Yep, when the clock struck midnight it marked the official anniversary of that P.O.S. Ex of mine hitting the door.
When you discover the person you promised to spend the rest of your life with come hell or high water decides to leave you, it's traumatic. They say that having a marriage end is like having a death in the family and they're not far wrong. It was catastrophic. For a long time, I didn't know whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt. It was a rough first 6 months filled with doubt, self-blame, a never ending shame spiral and all sorts of regrets. I'd like to say the last year had been a breeze, but it hasn't. It's had it's ups, downs, pools of tears, raging anger and outright confusion.
When you find your husband at his girlfriends house, the 30 pages of text messages between the two at all hours of the day and night, the pile of receipts for all the clandestine meetings, the jewelry he buys her, the fact that he promotes her on his consulting company website, the fact that the car he abandoned here is filled with the Bassett Hound Faced Bitch's chihuahua's fur (which he swears up and down the dogs have never been in the car, yeah right) that I have to go down and make sure it still runs every couple of weeks...oh, the laundry list of horrid things he's done and the fact he finally admitted just yesterday that he's sleeping with a woman with the face of a Bassett Hound...which we ALL know that he's been doing her for the last 2 years...and he tells me that it's just recently he's started having sex with her. I just wanted to sit back and slap him and ask him if he really believes that I'm going to believe all of his half-truths and all of his lies. Big Eyerolling there. Sad, sad, pathetic man. I think if you would look up the word pathetic in the dictionary, you'd see his picture right next to it.
However, he's history, ancient mythology. He's made his bed and he has to lie in it. As I told him on the phone yesterday, "When you lie down with dogs, you're bound to get fleas." LOL. Yeah, he's not the brightest bulb in the box when we all know I'm talking about the Bassett Hound Faced Bitch and that reference went straight over his head. hehe. I'm sorry guys, I don't mean to be so negative, it's just that I think he's a wart on the butt of humanity and that yes, I'm culpable for part of what happened, but I'm not going to live in a shame spiral blaming only myself. It takes two to tango. Only difference is, I'm rising above him. Like I said, he's history, mythology and it's been a year...HE'S OUT OF HERE!
Funny thing is that he always told me how great I could be if I went into Advertising/PR but it would be difficult for me and he didn't think I'd enjoy it like I would teaching. He always pushed me towards education as a career and it's like what my mom told me the other day, "I can't really see you standing in front of a classroom and being paid next to nothing for the incredible talents you have." Mom gets props and kudos for that because it's really the first time in my life that she articulated her thoughts on it in that way. Don't get me wrong, she's always been really supportive of my intellect. She's always told me how bright I am. For that matter my whole family has. But, you really have to get out into the world and have it reinforced by perfect strangers to really have it get through. I always thought my family said things like that because they had to so they would appear polite in trying to be supportive. I guess it's not really the case, and that they were being really honest. (Remember, I have severe trust issues, I trust almost no one. And if you'd lived my life, you'd know why.) But now, after this semester, my ambitions toward teaching are no more. I refuse to be paid $36K a year for standing in a classroom where children may or may not be carrying weapons. Teaching is something that I do better than most without that precious piece of paper that says I can, it's a natural given and taking it up as a career I feel would be surrendering my life to a mere existence, something I'm not willing to do anymore. My Ex seems to think that it's just ok to exist. I strongly disagree. I want to live. Being someone who's never wanted to live before, that's a pretty huge step. I have ambitions and lofty goals and they will not be satisfied by standing in front of a classroom full of ungrateful adolescents. I hated high school, why in hell would I want to spend my career in one?
The semester wrapped up yesterday afternoon at 3:45pm with my final Journalism 100 discussion group meeting. My friend who we'll call "D" and I were partners for our final project, a survey we had to give then report our results to the class in presentation form. My marks for Journalism 100 have been perfect all the way across the board. All of the papers, presentations, speeches...perfect scores for all of them. Now the only thing that's left is taking my final on Wednesday evening and I'll walk out with a 4.0 in Journalism 100. It wasn't a hard class, but it did just what it was designed to do, give me an overview of journalism and increase my vocabulary. There is a sociological aspect to journalism that I really hadn't seen before and the class that I thought was a waste of money ended up being worth more than I could have ever imagined. Funny thing, out of a class of 60 students in my Tuesday morning lecture, I am the only one my professor calls by first name. Most of the time if someone has their hand up, he just points at them and says 'go'. To me, he says, "Sheri, go ahead". That's huge. Let's just ice the cake with the fact that he was the guy I needed to impress in the department because he'll be my adviser for the next 3 years as I strive for my degree. When your professor knows you by first name, that means you've made a good impression. So that's wonderful.
World Lit has been an amazing ride. An adventure through books. I've been all over the ancient world, traveling all over the middle east, orient, Britain, the Mediterranean, and all I had to do was put my hand on a page, just like what we do in the Myst Universe. It rocked. My presentation "A World of Books" didn't come out so good. Summing up 7 years of Uru in 7 minutes was one of the hardest things I had to do. However, the papers I've written have come back with perfect scores, with a few 19's out of 20 on 2 of them. The exams have been hard, but the extra credit has been good. It's kept all of my test scores at 90 or above. So, more A's. I feel almost unstoppable in my classes this semester, I just kept racking up A after A after A after A. It's been beautiful. I have confidence I've not seen in myself in 10 years.
So, I'm looking forward to a perfect 4.0 this semester to add to the 3.75 from last semester. It's amazing what you can do when you really WANT to do something.
But, my Journalism professor added the cherry to the cake. It seems as I need to take Journalism 432 in the fall of my senior year. Journalism 432 is the Marketing Strategy class. If the professor likes the work you're doing, you get the "tap" for the spring semester and privately given the call number for an exclusive invitation only Journalism 470 class in the spring. That 470 class, well it's the Campaigns class and guess what, the people who are tapped for the invite only class go to Advertising Campaign Competition. OMG. To me that's huge. That is a step towards my One Show Pencil. I'm drooling thinking about tackling that. I WANT that so badly I could cry. I want to get in there and show the world that I'm a force to be reckoned with and that I deserve to have money thrown at me for my brilliance when it comes to Advertising. I'm hungry for the challenge. I want to see how good I really am.
So, to wrap up the semester knowing that this fall I'll be a full time student going for a IMC major (Integrated Marketing Communications) with a Communications minor. I have to thank my sisters friend Lexie for pointing me towards it when I asked her about what her major was that got her into a phenomenal high paying job.
I guess my dream is to own my own agency. I'm more of a visionary than a foot soldier, but you know what, every great general at one time was a foot soldier. You have to start at the bottom and work through all the muck and mire that gets in your way. It's like Mom says, "We all have to do things we don't necessarily like to do, but we do them so we can get onto the things we WANT to do."
This semester, oh let's just say it out loud. I kicked ass. All the things my Ex wanted for me are coming to pass and I'm not doing it for him, I'm doing it for me, and by the time I get my degree and start really shining, I'm going to eclipse him and sorry for the language, but I'm going to bury the motherfucker. Let's see him live in MY shadow and come begging for my attention and help. You reap what you sow. He sleeps with dogs and he's got fleas that I will not allow to touch me, not for any reason. I offered him a chance to be a part of all the wonderful, positive things that are happening here, and he said no to it. I replied by saying, "Well, I just want you to know that you just consciously rejected the best offer you will ever get in your life. It was a one-time only offer and I feel sorry for you for rejecting it, because I promise you, you WILL regret it, because that THING you live with, well, she might be able to write grants until her fingers fall off, but she will NEVER be anything remotely as incredible as I am and I will become even more incredible as time goes on. You choose to promote her in your business and you are consciously CHOOSING what you will get. Mediocrity. So I hope you'll be happy living a mediocre life, because mine, well, it's going to be spectacular."
It's been a year. I want to LIVE not just exist and I will not be held back by anyone. It's been 365 days without the Ex and I'm doing fine.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
I'm not sure, but I think I found out what I needed...
My desk is cleaned off.
All the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher.
I cleaned my microwave and wiped down counters in my kitchen.
My dryer is running.
I have an exam in world lit in the morning.
I guess I figured it out. It's not that the apartment is empty, it's not that I sleep alone. I was always kind of amazed on how much I liked living alone. But to tell the truth, as of late, there has really not been anyone living here.
The apartment is huge. 1100 square feet and it's just me. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, fair sized kitchen and a very nice living room, but most of the time I've lived here, I've spent the majority of it in the "guest bedroom" or what's known as my little sanctum or home office. For almost 5 years, I've sat at this desk viewing the world through CNN.com or There.com or World of Warcraft or the million places you can go via the internet. Since my office was the only room I could have a cigarette in, the office became my retreat where I could relax and be myself. But really was it all that healthy for me to stay almost locked up in this little room, smoking cigarettes and playing games? Not really. I am coming to the realization that it cut me off from life, that it acted as some sort of 'rubber room' so that I didn't get in my ex's way. That it helped me cut myself off from a life, that if examined close enough, would show itself to be a mundane existence, far from what the fates had intended for me. I realized all that just today.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been spending more time in my living room. My little home office seems restrictive and oppressing, so I've been spending time watching the big 40" plasma screen TV my parents bought me for Christmas. I've got candles galore, I moved everything away from the front of my fireplace and I've had it going almost every night, along with the candles, making it such a homey environment that it seems almost a crime to turn off the fireplace, blow out the candles and go into my office.
When the ex left, I made it my mission to remove him from my bedroom. I purchased all new linens for the bed, hung a painting that was purposefully the opposite of what he had hanging on the wall before. Over the last year, I've cleaned out under the sink in my bathroom, cleaned out closets, moved furniture all to get rid of the remnants of the ex. All of his garbage like empty soap boxes, his shaving gear, all the little things I can only guess he had already replaced and had with him over at that thing's apartment he was spending more time at than here. I still have two more places to work on, the underneath of the sink in the guest bathroom and his drawer in the master bath.
Sometimes, I think I'm a coward or lazy for not going in there as soon as possible and getting rid of everything. Cleaning it all out and making more room for me. I think I'm afraid of it because it will reinforce the fact that he's gone and that I've been abandoned. I guess I'm terrified because I'm afraid it will hurt and remind me that I never really lived here in the first place, it was just a place he could stash me and keep me quiet. But, that's the kicker. I've never really LIVED here. I've slept here, cooked here, done my laundry here, yes. I inhabit here. But I finally figured out that I've never really lived here and the one thing that was missing from this place was me. I've been a ghost in my own life, never really living, just existing far beyond the real world, tucked away, not really understanding that it's ME that makes things special, that it's my essence that would make things better. That I had to try to see the world beyond the 11 x 11 room that is my office. That there is a world out there and it really doesn't matter if I'm alone or not, I have to live, I need to breathe in a world and an environment that I need to create for myself. It doesn't depend on anything else. My wildest dreams could come true with my pal KP walking in the door right now, but it wouldn't matter because it wouldn't be MY world he would enter, it would be a vapid existence, no more than that. It wouldn't have my essence imbued into it.
So I guess you could say that I finally figured out what my life needs and it's not a 5'8 Hawaiian, it's not company, it's not anything that money could buy or a person, it needs ME. It needs me to get off of my rump and live. Not just exist, but LIVE. To vicariously live through others isn't life. It's the deep seated need to make sure that I'm living my life on my terms that will make the difference.
I know all of my A's in school should have told me that. That all of the things I've accomplished in the last year should have, but really, it takes a moment of epiphany to realize that there is more to life than just waking up, taking a pill and sitting behind a computer. It's all very tough habits to break. Looks like me cleaning my kitchen three days in a row and finally hitting my goal of putting my dirty dish in the dishwasher after I was done with it to make me see it all. Yes, that might be normal to you, but in my world where an enabler took care of everything for so long, that's pretty major.
Oh well. I went to the grocery store last week and got myself enough groceries for the month. I think I may just make myself a roast tomorrow night.
But I've got to go. It's late and I've got an 8:30am class in the morning.
It's like Mame said, "Live, Live, Live, life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." Looks like I need to step up to the table, huh?
All the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher.
I cleaned my microwave and wiped down counters in my kitchen.
My dryer is running.
I have an exam in world lit in the morning.
I guess I figured it out. It's not that the apartment is empty, it's not that I sleep alone. I was always kind of amazed on how much I liked living alone. But to tell the truth, as of late, there has really not been anyone living here.
The apartment is huge. 1100 square feet and it's just me. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, fair sized kitchen and a very nice living room, but most of the time I've lived here, I've spent the majority of it in the "guest bedroom" or what's known as my little sanctum or home office. For almost 5 years, I've sat at this desk viewing the world through CNN.com or There.com or World of Warcraft or the million places you can go via the internet. Since my office was the only room I could have a cigarette in, the office became my retreat where I could relax and be myself. But really was it all that healthy for me to stay almost locked up in this little room, smoking cigarettes and playing games? Not really. I am coming to the realization that it cut me off from life, that it acted as some sort of 'rubber room' so that I didn't get in my ex's way. That it helped me cut myself off from a life, that if examined close enough, would show itself to be a mundane existence, far from what the fates had intended for me. I realized all that just today.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been spending more time in my living room. My little home office seems restrictive and oppressing, so I've been spending time watching the big 40" plasma screen TV my parents bought me for Christmas. I've got candles galore, I moved everything away from the front of my fireplace and I've had it going almost every night, along with the candles, making it such a homey environment that it seems almost a crime to turn off the fireplace, blow out the candles and go into my office.
When the ex left, I made it my mission to remove him from my bedroom. I purchased all new linens for the bed, hung a painting that was purposefully the opposite of what he had hanging on the wall before. Over the last year, I've cleaned out under the sink in my bathroom, cleaned out closets, moved furniture all to get rid of the remnants of the ex. All of his garbage like empty soap boxes, his shaving gear, all the little things I can only guess he had already replaced and had with him over at that thing's apartment he was spending more time at than here. I still have two more places to work on, the underneath of the sink in the guest bathroom and his drawer in the master bath.
Sometimes, I think I'm a coward or lazy for not going in there as soon as possible and getting rid of everything. Cleaning it all out and making more room for me. I think I'm afraid of it because it will reinforce the fact that he's gone and that I've been abandoned. I guess I'm terrified because I'm afraid it will hurt and remind me that I never really lived here in the first place, it was just a place he could stash me and keep me quiet. But, that's the kicker. I've never really LIVED here. I've slept here, cooked here, done my laundry here, yes. I inhabit here. But I finally figured out that I've never really lived here and the one thing that was missing from this place was me. I've been a ghost in my own life, never really living, just existing far beyond the real world, tucked away, not really understanding that it's ME that makes things special, that it's my essence that would make things better. That I had to try to see the world beyond the 11 x 11 room that is my office. That there is a world out there and it really doesn't matter if I'm alone or not, I have to live, I need to breathe in a world and an environment that I need to create for myself. It doesn't depend on anything else. My wildest dreams could come true with my pal KP walking in the door right now, but it wouldn't matter because it wouldn't be MY world he would enter, it would be a vapid existence, no more than that. It wouldn't have my essence imbued into it.
So I guess you could say that I finally figured out what my life needs and it's not a 5'8 Hawaiian, it's not company, it's not anything that money could buy or a person, it needs ME. It needs me to get off of my rump and live. Not just exist, but LIVE. To vicariously live through others isn't life. It's the deep seated need to make sure that I'm living my life on my terms that will make the difference.
I know all of my A's in school should have told me that. That all of the things I've accomplished in the last year should have, but really, it takes a moment of epiphany to realize that there is more to life than just waking up, taking a pill and sitting behind a computer. It's all very tough habits to break. Looks like me cleaning my kitchen three days in a row and finally hitting my goal of putting my dirty dish in the dishwasher after I was done with it to make me see it all. Yes, that might be normal to you, but in my world where an enabler took care of everything for so long, that's pretty major.
Oh well. I went to the grocery store last week and got myself enough groceries for the month. I think I may just make myself a roast tomorrow night.
But I've got to go. It's late and I've got an 8:30am class in the morning.
It's like Mame said, "Live, Live, Live, life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death." Looks like I need to step up to the table, huh?
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Movies that remind you of the "Why's"
Let's go over the last week before I do my rant on the Why's of life.
I stopped into the admissions department over at UNLV, seems as come fall, well I'll be a full-time sophomore on my way to Junior year status. Why did it take so long to get here? Well, let's set the way back clock for 1990. Working until 11pm at night at Disney World in Florida combined with an 8am Monday-Wednesday-Friday 8am chemistry class that I was way out of my league for ended up having me flunk out of school at the University of Central Florida. Yeah, I spent most of those days that I went off to school passed out on my sorority house couch. So, my first time around in the University scene didn't go so good. But out of all of it, I came out with 35 credits to my name that had barely passing grades. Two UNLV semesters later, Fall with a 3.75 and this semester with a projected 4.0, I've lifted my average high enough to, get this, be admissable. Ok now that's a HUGE OMG moment. I went from having to endure having a status as a 'non-degree seeking student' to being able to enroll this fall as a full-fledged, full-time, degree seeking student. And I did it all on my own.
Next, I had a Thyroid Ultrasound last week. Thanks to my lovely auto-immune disease called "Hashimoto's Thyroiditis", my thyroid now looks like a dog's chew toy, with so many dimples and nodules in it, it's barely recognizable anymore. The disease is progressing and eventually my thyroid will disintegrate. That's the nature of the disease though. A lot of people get freaked out when I talk about it. It's simple, my body is confused so it thinks my thyroid is an invader and is slowly destroying it. I take a little pink pill every morning to replace what my thyroid would do naturally and it keeps me functioning normally. I'll be taking that little pill for the rest of my life. It's now just a part of my daily routine, so don't panic, it happens to a lot of people and I'm fine. I just can't ever stop taking my medication is all.
Thursday I had my endocrinologist appointment. See, part of my symptoms that go along with my disease are fatigue, depression, weight gain, muscle weakness, joint pain, oh, there's a phone book sized list of the different symptoms that go along with it. So as I was talking to my Endocrinologist, he noticed that I was tired, listless and to be honest, my depression has not been easy as of late. I'm having lots of anxiety, almost anything and everything I think about sets it off, I'm popping Xanax like they're baby aspirin, and I'm not in the best way right now. Doc simply said, "Focus on the good things". To which I replied, "What good things? Everything I think about gives me anxiety. I tried to find a happy place and I just can't find one. I don't have very pleasant memories at all, so to find one that will give me peace, there just isn't any." So, my disease in it's lovely progression is not making my life-long fight with depression any easier. I feel like I'm just running uphill with no traction whatsoever.
Today, I had my hair appointment. My stylist is such a doll, she always remarks that I've lost weight, when in reality, I've not lost much, it just keeps shifting around.
For the last week, I've spent some time at my local Blockbuster. I never rented very many movies, I usually just wait until they come on HBO and play a billion times until they're taken out of the rotation. But, since I needed to watch "Hamlet" for my World Lit class, because if I had to read it, I was going to snore through it or not do it, so the film seemed the best sure-fire way to make sure I choked down what is argued to be the world's greatest work of literature. My luck still holds, Blockbuster didn't have it, so to iTunes I went and rented it, I had originally planned for the Mel Gibson version, but ended up with Kenneth Branagh's version. Ok. If you're going to do the FOUR hours that is Hamlet, do the Branagh version. It's got a star studded cast and absolutely gorgeous. On top of all that, you've got Billy Crystal as one of the grave diggers before the "Yorrick" scene and it is the work of Bill Shakespeare 110% word-for-word. By far, it's easy as hell to understand. However, it did take me about a day to stop thinking in iambic pentameter. The paper I wrote for it was called "The Fresh Prince of Fair Hair". Yeah, I got a perfect score on my paper. Thanks Doc T.
All semester long, I've been giving my World Lit professor great titles for the response papers I've had to write for the works of literature we read:
On why stories are important to us: A View of the World Through Different Eyes
The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gordon Gekko
The Odyssey (Part 1): The Opportunist
The Odyssey (Part 2): Wrapped Around Your Finger (the questions were based on Scylla and Charybdis featured in The Police song of the same name)
Macbeth: Drama King, with Extra Ketchup
On Tragedy as referred to Macbeth: Tragedy Hits Scotland. Film At Eleven.
The Ramayana of Valmiki: Life in the Myst Universe
Oedipus the King: Use Your Head, Don't Lose Your Head
Medea: Rock On, Sister
Dante's Inferno (1-17): In Over Your Head
The film Se7en: The Deadlies
The 1001 Nights: Step Aside, Lady Coming Through
The 1001 Nights "Tale of the Porter": Make Your Words Kind, Gentle and Tasteful...
The 1001 Nights Conclusion: Yes, Yes. We Know, 'All Praise Be'...
Hamlet: The Fresh Prince of Fair Hair
So for Macbeth and Hamlet, the movies held me through them. It helped me understand the story and have a visual representation. As I've always said, I'm a triple-threat learner, auditory, visual and tactile. So I had to hear the words being spoken and see the action to have it really sink in. Now back to Blockbuster...so I struck out trying to find Hamlet, but found a whole store full of the audio/visual stimuli I constantly require. I rented "Star Trek", "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". On the next visit just today, I picked up "Terminator Salvation", "Transformers: Rise of the Fallen" and the kicker of it all "The First Wives Club".
I saw that The First Wives Club was playing on the Oxygen Network, but with how many commercials there are and how I have to have the story be congruous to hold my attention, I went for a rental instead. I finished watching it a little bit ago.
What struck me out of that film is that there is life after your ex walks out. Yep, there is.
Ok, we're sneaking up slowly but surely on the first anniversary of my ex hitting the door. This is good...
Let's go over the last year...
I get into UNLV. I start making good grades.
I start cleaning out closets & removing my ex from the apartment.
I get brand new bed linens.
I get myself a Lichtenstein Poster.
I finish the fall semester with a 3.75.
My sister gets breast cancer.
My sister has a double mastectomy.
The spring semester starts.
My sister starts chemotherapy because she's HER2 positive.
I finally get under the sinks in my bathrooms and finish cleaning out the mess left by my ex.
I get voted #1 speech in my Journalism 100 class and awarded extra credit for it.
I figure out that I can't live without my pal KP or my pals in my WoW guild. I quit and went back.
My thyroid disease starts progressing again.
I decide to change my major to Advertising/Public Relations with a minor in Communications.
I find out that all my hard work at school has paid off, I'm admissible this fall.
And I did this on my own. Yeah, there is life after the door hits the ex in the ass on the way out. He went for the Bassett-hound faced bitch and I got a life relatively free of him that's filled with success built by my own hands. It's something. I was telling my Endocrinologist about it all and after the initial excitement wore off, I felt myself in the same position that I was in before I became a drug addict, so desperate to feel good, that the rush of success wore off quickly and that I needed to feel it again.
In some ways, I feel like Hamlet when he's pissed at himself that he wants to commit suicide and Ophelia doesn't think about it, she just does it. But then I look at all that I've accomplished. Yeah, my apartment is a mess right now, I spend too much time playing World of Warcraft and I'm still torn up about my sister and her cancer, the fact that I've been abandoned, again, but I've had the oomph to make sure my clothes are washed, my dishes are done, my homework is done and turned in on time, and I got myself to admissible status.
I guess this girl is doing it for herself. It's slow and sluggish right now. I feel out of focus. But, I'm on my feet and moving. Things aren't the most interesting right now, but they're progressing. Not sure about much right now, it feels like everything is high up in the air. However, it's one step at a time right?
And the brave part of you says, "Keep moving forward." It's the ladies in "The First Wives Club", it's going out and making it happen, and on the other hand, it's like the film "The Women", where Meg Ryan stands up and gets things moving and becomes greater for the experience of being left by her husband for another woman. It's the madness of Hamlet with the humility of the Ramayana of Valmiki. It's identifying the Odysseus' of the world and making sure they're seeing Penelope stand up and say "Kiss my ass". It's Medea's wrath that visualizes a game plan makes it work. It's the D'ni survival instinct. It's all of these things that culminate inside my head and heart and scream "WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE LATELY", that asks honestly if I've given it all I've got even though I feel like road-kill.
I guess those movies are there to inspire. They're there to let you know, to let me know, I'm not alone.
I stopped into the admissions department over at UNLV, seems as come fall, well I'll be a full-time sophomore on my way to Junior year status. Why did it take so long to get here? Well, let's set the way back clock for 1990. Working until 11pm at night at Disney World in Florida combined with an 8am Monday-Wednesday-Friday 8am chemistry class that I was way out of my league for ended up having me flunk out of school at the University of Central Florida. Yeah, I spent most of those days that I went off to school passed out on my sorority house couch. So, my first time around in the University scene didn't go so good. But out of all of it, I came out with 35 credits to my name that had barely passing grades. Two UNLV semesters later, Fall with a 3.75 and this semester with a projected 4.0, I've lifted my average high enough to, get this, be admissable. Ok now that's a HUGE OMG moment. I went from having to endure having a status as a 'non-degree seeking student' to being able to enroll this fall as a full-fledged, full-time, degree seeking student. And I did it all on my own.
Next, I had a Thyroid Ultrasound last week. Thanks to my lovely auto-immune disease called "Hashimoto's Thyroiditis", my thyroid now looks like a dog's chew toy, with so many dimples and nodules in it, it's barely recognizable anymore. The disease is progressing and eventually my thyroid will disintegrate. That's the nature of the disease though. A lot of people get freaked out when I talk about it. It's simple, my body is confused so it thinks my thyroid is an invader and is slowly destroying it. I take a little pink pill every morning to replace what my thyroid would do naturally and it keeps me functioning normally. I'll be taking that little pill for the rest of my life. It's now just a part of my daily routine, so don't panic, it happens to a lot of people and I'm fine. I just can't ever stop taking my medication is all.
Thursday I had my endocrinologist appointment. See, part of my symptoms that go along with my disease are fatigue, depression, weight gain, muscle weakness, joint pain, oh, there's a phone book sized list of the different symptoms that go along with it. So as I was talking to my Endocrinologist, he noticed that I was tired, listless and to be honest, my depression has not been easy as of late. I'm having lots of anxiety, almost anything and everything I think about sets it off, I'm popping Xanax like they're baby aspirin, and I'm not in the best way right now. Doc simply said, "Focus on the good things". To which I replied, "What good things? Everything I think about gives me anxiety. I tried to find a happy place and I just can't find one. I don't have very pleasant memories at all, so to find one that will give me peace, there just isn't any." So, my disease in it's lovely progression is not making my life-long fight with depression any easier. I feel like I'm just running uphill with no traction whatsoever.
Today, I had my hair appointment. My stylist is such a doll, she always remarks that I've lost weight, when in reality, I've not lost much, it just keeps shifting around.
For the last week, I've spent some time at my local Blockbuster. I never rented very many movies, I usually just wait until they come on HBO and play a billion times until they're taken out of the rotation. But, since I needed to watch "Hamlet" for my World Lit class, because if I had to read it, I was going to snore through it or not do it, so the film seemed the best sure-fire way to make sure I choked down what is argued to be the world's greatest work of literature. My luck still holds, Blockbuster didn't have it, so to iTunes I went and rented it, I had originally planned for the Mel Gibson version, but ended up with Kenneth Branagh's version. Ok. If you're going to do the FOUR hours that is Hamlet, do the Branagh version. It's got a star studded cast and absolutely gorgeous. On top of all that, you've got Billy Crystal as one of the grave diggers before the "Yorrick" scene and it is the work of Bill Shakespeare 110% word-for-word. By far, it's easy as hell to understand. However, it did take me about a day to stop thinking in iambic pentameter. The paper I wrote for it was called "The Fresh Prince of Fair Hair". Yeah, I got a perfect score on my paper. Thanks Doc T.
All semester long, I've been giving my World Lit professor great titles for the response papers I've had to write for the works of literature we read:
On why stories are important to us: A View of the World Through Different Eyes
The Epic of Gilgamesh: Gordon Gekko
The Odyssey (Part 1): The Opportunist
The Odyssey (Part 2): Wrapped Around Your Finger (the questions were based on Scylla and Charybdis featured in The Police song of the same name)
Macbeth: Drama King, with Extra Ketchup
On Tragedy as referred to Macbeth: Tragedy Hits Scotland. Film At Eleven.
The Ramayana of Valmiki: Life in the Myst Universe
Oedipus the King: Use Your Head, Don't Lose Your Head
Medea: Rock On, Sister
Dante's Inferno (1-17): In Over Your Head
The film Se7en: The Deadlies
The 1001 Nights: Step Aside, Lady Coming Through
The 1001 Nights "Tale of the Porter": Make Your Words Kind, Gentle and Tasteful...
The 1001 Nights Conclusion: Yes, Yes. We Know, 'All Praise Be'...
Hamlet: The Fresh Prince of Fair Hair
So for Macbeth and Hamlet, the movies held me through them. It helped me understand the story and have a visual representation. As I've always said, I'm a triple-threat learner, auditory, visual and tactile. So I had to hear the words being spoken and see the action to have it really sink in. Now back to Blockbuster...so I struck out trying to find Hamlet, but found a whole store full of the audio/visual stimuli I constantly require. I rented "Star Trek", "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". On the next visit just today, I picked up "Terminator Salvation", "Transformers: Rise of the Fallen" and the kicker of it all "The First Wives Club".
I saw that The First Wives Club was playing on the Oxygen Network, but with how many commercials there are and how I have to have the story be congruous to hold my attention, I went for a rental instead. I finished watching it a little bit ago.
What struck me out of that film is that there is life after your ex walks out. Yep, there is.
Ok, we're sneaking up slowly but surely on the first anniversary of my ex hitting the door. This is good...
Let's go over the last year...
I get into UNLV. I start making good grades.
I start cleaning out closets & removing my ex from the apartment.
I get brand new bed linens.
I get myself a Lichtenstein Poster.
I finish the fall semester with a 3.75.
My sister gets breast cancer.
My sister has a double mastectomy.
The spring semester starts.
My sister starts chemotherapy because she's HER2 positive.
I finally get under the sinks in my bathrooms and finish cleaning out the mess left by my ex.
I get voted #1 speech in my Journalism 100 class and awarded extra credit for it.
I figure out that I can't live without my pal KP or my pals in my WoW guild. I quit and went back.
My thyroid disease starts progressing again.
I decide to change my major to Advertising/Public Relations with a minor in Communications.
I find out that all my hard work at school has paid off, I'm admissible this fall.
And I did this on my own. Yeah, there is life after the door hits the ex in the ass on the way out. He went for the Bassett-hound faced bitch and I got a life relatively free of him that's filled with success built by my own hands. It's something. I was telling my Endocrinologist about it all and after the initial excitement wore off, I felt myself in the same position that I was in before I became a drug addict, so desperate to feel good, that the rush of success wore off quickly and that I needed to feel it again.
In some ways, I feel like Hamlet when he's pissed at himself that he wants to commit suicide and Ophelia doesn't think about it, she just does it. But then I look at all that I've accomplished. Yeah, my apartment is a mess right now, I spend too much time playing World of Warcraft and I'm still torn up about my sister and her cancer, the fact that I've been abandoned, again, but I've had the oomph to make sure my clothes are washed, my dishes are done, my homework is done and turned in on time, and I got myself to admissible status.
I guess this girl is doing it for herself. It's slow and sluggish right now. I feel out of focus. But, I'm on my feet and moving. Things aren't the most interesting right now, but they're progressing. Not sure about much right now, it feels like everything is high up in the air. However, it's one step at a time right?
And the brave part of you says, "Keep moving forward." It's the ladies in "The First Wives Club", it's going out and making it happen, and on the other hand, it's like the film "The Women", where Meg Ryan stands up and gets things moving and becomes greater for the experience of being left by her husband for another woman. It's the madness of Hamlet with the humility of the Ramayana of Valmiki. It's identifying the Odysseus' of the world and making sure they're seeing Penelope stand up and say "Kiss my ass". It's Medea's wrath that visualizes a game plan makes it work. It's the D'ni survival instinct. It's all of these things that culminate inside my head and heart and scream "WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE LATELY", that asks honestly if I've given it all I've got even though I feel like road-kill.
I guess those movies are there to inspire. They're there to let you know, to let me know, I'm not alone.
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