It's official ...

I made the reservations today for my ticket to fly to Maine over my Christmas break. I am going to see my college BFF for the first time in about ten or eleven years. That's so exciting that I am acting like a little kid! We talk pretty much every day but it's been a long time since we've actually been in the same place.

I've been to Maine a few times to visit and she came here when I got married in 1995. The last time I saw her I was still with my wasband and we've been divorced since December of 2000. Since then she's been engaged and built a house with her future betrothed. She's a successful business woman and been kind enough to put up with all my shenanigans for years since we became friends in 1989 during our freshman year at Sweet Briar College.


Off that topic*
How's the eating going you ask?

I don't plan to really start my Weight Watchers program yet. That's a craptacular disclaimer which means I have been eating things that just don't work so well with the program. The good thing is that I think my meds are getting back in to my blood level so I am not as depressed. However, I am lonely as all get out and missing face time with friends. I mean I talk to my one friend (and yes, I have more than one friend, smart a$$e$) every day but there is still that disconnect of being with someone else. In no way am I advocating a loveless marriage just to have someone to talk to regularly.

It would be nice to be back at work for the face time I so desperately need. That is coming soon enough. In the meantime, I have things to do like anticipate my trip even if I will need a seat belt extender, sigh.

PS: BJM, faithful BFF from HS, is supposed to watch Franklin the wonder cat while I am away. Here's a shout out to her as I have been unable to contact her lately for a phone chat. Thanks in advance, B!

My first writing assignment in college

What follows is my first ever writing assignment turned in to Professor William Smart at Sweet Briar College. I unearthed it Wednesday evening as I was cleaning and organizing for Christmas Tree Thursday.
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How many times have I started this? Each time I get a couple of sentences down and then I erase them. I like how computers can do that, just erase it all as if it had never been there, never been written.

There are plenty of periods in my life that I wish I could cut out and throw away as if they had never happened, but that doesn't work unless you're hooked up to a keyboard. It's funny that I should even be sitting in this room, with all of you, listening to this. You're thinking to yourself, "Who wrote this? Is this chick on Valium or what?"

Nope, no need for sedatives now. I've got a lot more control than I used to have. There's no need to try and hide anything now. No one can take away anything from me, no one can tell me how to feel or how to think. You see, I'm not even supposed to be alive. The doctors never thought, my parents never thought, I never even thought, never believed that I would be alive.

If you had told me five years ago that I would be here today, sitting amongst all of you, trying to write something, I would have laughed in your face. I know a lot about pain but I also know what it's like to survive even though it hurts, even when you don't care anymore, even when you don't want to survive. I may not look like much but give me some time. Think of me as the carbon that comes before the brilliance of the diamond.

Did you see the move The Dead Poet's Society? Remember what Robin Williams said? Carpe diem - Seize the day. Valuable piece of information there. It's partially the reason why I'm in this class. I've wanted to be a writer for some time now, about seven or eight years, and I decided to give it a try.

So here I am despite some strong opposition from some parental figures, despite my own self doubts. if I don't try now I know that I'll look back on my own self sabotage and say, "Where the hell was my brain? Why didn't I at least give it a shot?" I could never forgive my cowardice if I didn't at least attempt to put out some good pieces for this class. If I fail, I fail, but at least I will have tried and that is what is important. For a long time I thought that everything had to be perfect but I have learned to see that there is some beauty in everything and you just have to take the time to look around and find it.

I think that I'd like to be a writer but there are so many people that say that, that they want to write. For me, though, it is so much more than that; it's like I need to write. Writing is more than just a way to make a living, it is seeing and believing in others, in ideas, and most importantly, in yourself.

Writing is my joy and my pain, my cathartic process of healing and mending. I learn from writing and I write about what I have learned. Writing lets me think and wander and dream. It allows me to reach new heights and cross into places I've never been to. With it I can create whatever I want.

Writing allows me to become free from all of the boundaries and biases of everyday life. And it doesn't matter what anyone else says or thinks because it is my poem or my essay and if it makes me happy then there should be nothing more to strive for. Yet, I continue to want more. I want people to read what I've written and feel something. I want a response. The best feeling is letting someone read one of my pieces and have that person say to me, "Yeah, this is good, I liked it because ..."

Writing is freedom and control, love and hate, dreams and reality all at the same time. Writing is what I love and what makes me happy and that is why I do it. I love the way I get an idea and the way the words flow out swiftly while I scratch my pencil across a piece of paper. That is writing. It's taking a chance, exposing a piece of yourself for everyone to take a stab at. It's not wanting to end something until it is done 100% and to the best of your abilities. Writing is sharing and expanding and feeling and caring. I want to write more than anything in the world. Few people can understand that but I know what I want and writing is just that. Writing, if it could be personified, would be my best friend. It listens and grows with me and never betrays me. Once you have understood that, then you can begin to comprehend what my life is like.

I am only 19 - no longer a child but not really a woman. I am on the brink of the world, the precipice of a vulnerable reality. They say that all you need is a dream and I have one. Even though no one else may support me, I have to at least try and see if I can do it. I have to have the strength and conviction in myself because there is no one I can siphon that from. I have to believe in myself and be willing to fight for what I want. This is my life we're talking about, not a play about Willy Loman or Juliet Capulet. The curtain comes done only once for me.

You wanted to see inside my head so here it is. A very intricate piece of machinery, the brain. The TV commercials say that it's a terrible thing to waste.You know what? I believe them.
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I sat in that first creative writing workshop after hearing this piece read aloud by my professor, my soul exposed to a group of strangers. I recall the looks of the women around me listening and letting this all soak in. They commented when the professor was done and he asked if the author wanted to reveal herself.

I didn't then but I am now.

One more tiny piece to finish this memory; the only thing written at the end in form of a comment were these words, "This is the beginning."

Nineteen years later, it's part of another beginning.

Slumpday and weird coincidence

Yeah, still in my slump but I did more today to act like a real person. I ate twice today. I also finished correcting the papers I had to do so that grades can be calculated. Did I mention that my friend/driver/pseudo-mom who is taking me to the infusion center offered to crunch the numbers for my five-week averages? Give that woman an award, please!

I even cleaned my tiny bathroom, except for the shower. I'll get to it, I promise. It just sucks the life out of me to scrub that thing down. I took out the garbage and the recyclables. I showered and dressed myself.

To demonstrate the true depths of my depression I will share with you that I purchased a small cheesecake on Friday that has still not been touched. I have a can of Pringles that is still unopened. This depression is great for the whole non-eating part of it. Less dishes to wash also.

On Facebook today I had a message from a college gal pal that mentioned that my freshman year roommate also has MS. Is that the weirdest coincidence or what? Now I can say I know someone my age who has it.

Of course, I have not known her for about 15 years now but I am trying to get in touch with her. Do other MSers do this sort of thing, try to find someone their age to compare notes with? I'm interested to see what symptoms she has and what treatments she has tried. The only thing I remember about her is that she got married shortly after college and I think she has some children.

It's like this weird but comforting connection to say, "I know someone else who has this disease."

I am trying not to think about work on Tuesday. I will have to input grades at home Monday night and work on Tuesday plans. I guess I'm a lot like little babies when they play peek-a-boo and laugh when they see you again. They think it's magical how you disappear and reappear. I'm trying to pretend that work is done even though I know it's not. That is one constant in my world, along with the depression.

Tomorrow is Tysabri infusion number one.

How Messy is it? The road back to writing...

I come from a family where presentation is everything. You should look a certain way and act a certain way and live a certain way or else there will be blood. (Okay, maybe not blood, but you get the idea.) I've finally come to terms with the fact that I can't do that. I don't know many people who can thrive within boundaries given to them by someone else.

One of the many pieces of my life that I compromised over the years was writing. I wanted to be a writer, or more specifically a real writer, someone who would be published. I started to write poetry when I was in fifth grade and had some poems printed in a local paper. I branched out in to short stories and more detailed poetry (that didn't have to rhyme) as I grew older and passed through my high school years.

I had an opportunity in high school to be part of a career explorers' group that focused on journalism writing. They met about an hour from my home. The chosen few were grouped together to work on material for a much larger daily paper. My parents said, "No, it's too far away and a waste of time." End of story.

Then college beckoned, which is a saga in itself, and away I went. I was told that in no way would I be allowed to have a major that had anything to do with writing. It wasn't the type of career that would ever bring me money. It wasn't a good enough career. They weren't paying for me to learn more about the one thing that I had loved and sustained me for years during a rough adolescence.

I went to college and I dutifully did as told. I majored in International Affairs and minored in Spanish and History. I went to a wonderful college, one that you've probably never heard of but it was wonderful anyway, called Sweet Briar College in Virginia. I did exactly what I was supposed to do, for the most part.

In four years I never took an English class as I had tested out of Freshman English.

I took two creative writing classes in four years. They were probably the best classes of my life because I was able to do what I loved most. I wrote and shared with my classmates (anonymously, the beauty of it all) my writing and received feedback from them and my professors.

As a matter of fact, I have this bulletin board hanging on my apartment wall that contains sundry items that are special to me. One of these items comes from my college years, a hand-written note from a professor. It's dated 5/23/90.

"Your best pieces were the last two - "The Softball Game" and "My Daddy". You have talent & I hope you'll continue to write."

Two sentences from a man who no doubt has long forgotten me. Two sentences that have been hanging on that board for eighteen years. Two sentences that make me think that I can do this thing that I was told not to do many years before.

Eighteen years later I started to write, for me.