The economics of lying to yourself.

There is a point (which I have reached) at which you realize that your life cannot infinitely go on as it is. Well, regardless to the changes you make in life, your life can't go on infinitely. It is nearing the 2nd anniversary of my Grandmother's death. This is unremarkable. I don't feel the pain that I felt last year, or certainly the year before but what I feel now is much like that time I almost died at Turtle back falls: Life has swept me up in its current. To a certain degree I feel in charge of the direction I am headed in, but the closer and closer I get to the end of my academic career, the more I sway and hesitate. It is not a pause in skepticism, or lack of will, it is encompassingly curious as to whether I am good enough. 

Frankly, my life is out of control. I am in class all day every day. I sit in a chair amongst peers and read facebook. I am not being enriched, I am not swelling with knowledge of innate, I am wallowing in social media and paying 200K to do so. I am preparing to take my first boards exam in September and I have put so much time into studying and am walking away with nothing. I haven't had a day off in 19 days. Most nights in the past 19 days I haven't gotten home before 9:30. And on the nights that I do skip class or manage to have "nothing to do" I have to do laundry or study for, you know...CLASS. 

So all of this culminates into a terrible storm of chaos that has sent me into a fairly intense anxiety ridden 1/3 life crisis. I have developed a crazy fear that I am dying. I am healthy. I have no pain, but every tweak and pop has me convinced that I am in my final moments. My waking reflection is one of fear and rebellion. This may stem from a dream I had last week. I dreamt  that I was driving and I was  on an onramp that suddenly became a pedestrian walkway. My back tire was hanging off of the walkway, and we all know that physics would prevent a car from falling off of anything if one out of four tires was off a clif. Regardless I began to fall, and unlike every other dream I've ever had, I died. I felt myself die.

Day 35: Something you are passionate about.

I'm passionate about empowerment.

I recently was in a group playing this game where you talk about yourself (or something that happened to you) for 3 minutes and then someone asks you 2 questions. A girl spoke, and while it was pleasant and kind, there was no thought behind it. So I asked her, "Why are you here?", which was misinterpretted. Then I asked, "Why do you want to be a chiropractor?" to which she said what she'd already said. I asked her WHY her, and why chiropractic, and she started to cry. 

At the end she asked what my why was, and I said that I'd known many people who had been told they were broken, and that "x" woud NEEEVVVERRR happen. And of course, like most things in life, when the option of whatever they wanted was "taken" from them.... their purpose floundered. My goal is to let people know that their bodies can do all sorts of things. While it's unlikely that a person would ever take flight without mechanical or technological assistance, who is a doctor to tell you how long you have to live? Or that you can't have children?  

People receive news that they will live 6 weeks and live 6 years (I've seen this one directly). People get pregnant all the time when they were told it was impossible. The most beautiful thing that I saw working for my previous employer was when many doctors told my fiance there was no hope, and that surgery was his only option, she said to him, "Let's just try this first and see how it goes." 2 years later he tore his ACL, and in review of the MRI, the doctor told him there was NO evidence of a previous tear to the LCL... which means either the doctor misdiagnosed the LCL tear, or it healed so well that it wasn't evident on the new MRI. 

It's no longer appropriate for a doctor to be the primary decision maker for your health. Doctor means teacher. Teachers inform, or at least they should. I would never advise a patient against taking a drug or having a surgery, I simply insist in this age of information, that they consider the consequences are advantages of all things; including chiropractic. 

Chiropractors are doctors of the nervous system. To say that Chiropractors are doctors of the musculoskeletal system is to deny the fact that our soft organs are innervated and influenced by the components of electricity and hormones from the brain. If your GI tract isn't receving sympathetic and parasympathetic influence, you are dead. If your ovaries aren't receiving FSH, then you aren't ovulating. If your kidneys and adrenals are in sympathetic mode, your blood sugar will be high, your kidneys are working way harder than necessary, and you're taxing a fairly delicate system. You do not "Fix" blood pressure by taking a pill. You're just bunching up the kidneys and making them work harder. All actions have consequences. 

I believe in trying noninvasive methods of managing health issues first. I am passionate about letting people know that SO many things start and heal in the limbic system. I am passionate about people taking an active role in their health; and it starts with being informed about the body in which they dwell.

Day...s past. What mourning looks like.

Today I was driving in the car, listening to music that bordered damaging for the ears. I was reflecting on my life in the past year. This time a year ago I randomly developed nutritional deficient stretch marks. (Because I know wandering minds, I've supplemented and they've started to go away at the top and in the middle). I remembered the chaos of winter break last year. It is easy for me to blame much of that conflict and poison on my lovely betrothed. My body... went through a trauma. You see, God taught me 3 lessons in 2013. 

1. Steve died. Yes, yes, I've talked about it a few times. And sadly I'll never be able to put in words the things I felt for that man. He was like a mentor, a friend, and a parent wrapped up into one legend of a human being. He was all things rational, beautiful, and disfuctional. My relationship with him showed me so many things without ever being spoken. Through him, I learned what a good wife is. I also learned how to formulate a proper rebellion. Through him I learned love and hate and pain and apathy and most vital and gentle of all, I learned how one hides all those things. The thing that always, and will always bruise and scar me over Steve's death is that I was TOLD he was dying, and yet I foolishly thought that if I didn't reach out, he couldn't die. That is how I thought we were linked. He was my Dumbledore; I didn't go into a world of wizardry, I went into a world where I wasn't defined by things my parents did... which for me, was just as magical. I hope that if his children are reading this that they don't judge me too harshly. I know he failed in ways. I realize his imperfections.... that's a lie. I know some facts, but they don't sway me from truly believing that if it wasn't for him... My God... I can't fathom it. All I can see is work and pain and responsibility. He told me I didn't have to conform. He didn't know what I'd do with it.... but he was the first one to say I didn't have to do anything I didn't want to.  So, I feel guilt about not calling him when I was instructed to do so. I found out he died standing on a rock; the sun blinding me as I cried. 

2. Dawn died. She wasn't my closest friend. I sometimes she was full of shit. But she loved her children and absolute chance took her from them. Steve's death was beautifully orchestrated. Maybe it wasn't, but he's my big fish. Dawn is the anomally. Her death made me want to get married. Which, maybe is irrational, but my thoughts were: Why wait for anything? Why pause? Money doesn't matter, Time doesn't really matter, and details don't really matter. I knew that I wanted to marry Brian. I knew that I wanted children. And so I began to fight hard for what I wanted. Her death gave me an urgency in life. 

3. Nana. For those who know me... for those who have known me, this will be the most mundane thing I ever write, but her death has ruined me. I hate how people asked me why I didn't cry at her funeral. I hate that some of my family members are angry with me over how I handled her death. Now that the immature feelings have been shared.. I'll try to be a little more descriptive. There were times in my life that I felt only loved by my grandmother. There were times that I felt like she was the only one ony my team. I didn't realize it until today, but her death was like death, the being, gripped my gooey, thumping heart and stopped its beating in a closed fist... and all this time I've been walking around without a thud. And it's been this way since the day she died. It feels like my squishy, slippery little heart was transformed into a mechanical little thing that is only concerned with in, and out. My little metal heart is only doing half of it's job. A heart feels and breaks and swells and thuds and pounds and flitters and dances and explodes. But my heart, like hers once did, just ticks like clockwork. Of course I want to call her and tell her my news or my upsets.... but its only now I see how much work it is listening to someone else's life. I miss her opinions; I miss vehemently disagreeing with them. I look back at when I started Chiropractic school and I wonder just how insane I was. In retrospect I feel down right maniacal. I wonder if this is the new me, or if I'll heal over one day and my heart will catch up to its soft and light behavior. What has been done can't be undone. I miss them so much. Just knowing they were on the same planet as me made the world a safer place. I feel like the Circus ring master and the entertainment schedule is starting to run together. It's that awful moment in a live performance when the audience starts to wonder if the scene is intentionally frantic. Things are out of order and performances are bleeding together.

So mourning is a messy business. My brain and mechanical heart are making what sense of it they can. I fear for the damage I've done to my current friendships. I feel like the people who know me best are the ones I've been avoiding... but they too have had their own sort of... lapse in universal organization. I think Nana would be proud in my ability to 'keep on keepin' on'... but at a certain point I do hope my love heart returns... so I can live a bit more than tick...tick...tick...tick....    

Day 34: Something you'd like to say to an ex:

I'm getting married. May as well address both of the ones that matter:

1. Dear Sir,

          I'm sorry I was mean to you for so long. I had to. I realized during a little break, that being with you meant that I would be exactly what all the people who I didn't want to be like, expected me to be. It wasn't you. I mean, well, it was you. It was what we were together. We were so boring. I think you've moved on. I saw you a few years ago and it made me lose my breath. Not because I immediately wanted to let go of the hand holding mine, but because I was taken back to when I would have done it. You were my first kiss. I'm not certain you ever knew that. I enjoy being your facebook friend. I enjoy seeing your life. I'm proud of what you've become. I hope you don't hate me. I think it was for the best for both of us. I dream about you. Never in creepy ways. I think my brain gets confused about who you are. You represent many different people when I dream about you. Sometimes I do wonder what would have happened, but then I recall a conversation we had after I'd moved to California. I said that life was an adventure. You said that you could adventure at home. That's when I knew I'd made the right decision. Thanks for being that really awkward relationship that we all must have.

2. Dear Sir,

         You made my freshman year of college like a fucking 80's montage. I actually walked around campus at 2am crying with snot running down my nose. The end of us was a fizzle. And that was probably worse than if we'd blown to bits. I mean... you haven't done much with your life; riding the coat tails of you wife... but that's cool. I guess we all have to find our anchor. I sound mad, but I'm not. I'm thankful for The Fountainhead. I'm thankful for the notion that I could leave home. I did. When I met my fiance I was still in love with you. I was still in love with you for about 5 months. I remember walking around the vineyard in the hiking boots I'd bought in a manic phase to physically catch you... and I was knocking the baby stems off the bottom of the vines and I realized I'd done all the things you hadn't. I'd acheived more than I could have with you. And I learned to love who I was with, because I realized the beautiful part of him is that he will always want to go more; do more. Thanks for breaking my heart, the reassembled bits work pretty damn well.

Day 33: 5 ways to win your heart

1. Baby any thing. You know those click bait things on facebook? Yeah. I'm that sucker.

2. Military service folk. They deserve all the accolade we can bestow upon them. I don't care if Chris Kyle told people in his book that he was Santa Claus. He is an American hero. Any person who leaves their family for any amount of time to go over seas and interact with potentially violent people, is a hero.

3. Human capacity for growth, change, and wellness. We are souls. We have bodies. We are much more in control than most cultures would have us believe. You are the captain of your ship. The minute you lose that concept, the ship is lost.

4. Intelligence/rebellion. There's nothing more attractive than a person at a party who smiles and says, "Where did you hear that?"

5. Travel. 30 minutes or 3000 miles. I'll take it all. 

Day 29: The countdown

So, we are in the home stretch. 

In 3 months I'm getting married. We have been reading a book. We are looking into an engaged encounter. All the hard details are finished. Progress is great! 

I think my experience is unique in the sense that 

1. I do not have a mother figure to fawn over my every decision (both a benefit and drawback)

2. My wedding is not in this country (weeding out a lot of people that may have come to the wedding otherwise)

3. I am not doing any crafts, I am not decorating, I am not gluing, stapling, painting, licking, stuffing, cooking, fretting, or stressing. (Huge benefit)

4. I don't care about a lot of things that I should, apparently, care about. I don't care about colors or designs or ultimately who shows up. I want to wear a dress, get married, and dance. 

Here are some unique things that have popped up:

1. My father. My dad has been the most difficult part of preparing for this wedding. He's coming then he's not coming. He wont get a passport. He has been incredibly negative about who will come and who wont. He laughs when I talk about family coming like it will never happen. He wouldn't even look at the registry ( he asked what I wanted for Christmas and I said there were cheap things on the registry). My soon to be MIL some how coerced him into coming. I need to write her a thank you letter. While his presence will make my wedding complete....I'm still frustrated that it took all that effort to get him to come. I'm his oldest daughter. And all he has to do is show up.

2. People (not me) are really concerned with colors. I have no idea what "my colors" are. I thought if you got married under a gazebo it would be white. The chairs are white. I assume I'll have a bouquet of some sort.... but if I'm not having a bridal party... I don't understand why it's important. 

3. Past tense Sam was really smart. I'm so glad we are doing it in Mexico... I think I would have gone insane if we'd gotten married in South Carolina or in California. It would have taken a lot of work.

Day 32: Talk about something you lost

1. My LA gear light up shoe

   I was an only child for a long time. And even then, I've never lived in the same house as my little sister. This doesn't make her any less my sister, but the behavior I'm about to talk about depends heavily on my childhood experience.

   You might think my parents did a fantastic job, or you might think they were ludicrous, but as I child I truly thought I could do anything. I was convinced that if I tried hard enough that I could fly. I also thought my mother was from a long line of witches. She and her sisters had a very unique mysticism about them... it was beautiful and captivating, and something that I assumed would just start up one day, like puberty. 

    So, I was probably in kindergarten and light up shoes were the shit. I begged for a pair. Granted, being an only child, I didn't beg long, but I really wanted a pair. So my mom got me a pair. They were white with, what I'm remembering as, glittery shoe laces. The heel, when you stepped, would flash. I don't remember the color. I wore them religiously. I wore them constantly. I remember trying to sleep in them. 

     I lost one shoe. I kept the other shoe for many years after I could have possibly shoved my foot into them, but it never returned. 

     I assumed for a long time that it was some type of portal to magical rune that would allow me to join the sisterhood that my mother and her sisters (aunts, grandmothers for all I know). Yes. It was a vivid imagination. Yes. I did jump off of my monkey bars only to be shocked when I sprained my ankle instead of taking flight over the neighborhood.

     The resolution: My dad remarried after he divorced my mom. My dad, much like a certain someone else I've come to love, will exercise his control over his environment (when he feels like he doesn't have any control at all) by cleaning. When my dad was remarried he threw things away all the time. He was stressed by clutter. So he would throw away toys, clothes, and actual trash every weekend. The problem with this behavior was more evident with his second wife because they were even more poor with 5 kids in a 2 bedroom house; so we started running out of clothes, and "heirlooms", that were obviously cheap dollar store items went missing. 

      For the record, my adult brain says that my dad threw away the shoe accidentally; without it's pair. Not that he would hesitate to throw away a new pair of shoes left in the wrong place, but that the main error was that he left one behind.

       A small smidgeon of me still wonders if it's in the back of the closet, whirring with magic. Like I could touch it, and be taken to a place where I would find all the answers to the confusing things that have happened since the year of the LA gear light up shoes to present.   

2. My Claddaugh

     Fastforward. I was in the 8th grade. My dad's second marriage has fallen apart. Well, it never really fused. But, life was finding a certain calm. My grandmother and I were thick as theives. Where she went I went. For most practical purposes I lived with her from 7th grade through my senior year of high school. I don't remember the holiday, but she gave me an Avon ring with a lab generated emerald in the middle. It was a crown resting on two hands, that reached out to hold the stone in the middle. I didn't think much of it when I got it. I think I just put it away for a few years. And then I read a story, or heard about what a Claddaugh was and went digging. I put it on when I was 14 and kept it on my hand until I was around 21. The ring was turned facing inward. My heart was taken. We went to Yosemite, and my fingers started to swell (just like they did when he proposed!). I took the ring off and put it in my pocket at Inspiration Point. When we got back down, the ring was gone. I cried. I told Nana and she didn't even blink. It wasn't a big deal to her. I don't even know if she knew I wore it.