Hello, It’s Summer Ending

So I had this funny story to tell about putting a wedding planning guide with the Women’s Studies books in Barnes and Noble. Not as a statement or anything. Just because that sort of stuff cracks me up.

But then I started thinking about registering for this coming semester.

And ugh.

I love school. I love college. I love learning and having classmates and I definitely prefer it to working, although the jobs I’ve had thus far haven’t exactly been dream jobs so that’s not saying a lot. But still. I like it. The part I don’t like?

Registering. Figuring out what classes I need to take. Worrying that I chose a bad professor. I don’t want to have another English 120 incident, or Math 103. Or History 100. I want professors I can both LEARN FROM and PASS THEIR CLASS. Is that too much to ask?

Falling Apart

I am aware of things, like the way my heart beats in my chest and the way my breathing is, that most people aren’t. I’m aware of head rushes when I stand up, of my heart beating oddly when I panic. I’m aware of being tired. I’m aware of being unnoticeably different.

I’m aware that this isn’t how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to be healthy. I was healthy, or so they thought, at least for that first month. I imagine the nurse telling my parents they had a healthy baby girl, and it breaks my heart just a little. 

A healthy baby girl who had a pediatric cardiologist at a month old.

A healthy baby girl who ran them into bankruptcy with her medical bills.

A healthy baby girl who missed most of kindergarten because life isn’t fair.

A healthy baby girl who had an open heart surgery at twelve.

I wonder sometimes, what my life would be without this, without my “health problem,” and I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine being ten and being able to run up the stairs without collapsing at the top. I can’t imagine a normal junior high experience, free of the back brace. I can’t imagine shopping for bathing suits and not thinking about the scars on all sides of my body.

I can’t imagine NORMAL, whatever that is. And I know there’s no normal, I know everyone has problems, I know some kids have to work because their families have no money or they get crap for parents or they have even worse health concerns than I do.

But I still wonder about it, about normal, whatever it is and What If I had been born with it.

I met this girl, last time I was in the hospital to see my doctor. She was cute, sweet, Asain, maybe two years old, maybe three. She was pulling toys out of the toy box and handing them to me. She was happy. And her mom was there, smiling, looking at her adorable daughter.

And I thought, Why is she here? In this childrens’ hospital, in the cardiology unit? What’s wrong with her? And I thought about my elementary school years, middle school years, and thought, Is that what she will have to go through? Will her parents have to go through what mine did?

I know I’m lucky. I know this. My parents, my sister, my faith, my life. It’s all so perfect. I shouldn’t be ungrateful, I shouldn’t wish for anything, at least nothing for myself. I shouldn’t feel sorry about how I am.

But sometimes I do. Sometimes, like now, when I’m facing this stupid Halter monitor test, I just want to be someone who never had to worry about any of this, someone who doesn’t have to go get a little machine hooked up to her so that they can see how her heart is doing.

I’m so so SO sick of dealing with it. I’m finally halfway normal, finally a girl people can just see as ANOTHER PERSON, and I still have to go in and deal with this. I know. I should shut up. I should look at the cards I’ve been handed and just make the best of them. And I do do that. I’ve done that for eighteen years.

Sometimes I need to rant. I need to be mad. I need to, regardless of knowing that eventually Revelation 21:4 will be a reality and “death and sickness will be no more,” freak out a little bit.

Going to the hospital makes me feel weak. It makes me feel like that little girl, so many years ago, not knowing what was going to happen. It makes me feel small. It makes me forget that I’m in college, that I have a job, that I’ve been published, that I can make people laugh, that sometimes I have good hair days. And it just makes me feel insignificant. Like someone who could fall apart at any moment.

Morning Weirdness

So something weird happened this morning.

I woke up, early (okay okay, stop laughing, that’s weird but it’s not the WEIRD THING that I’m talking about) and you know how sometimes, when you first wake up, you’re all disoriented? It was like that. It was five-something (almost six) in the morning and my alarms hadn’t rang.

Or I guess they had and my sister turned them off. Whatever. I didn’t know that at the time, all I knew was that both alarms were turned off.

And for a second I had this crazy idea, the thought that maybe someone had CAME INTO OUR HOUSE AND TURNED MY ALARMS OFF. Like, have you ever read that book, Ginger Pye or Pinky Pye or whatever it’s called, with the man in the yellow hat? Remember how it was always slightly creepy whenever he was around? I pretty much thought the man in the yellow hat had broke into our house and then turned my alarms off. I’m not quite sure why he snuck in and turned them off, but I think maybe it had something to do with just generally being a CREEPY GUY and sneaking around our house.

But like I said, I was barely awake and totally disoriented. And what had actually happened was that MY SISTER turned the alarms off. But whatever.

And then I noticed I had a missed call on my phone.

IT WAS SIX IN THE MORNING AND I HAD A MISSED CALL. Apparently someone with a number I don’t recognize called me at 5:09 this morning. And why? And who? And why didn’t they leave a message? 

I mean, think about it. Five in the morning. 49% of people are still asleep; 49% of people WISH they were still asleep. And the other 2% of people are MORNING PEOPLE and they don’t really count because they are mutant. (Ha, not that I mean to insult any morning people out there reading my blog. I’m just saying. Most of us like to be asleep while the sun is still sleeping.)

Anyhow. That was my morning weirdness.

Words I Love

Quotes. In my mind they all hover around the same thing, but I’m not sure anyone else would get that.

The word friends doesn’t seem to stretch big enough to describe how we feel about each other. We forget where one of us starts and the other one stops. –The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

“People find a way through just about anything.” –The City of Ember

“That’s love, right? When someone else’s pain hurts as bad as your own?” –Paper Hearts

They looked for one another when nothing else was happening, the way you pick up a magazine or look in the cupboard for a snack. Not exactly by accident and not exactly on purpose. You could go out into the world and do new things and meet new people, and then you could come home and just sit on the stoop with someone you had never not known, and watch lightning bugs blink on and off. –Criss Cross

The human instinct for self-preservation is strong. I know, because mine pulls at me, too, like the needle on a compass. And everybody - I’ve been reading some philosophy - everybody seems to agree that the instinct and responsibility of all humans is to take care of themselves first. You have the right to self-defense. You have the right to survive, if you can. –The Rules of Survival

I’m talking about the ones who, for whatever reason, are as much a part of you as your own soul. Their place in your heart is tender; a bruise of longing, a pulse of unfinished business. Just hearing their names pushes and pulls at you in a hundred ways, and when you try to describe them even to yourself, words are useless. If you had a lifetime to talk, there would still be things left unsaid. –Sweethearts

Note: You guys, thank you. You left some amazingly kind comments on my last post and I responded to all of them.

My Dandelion Wish

There’s a phrase, a mantra of sorts, that continually runs through my mind. Sometimes it’s like I believe that if I think it hard enough, they’ll hear it, they’ll get the message without me having to actually tell them.

Please be okay.

Not that telling them would be the worst thing. It’s just that we don’t talk about it. An unspoken rule is not to ask, not to tell. But sometimes, those rare occasions when we talk, I can hear it in their voices. I can tell. And I want to ask, I almost do, are you okay? But I know the simple question, such a nicety for most, would come out serious and require a serious answer. And maybe I don’t want to hear it or maybe I don’t want to make them say it, but whatever the reason, I don’t ask.

Please be okay.

We talk, when we do talk, about trivial things. Music, television, movies we want to see. We tell stories about our friends, make fun of our siblings. We laugh. We joke. We steer clear of anything that gets too close. I used to think it was wrong, our obvious avoidance, and then I thought maybe not. Maybe this is just what they need - an escape, a refuge, someone to just laugh with.

Please be okay.

I have this house, these parents, this car, this everything. I have this dad, the one who can always make me feel better, the one I can always run too. And this mom, the one so caring, so amazing. And more than that, I’ve got them TOGETHER. I can hear them talking at night, drinking coffee together in the mornings. I never have to worry that I might wake up to yelling, that I might be scared to come out of my room because of what’s on the other side. And sometimes, if I think of it too much, that gets to me. The unevenness of it. I want to shake up this snowglobe of life so that they get it too because NO WAY do they deserve the crap situation they got.

Please be okay.

I know where the band-aids are, where the Neosporin is. And that used to be enough. I could clean the scrapes and put ice on the bruises. I could play peacemaker and keep things in order. I can’t do that anymore. Things are too out of control. I’m not big enough, not strong enough, lacking the superpower to Make Things Okay.

Please be okay.

And if I was granted one wish, I know what it would be because it’s the rhythm my heart beats to, it’s the reverberating words in my head, it’s the one thing I always always always, no matter what else is going on, pray about.

Please please please be okay.

 

NOTE: You guys, this is amazingly personal. I don’t even know why I’m posting it really, knowing that people I know read my blog and might be able to figure out what I’m talking about specifically, but there’s a part of me that needed to write it and another part of me that needs it out there, for others to see.

Happy Music Post

Good morning all.

The past week has overwhelmingly been a flurry of what seems to be very bad luck. Taking my car to the mechanic, losing my cellphone, missing meetings, being locked out of my house. It was eventful.

But now my mom is home. And my dad is home. And last night I went to the (small) book study and WOO it appears things are turning good again. Probably because I no longer have to be the grown up of the house, something which, if you were wondering, was very very stressful for me.

So anyway.

Right now I’m all peaceful and happy listening to Paramore, which has me thinking.

Lou Bega makes me happy because it’s THE CD that the four of us listened to, over and over ad nauseum way back when.

The B52’s make me happy because they’re just SO CRAZY (and also they remind me of the four).

Avril Lavigne’s second CD makes me happy because it was the one I listened to nonstop before the move, so it pretty much became the soundtrack for change.

Hardcore country stuff (Big & Rich, The Lost Trailers, etc) make me happy because they’re like home. Which I know makes it sound like I grew up white trash, but all I really mean is that those are the songs I’ve always always listened too.

The soundtrack to West Side Story makes me happy because for a while there, after seeing my 9th grade high school’s production of it, I was obsessed with the music from West Side Story.

But Paramore? It makes me happy for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON. I think I just like it and that’s insanely rare for me seeing as how practically EVERY SONG ON THE PLANET (including Paramore’s) remind me of something or someone or some time. So it’s very odd for me to JUST LIKE a band, but I just like Paramore.

Also, what the heck does Paramore mean? Wikipedia doesn’t know. Not that Wikipedia is my go-to source for these types of questions. Nuh-uh. That would be Google.

Oh and PS I do realize the theme of my blog keeps changing on you guys and sorry about that. I’m just still trying to find a layout I LOVE enough to keep.

We’ll See

So I’m giving up on NaBloPoMo. It seems to me that forcing myself to write in here every day just makes my posts all crappy and whatnot.

So yeah.

Possibly I’ll post later tonight. But I don’t know. We’ll see.

Rewind Plz?

Ugh.

You know how some days you just WANT TO WAKE UP AND HAVE IT ALL BE A DREAM?

Yeah, today was one of those days.

I missed the meeting.

I had a nightmare.

I felt sick. (Okay okay I KNOW I feel sick a lot. I always have. I don’t know why.)

The engine light came back on in my car.

And I was locked out of my house when I got home from work.

So… how was your day?

Here’s A Fact

I’d love to write something GOOD but my head is full of BLARGH.

Fact: I lost my phone today. At Albie’s. I then went back to Albie’s on my lunch and retrieved it.

Fact: I’M WORKING SUNDAY MORNING! WHAT? This news comes with me scrambling to find a Saturday meeting to go to.

Fact: My mommy will be home soon. Woo!

Fact: Paramore is the awesome. 

Fact: Yesterday I wrote this whole three page (typed) letter to my Granma then deleted it. Because I realized that I didn’t actually want anyone to read it, I just wanted to write it. Also realized that everything I was freaking out about in the letter is NOTHING TO FREAK OUT ABOUT and clearly I just need to stop comparing myself to others and thinking everything is a competition.

Fact: Over 3,000 words BOO-YA BABY!

Fact: Taylor the Lovely just told me my foot looks funny. How sweet.

Sorry for the lame post. Maybe I will post again tonight, but in case I don’t… this is it for today.

Questionableness

I’m stealing a question-thingy from Erin. And taking full liberties to change/discard the questions as I see fit.

Because I’m fun like that.

1. How has blogging changed your life?

I’ve made some blog-friends and discovered other blogs I like to read. Plus it’s a wonderful place to vent/rant/ramble. 

2. What do you do before bedtime?

Usually I write, or try to at least. Or read. Or write in my journal.

3. What did you have for breakfast this morning?

Oh sad. I’m really not sure if I even had breakfast. (Bad Jordyn!) I did have a burrito, but I probably ate too late to call it “breakfast” since I went to run some quick errands first.

4. What is ONE place (on earth) you’d visit if you had the money/time?

Uhm… so many options, so many places I want to see! I choose… Athens, Greece. I’ve had a love affair with Greece and Italy since studying their histories in ninth grade in the same way I’ve always loved Egypt since I learned about it in Horizons. (Of course there are many other places I want to see. Like Italy and Spain and London, England and Paris, France and Oregon [of the US] and many many more. And I don’t want to do a whole buttload of the tourist-y things. I just want to walk around and breathe the air and eat and see things and people and get a feel of the atmosphere.)

5. Extrovert or introvert?

Introvert. Next question.

6. What do you do in your free time?

Write. Read. Write some more.

7. Do you trust easily?

Yeah, I think so.

8. What was the name of your very first friend?

Jordan. He was this little kid (I mean, I was a little kid back then too, I know) that my aunt used to babysit. This was the Nice Boy Jordan, not the Evil One.

9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy these days?

If I try hard enough I can ALWAYS find something to be happy about, and most times I don’t even have to try. But lately I’m concentrating on the good stuff in life, so I choose to take the fifth here.

10. What is your best quality?

I don’t know. I’d like to say that it’s that I care A LOT, but then sometimes I feel like I care TOO MUCH, so it can also be a negative thing because I tend to care about others more than they care about me. But overall, yeah, I think it’s that I care.

11. Do you believe in evolution?

No.

12. How do you see yourself?

In a mirror. Except that I think a lot of times things can look a bit different in a mirror; your image of yourself is distorted, different from how others see you. Some days I wish I could see what others see of me (literally and metaphorically speaking).

13. If you could be anyone for one day, who would you be?

The first name that popped into my head was Michelle, just so I can see how her life is. Ha, we could pull a Freaky Friday. That’d be fun! (Oh plus I could meet her friends.)

14. In a perfect world, what would be your ideal career?

Well yesterday I joked that I could be a “Professional Speller,” but I think we all know my ACTUAL dream job is to get paid to write the sort of novels I want to write (for young adults).

15. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?

This is like one of those trick math problems they would give us in Mathcounts where you spent forever trying to figure it out and in the end you realized there wasn’t actually enough information to solve the problem. Mo info, plz.

16. How many children do you want to have, if any?

Two or four. I think if it weren’t for money stuff, I would probably really love to have four. 

17. Which do you like better - giving or recieving?

Uhm. I really like both A LOT A LOT A LOT.

18. What’s your favorite fairy tale?

Beauty and the Beast. Does this surprise ANYONE? I also really love Snow White and Rose Red.

19. Who should play you in a movie version of your life?

You know that girl playing Bella in Twilight? She was also in The Land of Women and Zathura? Yeah, I’d really like her to play me but we don’t actually look all that alike. Maybe Alexis Bledel or that other girl in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? The one who plays Tibby? (Yeah, I’m sure NONE of these people actually look like me enough. Oh well.)

20. What were your parents going to name you if you’d been born [a boy]?

I’ve asked my mom this and she says, “We knew you were a girl.” And I say, “How?” And she says, “I don’t know; your dad just said that he knew you would be a girl. We didn’t have any doubt.” So apparently they were very sure of themselves and there was no need for a backup plan.