut into it so it was still sore. I had tried to be so careful of my nose this whole time and he was standing there manhandling my nostrils like nobody's business. It was painful and went on for a long time.

Mom, who was in the room, told me afterward that the nurse noticed me gripping the arms of the chair I was in and she gave my mom that sympathy look like, "Aw, poor guy, this isn't pleasant for him!" It sure wasn't but I was a trooper and made it through.

After he was done I could actually breathe out of my nose for the first time in a week. It was weird though but the nurse told me that was normal because of the numbing and because I had become accustomed to breathing out of my mouth. After the numbing wore off, I tried breathing out of my nose but it burned. I assumed it was because he had just been in there with his mini hoover and because I was still healing from surgery. It's actually not as bad now so I'm pretty happy about that.

Oh, and the lump in my throat is bigger than ever. It gradually started getting a bit harder after surgery but over the past two days it has absolutely ballooned up to "facial disfigurement" levels. I mentioned it to the doctor when he first came in the room. Since I was laid back and had my chin on my chest, he didn't notice it until I told him and then lifted my head up. Mom said the doc's goofy grin dropped immediately upon seeing the tennis ball jutting out of my throat. He then prescribed some stronger antibiotics and some steroids to hopefully cause the lump to go down and disappear for good. He said he didn't like that the lump was painful for me but he said it was actually a good sign cause it shows that the nose and the lump are correlated like he thought. So, while I thought I'd be done with antibiotics by Friday, I've got ten more days to go! Stronger stuff, too. Will I ever feel like myself again?

Being whacked out on all these pills have really made me feel like I am outside of myself, some kind of observer and not actually me, and in some ways it's nice because I've gone this whole time without thinking very much. While it's nice to be blank-brained for a change, it's unfamiliar and in some ways, it's stifled me. Before the operation, I was going through a semi-major crisis of faith: faith in God, faith in man, faith in myself and where I am in the world but now I'm too tired to think about any of that. I've put God and everything else on hold until I can clear my head of this haze. I haven't been writing anything of substance. Not to mention I've put my book on hold. The good thing is that I care and I'm itching to get back to writing it. It felt good writing and I know the more I work on it, the better I'll feel. If only I could get my head in the right place.

It's so funny because so many times I've wanted to take a break from my head and now that I have, I'm ready to dive back into that mess that is my mind. I still have a lot of work to do.

Paralyzed Pecker

Is it just me or does anyone else experience a little erectile dysfunction after minor surgery?

I wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital until I ate, drank and peed. When I first woke up from the surgery, my mouth was a desert. I was eager to get something wet down my throat. Sips of water and Sprite did little to quench my thirst but I was too sleepy to drink as much as I wanted. I managed to down some mashed potatoes that were so dry I almost choked. And then my bladder woke up. Or, at least, I thought it did. I told the nurse I needed to go to the bathroom so she came over and helped me out of the bed. As soon as I sat up, a rush of nausea swept my skull and I could have projectile vomited those potatoes right back at her but after a few seconds, the dizziness passed and I was able to stand up on my feet. The nurse took me by my arm and we slowly shuffled to the bathroom.

So I’m standing there going and not much is happening. Instead of my usual fire hose stream, I’m barely dribbling. I found this frustrating because my bladder felt so full it was pressing against my tummy fat but nothing much was happening down there. And then it began to flow a little more freely. Before dribbling again. This ebb and flow of urine went on for a good minute. Every time I thought I was finished, shaking off those last golden drops, the pee came back full force. I found it odd but I was so anestoned that I didn’t think much of it. I had to go one last time before I left the hospital but I was so dizzy from standing up the last time that I had to sit like a proper lady to pee. Once again, it switched from a weak to strong stream. This cycle of sprinkling went on even after I came home.

I mentioned it to my mom and she suggested that maybe it was a side effect from the anesthesia. Like, maybe my body hadn’t all fully woken up yet? It’s not like I couldn’t pee, I just couldn’t get it to all come out all at once like usual. There’s been some other stuff as well.

I’ve noticed Uncle Woody hasn’t even come to say hello. It’s strange, especially in the mornings, which is when he usually makes his rounds. I guess that’s a good thing since my mom’s been popping in every morning to pop more pills into my mouth. Antibiotics. Steroids. Anxiety. Nausea. Pain. A pill for this and that but inconveniently, no Viagra. I kid. It’s not like I’m using it for anything. It’s just a weird little something I’ve noticed while in recovery.

Oh, and I didn’t poop for the first four days I was back home, either. Yet another bodily function (and my favorite) interrupted.

In other news, I’ve been absolutely miserable these past several days since the surgery. The first two days were spent in a haze of sleep and nausea. The next days were all about pressure, pressure, pressure. I felt so much pressure that it seemed like my eyeballs were going to pop from my skull. The intense pressure spread from under my eyes to my temples and wrapped around to my neck. But that's not all, folks!

As I mentioned, I can't breathe out of my nose. I was also instructed not to blow my nose. Now, for me, being someone who blows their nose multiple times a day, this was an exercise in frustration. My nose hasn't necessarily been dripping but I have the instinctual urge to sniff and blow and I can sniff but it only exacerbates the pressure and I can't blow to relieve the pressure. So, it's all balled up in my head and I hate it. I was told to prop myself up while sleeping so I've been trying to do that. I wasn't told how long I should continue doing this, if only for the first day or so or for several weeks, so I've been trying to keep propping myself upright or at least staying somewhat elevated at all times but it's so uncomfortable. I usually sleep on my stomach with my face pressed against the pillow but since my entire face hurts and I since I have an irrational fear of anything grazing my nose, causing the septum to shift or crack again, I've been sleeping on my back to try to be as protective as possible over my sore schnaz.

Additionally, all of this mouth breathing has destroyed my lips. And no balm, salve or ointment has helped.

If I could, I'd simply sleep away the day and spare myself all of this discomfort but I just can't. Despite feeling so unwell, I haven't managed to fall asleep as easily as you'd think being a sick person. I'm always overly warm because I was told I can't sleep under a ceiling fan, which I would usually always have on. I'm still dizzy but I force myself to shower to feel at least a little better. And I do for a few minutes until standing upright brings that familiar nausea again. Then, I have to lay myself down again.

And when I'm lying down, I feel like there's a gigantic bowling ball in the center of my nose and if I'm not lying perfectly centered, I feel like the ball has shifted itself in whatever direction I move. I can actually feel the pressure rolling through my nose like a ball being rolled across a smooth linoleum floor. It sucks.

I've said many times that I am worried this wasn't worth it. I mean, seriously, as far back as my feeble mind can reach, this is the worst I have ever felt in my entire life and the frustrating part is the discomfort is unrelenting. It's not like having a head cold or head congestion from allergies where you can pop an over-the-counter medicine, take a nap and feel better. I hate to put that kind of energy out there because I definitely pray that this whole procedure was worth it. I'd hate to go through all of this and not come out of it being able to breathe better than I can remember, plus to have that lump disappear, which is why I got the surgery in the first place. Speaking of, the lump has popped back up and it is sore. I'm hoping this is the last time it pops up to say hello because I can't see myself going through another surgery to remove it. No thank you. One sucky surgery was quite enough.

It's been about seven days now. Only seven long, excruciating more days until I can blow my nose. Heck, even then I'll be scared to blow because I don't want to damage my nose or anything. I'll probably try to wait a few more days just to be on the safe side. I don't want to have endured all this discomfort just to undo the healing process by damaging something. I'll be very gentle.

Ah, the Kleenex is calling.

Of Blood and Bed Rest

I'm pretty sure I'm still feeling the effects of the anesthesia.

If this is what it feels like to be drunk/hung over, I don't know how people can do it, especially my old friends from high school that have now become full blown alcoholics. Feeling like this day in and day out is no way to live.

Just want to update to say I made it through surgery okay. I'm not in a lot of pain or discomfort at this point. I'm still bleeding lightly and I can't breathe out of my nose and the worst part is I can't blow my nose for two weeks. I just feel like if I could blow my nose I would feel one hundred percent better but I'm pretty sure I would just make things worse, blow out my stitches and undo the surgery.

Anesthesia is the best and worst thing ever. It was great when I needed to feel nothing as the surgery was in progress but overcoming the effects was hellacious. Actually, it was the worst part of the surgery. The first few hours after I woke up were absolutely terrible. I was groggy and confused and my nose was burning and I had one of those clamps on my left finger, an IV in my right hand and a blood pressure machine on my right arm that squeezed the crap out of me every ten minutes.

You know I'm a big boy. And they had me in this tiny bed and I couldn't turn over or get comfortable and it was awful. I woke up with all these nurses talking to me and asking questions and I was trying to concentrate on what they were saying while simultaneously fighting back the sleep that was dragging me under. It felt as though I had been up for a week straight and my body had finally taken over and was going into sleep-no-matter-what mode. Yet, I couldn't sleep 'cause I couldn't get comfortable. For the next hour or two, I tossed and turned in that cardboard bed and the first time I sat up, my nose poured blood like someone had turned on a faucet.

I sat there with my eyes watering and blood coming out of my nose and my head was in another room and I just wanted someone to knock me out. If I could have crawled out of my body, I would have so I could have avoided that experience.

Yesterday and today have been a blur of blood and bed rest. I've been in and out of consciousness since the surgery on Tuesday. Actually, I don't even know what today is. I'm still light-headed and I've been spraying saline up my nose to keep everything moist. I don't know if it's supposed to make it easier to breathe but it's not. Nothing has made it easier for me to breathe.

Sleeping has been terrible. I'm supposed to be propped up so I'm not able to lay flat on my back (or on my stomach, which is how I sleep) so although I've been getting a lot of sleep, it hasn't been comfortable sleep. I've basically been sleeping laying up on my back and it's caused a kink in my neck and it sucks. Just discomfort all around.

I have to go back to the doctor next Wednesday for a check up. Hopefully he will irrigate my nose so that I can breathe better. Heck, hopefully I can breathe better before then. Right now, it's so completely frustrating because it feels like I have a head cold and I have a wicked stuffy nose and if I could just blow, I'd feel better.

I really hope all of this is worth it.

I think about my teeth and how I went in to fix them and they ended up in worse shape.

And now I think about how I'm trying to get my nose fixed and I just hope that doesn't end up being worse off as well.

This is gonna be a rough couple of weeks.

After Summer Surgery

Tomorrow is the big day.

I'm not so much nervous as I am ready to get it done so I can move on with things. I have a job I need to be finding and I can't worry about potential employment interviews and follow up doctor appointments conflicting.

And speaking of jobs, the lame company that I had to take all of these tests and hand over my liver for never called me back. I'm not too heartbroken or anything because I knew the odds were against me with all of these middle-aged moms with more filing experience than me. I mean, I'm sure they could photocopy some documents at dazzling speeds. Obviously, I was outranked.

My cat, Moses, has been glued to me the past few days and I have to wonder if he's just into me at this moment or if there are darker reasons present. I don't know about other cats but Moses has these tendencies to stay in one spot for long periods of time. He picks a couch, for instance, and will stay there day and night for days or weeks at a time. And then he'll get tired of sleeping there and so he'll sleep under the dining room table. And then my room. And so on. And at this moment, he's really into sleeping in my room on my bed. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it but I can't help but to wonder if he knows I'm going into surgery tomorrow and he knows I'm going to die (like for real this time) and he's spending all the time he can with me before the scalpel slips out of the doctor's hand and punctures my carotid artery.

Meet Oscar.

If he's coming your way, you're screwed.

This little kitty predicts the death of nursing home patients in Rhode Island. His usual routine is to make his rounds until he finds someone about to pass away, hangs out in their room for a bit and when the time comes, he curls up on the beds of the dying until they take their last breaths. How freaking creepy is that? And I have to wonder if my cat has the same power of predicting death.

As I mentioned, he just has his usual "flavors of the month" and perhaps this particular flavor just happens to coincide with me being put to sleep and having a sharp shiny object shoved in and out of my nose/sinuses in rapid succession. I'm being silly, right? Or am I writing my last words?

As far as prescription medication, I'm loaded. Or, well, at least I will be after popping all those pills the doctor gave me. I have five medications plus a saline nasal spray I'm supposed to use. What don't I have? I've got pills for pain, swelling, nausea, anxiety, and just for good measure, I'm pretty sure he threw in some birth control. Hey, you never know what those doctors do to you when you're under! Of course, if I don't make it, my pills will be available for purchase at my Etsy store for others to enjoy.

Let's talk about side effects, shall we. We've got one pill that could cause diarrhea, another that could cause constipation. Talk about having a stalemate with your stool. And wtf is "coffee ground" vomiting? Never even heard of that before but I can imagine it to be very gritty...throat exfoliating, perhaps?

I guess that's about it. I have to be up at 4:30 am to get to the hospital, where my surgery will take place at 6:30 am. All the paperwork has been filled out so all I have to do is show up and then they'll direct me to my death operating bed. If you believe in prayer I could use a few and if you believe in positive vibes, I could use some directed my way. Thanks.

I think I'm gonna have to kick Moses out of my room tonight.

Make Me Believe

I don’t believe in much anymore.

I don’t believe in people and I certainly don’t believe in myself. I don’t believe in love or relationships. I don’t believe in goodness. And as much as I hate to say this, sometimes I don’t know if I believe much in God. I’ve always identified myself as a Christian, even before I really understood what Christianity was. I’ve also always struggled with what Christianity means to me, what God means to me. And what do I mean to God? Once again, being at the Showbread concert made me shift my thinking from enjoyable music to much darker things. While simultaneously reflecting on my wasted youth, I began questioning my faith. Before the last song, Josh Dies spoke to us and said the only reason why they were a band was because they believed in Jesus Christ. As the crowd cheered, I could feel the conviction in his voice. I just knew for sure that he one hundred percent believed in what he was saying and I was jealous of his faith. That sounds pretty terrible but I was. I wonder if I was ever one hundred percent sure about my belief in God. I think a lot of it was “fake it ‘til you make it” faith. I felt if I prayed hard enough and believed hard enough, one day it would be real, that God would open himself up to me and I would feel His presence. I’m still waiting.

I used to think it was a good thing that I was never raised especially religious. My parents told me about God but we never went to church. I ended up going to Sunday school with my cousins when I was younger. My dad dropped me off at my grandmother’s house and she’d take my cousins and I to church with her and we’d attend the first service and then Sunday school, which another cousin of ours taught. The problem is most of the time my cousins and I just goofed off. For me, it was more play time than learning about God time. I guess I can’t blame myself too much because I was just a little kid and everything felt like play to me. That was the extent of my religious upbringing. Meanwhile, all the children who would become my friends were being raised in the church, next generation Christians whose parents were already strong followers of Jesus Christ. They learned the Bible, never missed church and were brought up to be good little Christians.

I grew up around these friends and actually learned more about God through them than I did with my parents or attending church. Church was never my thing. I was never comfortable there. I went to several churches and they were all basically the same. It raised my blood pressure when the preacher would start yelling. I can remember their veins throbbing along their necks, how their perspiration ran down their beet red faces. They stood on the pulpit screaming and jumping around, inciting a riot of “Hallelujahs!” from the pews. They were feeling the Holy Spirit a little too much for my liking. You could say I was never a fan of the fire and brimstone method of preaching. I preferred a more person approach to God. I wanted to be a good Christian like my friends. I wanted to have faith in something, believe in God and know that He’d take care of me.

My journey into faith began along the same time a depression set itself inside of me. I still haven’t figured out if it was the normal teenage hormonal depression that all adolescents go through or if it was something more serious, more lasting, but I turned to Jesus to counteract my depression. Jesus would save me from that sadness. Jesus would save me from myself. After all, He did die for me. I read my Bible and prayed constantly. I mean, constantly. I prayed over every meal and when I’d wake up in the morning, throughout the day and right before I went to bed. I even began attending a church that I found tolerable.

I was happy but not as happy as I felt I should have been. Now, I think I felt happy that I was “doing the right thing.” I felt like I was taking on the role of a Christian, doing everything right. I wasn’t thinking or saying or doing anything sexual or sinful and by trying to be as Jesus-like as possible, I felt good about myself. I felt disciplined, structured. But I never felt Jesus. I asked Him into my heart numerous times. I said the prayer of salvation over and over, hoping that each time I was finished I would feel full. I always felt like I was winding up a sort of spiritual jack-in-the-box. I enjoyed turning the crank and listening to the music but there was no pay off. Jesus never popped out and harpooned me in the heart. I think my box was broken. I didn’t let that stop me. I prayed and prayed and nothing ever changed. Although I was happy to be going through the motions of a Christian, I still never felt like one. I didn’t feel that closeness to God, that peace that I was told so much about. I read my Bible and went to church and prayed and was kind to everyone and talked to God all the time but that underlying sadness never dissipated.

I was never baptized. I’ve heard so many conflicting stories about baptism. I had some friends that stated it was a part of being saved. You have to be baptized to be saved. Other friends said it wasn’t necessary to be saved, just your way of showing God your obedience. I wanted to be baptized but because of my crippling fear of being in public, I never did. That brought about a lot of guilt inside me because it made me feel like I was ashamed of being a Christian, ashamed of proclaiming my love for God in front of everyone. That wasn’t the case. I was in church, a place filled with those that loved God so it wasn’t that I was embarrassed about that. I was just embarrassed in general. I was painfully insecure and did not want to go up in front of a bunch of strangers for any reason at all, be it religious or otherwise. And just the fact that so many people have so many opinions on not just baptism, but of other issues as well, that confuse and frustrate me. There are so many versions of the Bible and it is written in such a way that it has many interpretations. I don’t feel I am intelligent enough to read and decipher the Bible on my own and when I ask other people about it I always get different interpretations. The fact that there doesn’t seem to be one solid answer about anything makes me question everything. What if I’m not living the way God wants me to after all simply because I misinterpreted something from the Bible that I thought was correct but, in fact, was not? It’s almost like what is the point of living appropriately anymore when I’m living on assumptions?

To make things worse, we got a new Sunday school teacher one day and he told us that after the lesson, he wanted each one of us to get up in front of everyone and tell them how Jesus had touched our lives. I felt my Adam’s apple drop into my colon. No way I was doing that. He then said if we didn’t get up and say something, it meant we were ashamed of God. Thanks for the guilt trip, dude! So, when the lesson was over we all went to sit back down with our families. And sure enough, eventually all the other kids got up and talked about how Jesus had touched them. I wanted so bad to just stand up and say something, to show I wasn’t ashamed but my nervousness held me by the throat and I just couldn’t do it. I felt worse than I had felt in a long time. I left after the service was over and never went back. I didn’t think it was very fair to be bullied into believing, forcing faith in people. I felt I didn’t need to prove to anyone that I believed. I knew I believed and I knew how God had been working in my life and I didn’t have to stand up and say it to make it real.

I think my religious period was more of a phase because after I left the church, I slowly stopped reading my Bible and eventually cut down on the prayer. I think I felt a little burned out on all the God stuff. It didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling any better about myself or any closer to God because of my efforts. In a way, I gave up. I never stopped believing in God but I guess I stopped counting on Him to make me happy. God became more of a background character in the story of my life.

And then college came and I became more conflicted about my views on God. I prayed and prayed that He would make things better but He never did. But God was with me. When the whole situation came up about trying to find another room to get away from my roommate, a room actually became available. The thing is, that just doesn’t happen. Since so many kids to go that school they always have every room filled. It just so happened that the room I was able to get was empty because one guy never showed up and the other guy never used the room because he was staying in his girlfriend’s dorm. I felt it had to be more than a coincidence that both people appointed to one room did not live there. I felt like that was God looking after me and saving me from my roommate. On the other hand, there’s a part of me that feels silly to think that God intervened and gave me my own room. Doesn’t God perform bigger miracles than that? So, while I felt that was God’s work at first, sometimes I wonder if it was just a big coincidence. I mean, it’s not exactly anything to take to the pulpit with but then again, who’s to say? God works in mysterious ways and sometimes He works small and quietly.

Even though I got my room, I didn’t get my dreams of conversing with a wide variety of people, dreams of finding and bettering myself, dreams of becoming relevant. I didn’t make any friends, didn’t produce any great works and in the end, all I have to show for my time at school is a lousy piece of paper and over one hundred thousand dollars of debt. It’s not that I blame God for that. Obviously, it was my responsibility to enjoy my time and use it wisely. As much as I hate to say this, I guess I just feel like I deserve more? I’ve tried to be a good kid all of my life, tried to be a good Christian all of my life and I guess I feel God owes me something. I know that sounds horrible. Why hasn’t God blessed me with friends? Why can’t I get a job, not just in animation, but in anything? Why is everything still so hard for me? Why do I have all of these physical afflictions that keep popping up all over my body like a series of plagues? Why am I still empty? Why am I still stuck here? I know that’s not how God works. I know my relationship with God shouldn’t be an exchange of favors. I also know that I have been blessed in so many ways. I’ve mentioned it before. I realize that as bad as I might think I have it, there are people out there physically suffering every day, people who would kill to be as “bad off” as I am. I am not oblivious to how fortunate I am but it doesn’t feel like enough. Sometimes I wonder if my blessings are truly blessings or just the hand I was dealt. I’ve always heard that God gives man free will and so maybe He’s just stepped back and had nothing to do with what has happened to me, positive or negative. Maybe my “blessings” come from my parents who worked super hard to provide for me, not God intervening and providing me with all of these things. I guess sometimes I feel like God’s blessings could easily be a series of good consequences, winning small universal jackpots. What if it’s all truly just random chance?

For a long time, I felt like I was glad I wasn’t raised religious because at this point, most of my friends that grew up in church either had religion shoved down their throats so much that they completely rebelled and are now Godless. Others turned into giant prudes. As for me, I was able to find faith on my own and find my own way to God. It was never forced. It was volunteered. Consequently, I felt pretty good about where I was. I was a Christian who could still have fun. I never did anything immoral or illegal but at the same time, I didn’t throw the Bible in people’s faces. I know that is not the way to expose people to God. The only problem with my method of finding God was that I never grew up with a foundation of faith and now that faith is shakier than ever. I think a big part of my wavering belief is that I’ve never felt God in my life. Despite all the wonderful things I’ve been given and the numerous opportunities presented to me, I don’t know if it’s directly because of God or if He sat back and allowed it to happen or if God was ever in the picture at all. That emptiness fills me with a lot of fear. I’ve continually prayed to God to show me some sign of His presence, to let me know that I am saved and that I am going to be okay. And I never saw or heard or felt anything.

In a lot of ways, I feel like a fraud. I’ve talked to a few people that were unsure of the existence of God, agnostics and even some full blown atheists and while I was never offended by their beliefs or lack thereof, I always encouraged the ones with questions to seek the answers, told them about how great God is and even talked to the atheists when given permission or when asked about God. I felt good sharing God with others, like I was passing along a pamphlet of peace to their hearts. I just always hoped they pick it up and read it and believe it. And now I don’t know if I believe it. I feel like a hypocrite. Practice what you preach! Yeah, right.

I think what confuses and hurts me the most is seeing all of these converted Christians giving their testimonies. They used to be atheist. They lived a life of sin and either they broke down one day and asked God to come into their lives or they say that God came after them and since then, everything has been different, everything has changed and become better. What about me? I’ve always clung to my beliefs, always asked God to come into my life. While God was seeking people, I was following behind trying to seek Him and it’s frustrating because if atheists can find God, why can’t I? Is it because atheists need more help than I do? Is it because I already have a little bit of faith to work with so I’m not top priority? Well, that faith is starting to fall.

I feel like I am a naturally open minded skeptic. I tend to try to keep all options open, tend to be open to different ideas. Closing off your mind can potentially lead to ignorance. It’s kind of like with ghosts and aliens. It’s not that I don’t believe but I just haven’t been presented with much evidence to prove they do exist. Of course, there is no definite evidence to suggest they don’t exist. So, I’m open. And that’s kind of how I feel about God at this point. I feel like I need proof, validation. And I guess that’s where faith comes in. Some people probably don’t feel God as strongly as others but that doesn’t mean that He’s not there, that those people don’t believe. Faith is a big part of being a Christian. When in doubt, you have to let everything go and give it over to God and I’ve always had a hard time doing that because of my natural inclination to worry about every little thing in my life.

I know a lot of people would say that either depression or the devil, or both, are working on me right now, trying to turn me away from God. That could very well be. I just don’t know what to do about it, except prayer. And grasping onto what little faith I have left. You know, when things were at my worst, I always turned to God. And now that He is the focus of my frustration, I don’t know where to turn. Things were crappy at school and got worse once I graduated and I felt like God was so far away and that just makes things even worse. I feel more lost and lonely than ever.

Just to make things clear, I am in no way denouncing God or applying for atheism. I think a lot of Christians have doubts at some point or another. And I think it’s healthy to have doubts. If we all blindly believed everything we were told, we’d all be drones. I think the best way to find God is to do it yourself. Of course, it’s great to have help from strong Christian friends and pastors and the like but once you decide to make the journey to finding God yourself, it shows that you truly want know God, that you are not just following what everyone else is doing. I think that’s where I messed up. I think I saw being a Christian as just the right thing to do, a series of rules I had to follow to make God happy. I’m starting to realize more and more that Christianity is not about following rules but about developing a true relationship with Jesus Christ. If anything, the “rules” are just ways of showing loyalty and obedience. You love your parents and want to make them happy so you follow their rules. It’s no different with Jesus. Somewhere inside of me, I still believe in God, whether it be on the surface or at my very core. I hope that belief is truly inside of me and I hope these doubts are only superficial and normal. God has kept me hanging on for years now. My belief in God, my faith in the fact that He will provide for me, despite my fears and frustrations, have kept me from doing terrible things. God has kept me anchored to morality and perseverance. Without Him, I would have given up on everything a long time ago. And so I will continue to believe and pray and continue to hope that it will feel real to me one day, that God will reveal Himself in a way which will be unmistakable to me.

This entry was hard for me to write for a variety of reasons. I had difficulty articulating my thoughts and I think a big part of that is because the way I feel is so conflicted and entangled and wrapped up in every aspect of me. God has been there ever since I can remember and I’ve always enveloped God into my life. And because God has been with me through everything I’ve endured and because I have these doubts, I don’t know if God had anything to do with how I turned out or not. And because everything that I’ve been through has made me so complex, my situation feels too complicated to convey. I also almost feel like I dropped some sort of bomb because everyone assumes that Jesus is my homeboy when He’s more of an acquaintance. To reiterate, this was no in no way me giving up on God, just my way of working out my feelings. I hope that I never give up on God because I know God will never give up on me.

Finally, going back to Showbread, they have a song on their new album that pretty much sums up how I’m feeling right now.  Here are the lyrics that will hopefully shed some more light on my situation.

Showbread- "Precursor"
I used to believe in something and something believed in me
But now I see I forced myself cause believing in nothing is scary
Now there’s nothing left to lose and we’ve been wearied and refused
I am an unbelieving wreck. Will you please lift me by my neck?

How do I turn this into something I believe
When it’s something I’ve been told and something I’ve been taught?
How do I turn this into something that I need?
I’ll be lavishly controlled and be someone that I’m not

Make me believe. Make me believe. Make me believe. Make me believe.

Joy and suffering, good and evil, breathing and growing and life
It’s all a fluke, means nothing to me, and maybe nothing is all right
To give up my life to hold on to hope, to forfeit all of me
To believe that something must be true and that truth will set us free

How do I turn this into something I believe
When it’s something I’ve been told and something I’ve been taught?
How do I turn this into something that I need?
I’ll be lavishly controlled and be someone that I’m not

Believing in love, believing in hope, surrendering all of my will
Believing in nothing is scary, believing in something is scarier still

Believing in love, believing in hope, surrendering all of my will
Believing in nothing is scary, believing in something is scarier still

Septoplasty

So, went to back to the ENT guy that I saw a few weeks ago. He had requested I get my sinuses scanned so I guess he could check out what was going on in there. Last time I had a CT scan, they injected me with this dye that said had around a 1% chance of instantly killing me. Now, I know 1% doesn’t sound like a lot but when the result is death, it still makes you hesitate before signing those consent forms! But they didn’t inject me with anything this time around. Actually, the entire process was incredibly quick. I checked in, went back to the radiology department for about five minutes, laid down, was rolled through the machine like a Quiznos sub sammich and then I was out of there. I took the results from the hospital to the doctor’s office and a nurse shoved two large strips up my nose.

She then looked at the pictures of my scan and said, “Well, there’s a lot going on here.”

Awesome.

She then spread the pictures out for me to see and explained to Mom and me what we were looking at. From what I can remember, not only did I have a deviated septum as previously reported but also some kind of sinus issues, lack of oxygen to one side of my face along with a possible polyp! What wasn’t happening in my nose?

The doctor came in a few minutes later and basically explained the same thing the nurse did except he went about two and a half times as fast. He went into a little more detail, which I was barely able to comprehend. He was like, “Well, this is what you have,” as he grabbed a model of the sinuses.

“See, this is how the sinusesdraininanormalpersonthroughtheuseofverylargemedicalwords. You’re saying, ‘Okay, what does this mean to me?’ Well, usingevemorelargewordsreallyfastsothatnooneknowswhatI’msaying I’m going to attempt to tell you show your sinuses aredifferentfromeveryoneelse’ssinuses. ‘So, why should I care?’ BecauseyaddayaddayaddabythispointI’mtotallylostandI’mjustnoddingmyhead and that’s basically what’s going on.”

After he finished, I’m sure all of the moisture was gone from his mouth. I felt like I had been hit with a verbal jackhammer. I just did what any good uneducated person does and nodded and smiled. To break it down, he’s basically going to perform a septoplasty to straighten my septum and then he’s going to dig around in my sinuses so that they will drain better. At least, that’s the hope! I also think he mentioned the polyp had something to do with hyperplastic sinusitis. As I said, he went so fast that I could be wrong. I’m sure there are a lot of ENTs that read my blog so you guys can correct me.

The surgery is set for this upcoming Tuesday and I’m excited/nervous. I’m excited because of all of the benefits the doctor mentioned. He said I would breathe better and have more energy, fall asleep faster and have a deeper, more restful sleep and basically not feel like a giant turd all of the time which is how I feel every day of my life. He also said I should see an improvement in the lump within the first few weeks to a month after surgery and it should hopefully be completely invisible in a few months. Good! Then, the guy who schedules surgeries came in and talked about how he had a septoplasty performed a year or so ago and said it was the best thing that ever happened to him. He said food had more flavor to him and he ate until he was satisfied and not full. He said he dropped about twelve pounds after the surgery and, of course, that perked my ears up! Weight loss as a result of this surgery? Where do I sign up? The nervousness comes in because, well, it’s surgery and there’s a multitude of ways things can be screwed up. But, I’m just trying to think of the positives. It has to be done to shrink the lump and help me breathe better. It was scary looking at the scans and seeing the lack of air in my face! I have to wonder if that has contributed to my slow decline in intelligence…

I’m scared but hopeful that everything will turn out great and I’ll be a whole new (and much, much better) person!

For all those who wanted to know me inside and out...you're welcome.

So, labies and genitals, this is my skull. And my effed up septum. As you can see, the middle portion of my face has a nice jagged line that runs through the center. That is my septum and it's actually supposed to be straight. Do you see the large black area on the left side of my face? That's air and that's a good thing. Now, you see the right side? That's a lack of air and that's a bad thing. They should be equal. Oh, and do you see the small dot on the bottom right (last) picture? That's the polyp. Are you turned on yet? Hopefully the surgery will balance out the airflow and straighten out the septum.

Lord of Loneliness

Written February 14, 2008.

labyrinth
don’t give me your words of weary
you’ll never sense the separation
i suffer through every single day

don’t bemoan the cons of loneliness
you only feel misery in short bursts
yet my evisceration is everlasting
stretching across an expanse of entropy

you only suffer in seconds
while my regret is relentless
for I’ve never felt the flesh of another
and spent my days consoling myself
in a cloak constructed of cold
wandering in circles rejected and dejected

lost in this labyrinth of loneliness
lumbering around a misanthropic maze

the further I move around this network
the more I become lost and listless
the further I find myself away from the warmth
the human happiness i’ve heard so much about
and the lips that i’ve loved and cherished
only in my mind




laboratory
my heart should be studied
to test the limits of separation
how long till it bursts
from the swell of sadness?
how long till it shrivels
from the lack of love?

what a strange specimen
I have realized I have become
living without human contact
like some ungodly mutation
a cancer formed from the fermentation
of my heart for it never beat for anyone

lying in this laboratory
loveletting with a hypodermic needle
and transferring my torture to test tubes

cut open my pale chest
and crack these withered ribs
they break easily under your touch
because they’ve never felt the need
to protect the atrophy they encased

no need for an intravenous indication
that my nerves have numbed
they have been rotting with regret
from all the reams of rejection
long before I was brought to this bed

so carve out this cardiac organ
and stick it in a dirty jar
I never had much use for it
but perhaps it will serve you better



ligaments
is it my legs that disturb you?
the way they fold under the pressure
my hearts places upon them
in hopes of harboring a lover
but my brain attacks the heart
as I tear at my tendons to torture myself

is it my arms that disgust you?
so vast in their emptiness
the way they’re too thin
to support the weight of weary
because you’d never love
the me I keep to myself

does my torso repulse you?
the way the padding prevents you
from getting too close
and how it shields the shyness
that prevents me from forming friendships

is it my power that scares you?
how vastly disconnected I am
from all who enter my world
how I have the capability
to carve out all capacity to care

loneliness has made me its lord
for it has known my face longer than any other
I reign over this citadel of separation
I make strife my subjects
and dole out depression
to those who deny me

is it my shell that shocks you?
how i’m an empty-eyed zombie
for I’ve eaten my own flesh
to nurture my need to be nourished
I’ve hollowed out my head and my heart
and now there’s nothing left
but a vessel and a visage for the vermin

you may be filled with fear over my fate
but i am so beautifully hollow

Cause and Cure

“What is your damage, Heather?”
-Heathers

With thoughts of my impending surgery swirling around my head, I’ve been thinking a lot of about the possibility of complications/short-term to long-term side effects of surgery. Sure, it’s not a big surgery but my face is still going to be cut into. I’ve heard that anesthesia can kill brain cells and affect brain chemistry and that provokes some slight paranoia within me. What if I don’t come out the same? Wait a minute, would that be such a bad thing? Oh, yeah, it could, I could come out worse. Crap. This whole thing about brain functions really makes me think about my own and whether I’m healthy. I know, it seems like a leap, going from anesthesia to mental illness but sometimes I honestly don’t think I’m all there in the head. It’s the things I think about, the physical things I do, the stuff that pops up into my mind that just feels crazy to me. If not crazy, at least somewhat impaired. I worry about anesthesia and unconsciousness affecting my brain but has something else gotten there first? Is there some kind of traumatic event, some kind of accident or incident that forever fractured my fragile psyche?

I remember when I was a little kid, I was walking around the house while simultaneously enjoying my View-Master. Naturally, because of my obstructed, yet enjoyable view, I ran right into a nearby door frame. Hard. Uhh, I’m not proud of sharing that, haha. I can't believe I was walking around the house, basically blind, thinking that was okay. See, I've been weird from the start but anyway, I was left with a large hematoma on my forehead. I remember it being huge and funny at the time but what if that accident caused my brain to slam into my skull, destroying the portion responsible for sanity and security? If that wasn’t potentially harmful enough, Mom told me recently that when I was younger, I was running around the house, sans View-Master this time, tripped and fell right into a hard corner of the couch, hard enough to send me flying backward and creating a significant gash in my forehead. What if that was the day my brain sloshed around in my skull enough to do some real damage? And if that doesn’t do the trick, what if this upcoming anesthesia sends my sanity over the edge? I mean, sure, general anesthesia seems safe enough but what if I have some underlying problem inside of me, something that the anesthesia will trigger? It happened once with my deviated septum and branchial cleft cyst birth defect. All it took was a good slam in the nose and I was never the same again. Who’s to say I don’t have some other affliction floating around inside of me somewhere, just waiting for something to come and slice me open and unleash it?

With all of this talk about altered brain chemistry and chemical imbalances, it makes me wonder if anyone is truly in control of themselves. I know we are all ultimately responsible for our actions but can we control our impulses to act a certain way? And, well, how much responsibility should we claim? If your brain is the main machine that makes you who you are, yet it’s damaged, are you really who you could be and can you really say that you are in the right state of mind? But, then again, what is the right state of mind? I’m sure we are all damaged to a certain degree but it’s just so confusing to me because I try so hard to understand why I am the way I am and I have come no closer to finding out.

When you take into account the whole nature vs. nurture issue, I’d have to say maybe nature takes the lead in messing me up because I cannot recall any outside influences irrevocably ruining my head. Unless there was some truly traumatic event that happened in my early years that I managed to block out, I had a fairly regular childhood. The only thing that I can think of that could have been potentially harmful was the fact that my parents fought a lot when I was younger. They yelled a lot and that always made me really uneasy. Of course, I don’t think that is the main cause of my craziness. Sure, it did affect me and I still have issues with people yelling and generally acting raucous. It heightens my anxiety greatly but I don’t think that situation is responsible for how I am now. But, what is? I even asked Mom if she partook in a little smokey smoke or drinky drink while pregnant with me and she denied ever doing such. However, she did smoke after I was born. I remember regularly sitting on her lap while she lit one up. Maybe that second hand smoke killed some developmental brain cells, cells that never formed and left me with all these empty spots in my head, spots that have since filled up with wacky. I’ve already uncovered the fact that I was fat and insecure and depressed when I was younger and that has directly influenced how I’ve turned out at this point but it doesn’t feel like enough of a revelation, doesn’t feel like that’s the magical bonkers button that was one day pressed against my will. No, there’s gotta be more but I can’t seem to recall anything.

So, maybe I was just born a little loony and it’s just slowly been manifesting itself over the years, much like that cyst in my throat. It lies dormant until it finds its opportunity to strike. That just brings me back to the whole question of whether or not one should be fully responsible for him or her self. Like me, for example. I know a lot of people think I’m negative and cynical and a giant emo whiner and I would definitely agree with them but is it my fault? Can I truly control how I feel? Can I change my ways, turn the tables on my thinking? How do you do that when your brain dictates how you think, how you process information and how you behave? I’m not in charge, my brain is and it’s calling the shots and right now it’s telling me that I am depressed. I mean, how can you just suddenly shift your perceptions, realize that you’re thinking has been warped this whole time and now you have to reevaluate everything you’ve ever felt and believed in and try to assimilate to a new system of thinking and behaving, something that’s taken you years and years to grasp up until this point?

And if I can change my brain chemistry, get to behaving differently and generally overthrowing my thinking, how do I go about doing that? I’ve tried talking to God, finding my chakras, realigning my meridian lines, centering my chi, yoga, running, screaming, crying, writing, counseling and nothing works. That emptiness still enslaves me. It’s quite ridiculous because I realize, rationally, that I should not be this overdramatic, that I should not be this dead inside for no good reason. There are so many people out there who are less fortunate than I am. People are penniless, paralyzed, abandoned, orphaned, homeless and hurting and yet they're still trucking along. How absolutely disgusting of me to dare act like I’ve got it bad when I know good and well I don’t. If anything, all the “bad” things that have happened to me are more like unfortunate situations, nothing earth shattering or straightjacket worthy. Thinking about this kind of stuff makes me feel like crap because I wonder why I’m so depressed, why I feel so dead inside because I really have no reason to feel that way at all and it frustrates me because I must be feeling this way for some sort of reason but I can’t identify that reason and it angers me. And it just all goes back to that idea of brain chemistry and how we perceive things and not being able to control that. Maybe I don’t have the right to feel the way I do but my brain says otherwise and I can’t help that. Am I just a hopeless case, a lost cause doomed to decompose daily? How can I get better when I only feel bland and bitter? I feel like I'm walking through the door frame of life with a View-Master of mental muddledness causing me to crash into every possible obstacle. I gotta find a way to put down the distracting pictures so I can see clear enough to find my way but it's just hard, ya know, seeing as how the toy is Gorilla Glued to my face.

Writing Reservations

Right after posting my last entry, I began to hesitate. I’ve been planning on turning my diary entries from my first year of college into a book ever since I finished that awful experience. That was approximately two years ago. It wouldn’t be too terribly hard. It’s not like I’d be writing the book from scratch, relying on my failing memory for material. I wrote it all down as it happened. If anything, all the entries need is a little editing and then some extra writing to tie everything together. Doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I guess I’ve been too lazy and too scared to actually make it happen. A part of the hesitation lies in how I want to approach the book. Do I want it to be strictly journal style or do I want to make it have a novel feel? I suppose it doesn’t matter which way I go about it because there is still a ton of things to consider, like character development and pacing and conflict. Where’s the rising action? Where’s the engaging dialogue? I didn’t record very much so I’ll have to rely on memory for that. And lastly, where is the resolution? I don’t really have much of one. If anything, I learned that everything sucks. I’m just worried the book will fall flat. It will contain no redeeming value, just some jilted kid complaining for three hundred pages. No one wants to read that. And that’s where my fear comes in. I fear no one will care, no one will want to read it, and most terrifyingly, no one will think it’s good.

When I think about it, it’s not like my college experience was exactly interesting. Nothing crazy actually happened, at least externally. Most of the drama came from my head, which means the book would very much be a slow burn, a psychological portrait of one young man’s descent into disappointment and eventual emotional death. Who wants to read that? No one. No, people nowadays are more interested in high-class cocaine scandals and bisexual orgies. People want to read “Gossip Girl” material, something Perez Hilton would post on his website on any given day. I’ve kept tabs on what titillates the audience and mostly it’s anything that’s shallow and juicy, situations like insignificant struggles, like who's the richest out of a group of friends, a Prada bag battle and surface concepts of love that last a week at the most are what make ears ring. Pretty people with problems. Well, I had a lot of problems but they sure weren’t pretty. And neither was I.

And then the question of who I want to write the book for comes up in my head. I always struggle with walking that fine line of creating things mainly for myself while making it appealing to others. Everyone wants to be able to make a living doing what they love. I love to write and would very much love to be a full time writer. But you can’t just write for yourself. You have to make it relatable. You have to invite the audience in instead of shutting them out and I feel if I wrote the book exactly how I want to, no one would want to read it. I feel I’ll have to punch it up a bit to make it more interesting. Now, that doesn’t mean to lie but to just provide more facts that I wouldn’t exactly share in my vision of the book. I would very much like this book to be a success, despite the fact that I’m self-publishing it and I don’t have a lot of contacts or connections to spread the word that my material is even out there. And because I would like this to work out, I’m feeling extra pressure to make sure it’s nearly impeccable. And there’s just so much to consider. I don’t want it to just me whining all the time. No one cares about whiners. I started reading the reference materials and in the first few pages, I nose-dived into a depression and the rest of the writing is just me sinking further and further into sadness. How can I reconcile that? By having some grand moral at the end of the book? To let the audience know that I came out of that experience stronger? No. I can’t do that because that’s not how I feel. In fact, I feel worse than ever.

In the beginning of Judith Moore’s book Fat Girl, she states that there is no moral at the end of her book and that she did not intend for the reader to glean any lesson from her story. At the same time, she’s writing about something incredibly relatable. I read the book and all the while I was nodding my head and saying, “Yes, yes, I feel the same way.” So even though she never had a clear epiphany planned in her story, she was still able to capture my interest and my sympathy and I really enjoyed the book. And I think people can relate to my book. I don’t know anyone who had an amazing college experience all the way through. Everyone has had some rough patches, and if they haven’t, then they were incredibly lucky. So, even though my book may be relatable, it doesn’t mean it will be good or interesting. Because so many people do have bad experiences in college, what is going to make my experience stand out? What’s going to make it shine and be something that people will want to read and understand? I don’t think there’s anything outstanding about it. In fact, the whole book is terribly negative and depressing and it’s not my intention to depress anyone so it makes me question writing it at all. I’m just trying to show people where I’m coming from, trying to find some kind of validation and appreciation for what I had to endure. It felt like Judith Moore was venting in her book. I got the sense that the book was cathartic for her and that’s what I want for me. I keep thinking about the series finale of Roseanne and her final monologue. It perfectly articulates why I want to write this book and why I write in general:

I made a commitment to finish my story even if I had to write in the basement in the middle of the night while everyone else was asleep. But the more I wrote, the more I understood myself and why I had made the choices I made and that was the real jackpot. I learned that dreams don’t work without action. I learned that no one could stop me but me. I learned that love is stronger than hate. And most important, I learned that God does exist. He and/or She is right inside you, underneath the pain, the sorrow, and the shame. I think I’ll be a lot better now that this book is done.

Ever since I started taking writing seriously, I’ve felt it was healing. In fact, I feel all the writing I’ve done over the past couple of years have slowed my decline into insanity. And the Roseanne quote is so accurate. When you write about your life, you really are forced to examine the choices you’ve made and why you did what you did. If I can get this book written, it’ll force me to face my decisions and maybe I’ll finally get why I did the things I did so that maybe I won’t hate myself for making the wrong choices. Hopefully the process of writing through my dilemmas and sharing my story with the world will help me heal. Plus, having my own published book will just be awesome, even though it is self-published, which presents my other problem: I still question my talent. It’s not like some publisher contacted me and threw money at me to get this thing written. It’s not like it’ll ever be on the shelves. The best I can hope for is Amazon.com but even that sounds pretty neat to me. I guess I’m just worried that I’m not qualified enough to write something as challenging as a book. Sure, I can squirt out the occasion good essay and I get lucky with a decent poem now and then but a book? I feel like I might be writing off more than I can chew. I’d hate for someone to read it thinking, “This person has no business writing a book.” Then again, successful authors such as Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, Anne Frank and William Faulkner, just to name a few, were all rejected several times before someone finally said they were good enough. I guess that gives me a bit of hope when I inevitably get my own rejections and negative reactions to the book. I understand that not everyone is going to love me but as fragile as I am, I can have one hundred praises and one complaint and I’ll fall to pieces. Where does the acknowledgement of talent lie? Within a ton of readers, book sales, lists, awards, money, or within ones own self?

I guess all I can do is keep writing, keep working on the book and be proud of it no matter how it turns out. It is my first, after all, and I will no doubt make mistakes, mistakes that I can learn from when I work on the next book. Maybe as I write, things will unfold naturally and I’ll find a pace that will be appropriate and when it comes to some kind of grand revelation at the end, there might not be one just yet because my story isn’t quite over. At the very least, I think it will provide some much needed closure. I think I'll be a lot better once this book is done.

SCAB

Finally,

a SCAB is forming.