May 24, 2008

Those Boxes You Brought Here and Never Unpacked Are Still Patiently Waiting to Go

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It’s unbelievable - I can’t believe I’m really moving on Thursday.  Well, the moving company gave us a window of Thursday-Saturday when the truck would come… but it’s hard just imagining that in only a few days I’ll be heading out of this town…

I can’t believe I’ve lived here for 2 years.  I know it’s strange, but more than anywhere I can think of (except Seattle, I guess) - this place feels like home.  I really managed to create roots in DC, and as much as I hate this city I also love it, and I feel like I belong here.  I mean, just the other day I was standing outside my apartment building in the rain and managed to steal some tourist’s cab… I laughed about it when he was being all mad and soaked, and then I realized - who else but a city resident could do that, and not sweat it when the stupid tourist yelled at me? 

I realized that as much as I’ve missed Seattle over the past 6 years, and dreamed of going back, now that I am really going to do that… I’m sad.  I always want to be the person who steals that guy’s cab.  I always want to remember how to drive in this city, want to be able to navigate my way from any point to any other point, want to feel like I know the city…

I’m not questioning my decision to move back home.  I’m just realizing how much my two years here in DC have really meant to me.  I can’t believe that I moved here the day I graduated college, having never even been to the city… my dad helped me move in to my studio apartment in Dupont at the time… and then when he went home, I was really alone in a big city for the first time in my life.  And it’s amazing, how well I did - that summer I had 2 jobs, made friends, learned my way around, learned how to drive here (and parallel park!) - then I moved into a bigger apartment, started graduate school… I held my life down and, I really think, grew up & changed a lot.

I know a lot has changed since I moved here.  This city symbolizes moving on from a bad relationship in college, but it also symbolizes a lot of growing up in other aspects too.  I know I’m not shy anymore, after living here - the city made me more assertive, sometimes even aggressive… I’m more confident, sure in my ability to live on my own as an adult… I’ve found my partner, Liz, and am enjoying a real, adult non-college relationship…

It’s a lot to process in a short time, but I’m sure I’m really going to miss this place.  A lot more than I thought.  I hope that can coexist with being happy in Seattle.

 

May 15, 2008

Some More Thoughts on My Hospital Stay

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I don’t know how many of you have been in the hospital? It’s an incredibly dehumanizing process, very violating, very invasive, I found it terrifying, lonely, and crushingly depressing.

I also realized, on top of that, how terrifying it is to have a serious illness, to be in serious pain and be at the total mercy of nurses, doctors, and basically total strangers.

Now I am trying to work out some things about my life; There was one doctor at the hospital, Dr. Zucker, who I really respected and liked a lot, and she told me all of the possible causes of pancreatitis. I know that it was most likely auto-immune, but the fact is I never want to feel that pain again, and I am suddenly acutely aware of how fragile my body is, and how careful I need to be with it, and how careless I have been in the past.

I’m seriously re-evaluating my choices in terms of how I take care of myself. Diet seems pretty obvious - I’m on a pretty severely restricted diet for about 6 weeks and clear liquids for at least this week. But more than that, I have begun to realize the negative effects of the chemicals I put in my body. Not just smoking or drinking or inorganic foods - but medicines too. Obviously, after my restricted diet ends, I am going to finally make the move to a completely organic diet (not vegetarian, but additive/etc free). No chemicals, no antibiotics, no nitrates - nothing but food in my food, thank you very much.

But the serious re-evaluation, the hard thinking, comes down to the other meds I’ve been taking. I have always believed in balance, and I’m not going to go radical and stop all medications including antibiotics and what-have-you, because I think that’s just as harmful as loading up on chemicals, but things, I think, will change.

It turns out that most of the medications I have been taking can cause pancreatitis as a fairly common side effect - can you imagine, I have been mindlessly loading my body with these powerful chemicals without even really understanding what they were capable of doing to me??

The fact is that as the patient, I am the consumer, and I have the right to make a choice about my care. I have the right to refuse any treatment, or to revoke consent at any time from any treatment; I will make sure that my decision is informed (that’s my responsibility to myself) but the decision is mine and it is my health care provider’s job to respect me and that decision.

I have also been looking for an herbalist in DC for a consultation. I know herbs are chemicals as well, and I’m not so excited about switching from one set to another, so that’s not the key, but I’d be interested to hear if there were some alternative pancreas-friendly options for me, or if there were some long-term natural diets I could try that might help prevent a relapse in the future.

I guess I am looking at this experience as a wake-up call. Though it’s true that there was probably an underlying genetic condition that obviously has nothing to do with me or my choices, I also think that this was in part my body telling me that I have not been respecting it. My week in the hospital was terrifying, soul crushing, miserable, painful, and I never want to repeat it, so I am making a promise to myself to start treating my body like it deserves to be treated, to question everything I choose to put in it, and to do everything I can to keep my pancreas, immune system, and everything else happy and running smoothly.

Wish me luck on my new journey, and share any tips if you have them.

 

May 11, 2008

Health Disasters & my week at the hospital

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Well if anyone was wondering where I was last week - here’s the answer.  I was admitted to GW Hospital Tuesday morning with acute pancreatitis, which was probably the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life.  I went to the ER after Liz woke up and found me sobbing in bed at 6am, they admitted me at 3pm, and I spent the week on the Medical Floor in bed on morphine, nausea medicine, and antibiotics. 

Thankfully they let me out this morning once I could drink water and keep some broth down, but I look like a beat up old heroin addict from all the needle marks and bruises (they kept drawing blood because they couldn’t figure out what caused it) - and I’m homebound all week.

Turns out I have a genetic (I inherited it from my mom) auto-immune disease that causes me to occasionally make antibodies to my own organs and tissue… awesome.  So this will probably be a recurring thing until they come up with a good cure for auto-immune problems. 

Sadly this means that I will not be graduating until July 31 - I’ll walk on Friday at the ceremony but because I couldn’t finish a paper I can’t get a diploma.

So I’m on clear liquids and bedrest all week… if anyone’s interested in keeping me company and/or has ever wanted to know what I’m like on a shitload of pain medicine, just come by :)

That was not a fun experience.

 

When I’m feeling better/more lucid/etc I want to write a post about the dehumanizing and eugenicist nature of institutionalized medicine, and our society’s pathology regarding pain medicine; remind me to do that in a couple of days, I have a lot of good things to say about it.

 

April 30, 2008

hey mister rain cloud

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The signs are adding up: tomorrow is my last day of work at the Think Tank, final papers due May 6 and May 8, graduation May 16, then two weeks until we load the cats in the car and make for the West Coast.

I can’t believe how much time has passed. I was at lunch the other day listening to my boss talk about his favorite clubs in the city, and you know - before that I really thought I was quite the DC denizen - but listening to him I realized there is so much of this city I have missed since I got here two years ago. I know I’ll miss the city, but I have to wonder: will the city miss me? Sometimes the only thing reminding me I’m a DC resident is my overwhelming rage at vapid tourists on the metro. Tomorrow night though, we’re seeing OK Go, The Hush Sound, and Panic! At the Disco @ DAR Constitution Hall… so I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes.

I also can’t believe my last day of work is here. I mean, for all the pissing and moaning I did about having to wake up at 8am, I look back and realize I actually didn’t have a bad experience there. That’s so typical of me - I’ll hate something while I’m doing it, then as I’m about to leave it, suddenly I realize I’ve actually loved it all along and never want anything to change. It’s weird though, all this expectation for The Last Day. I guess they’ll take me out to lunch (if they remember I exist… I always basically thought I was the Meg Griffin of my team) and I’ll make some comments about law school and it’ll be awkward and laden with expectations of me telling them what a great experience I had, and them telling me what a great intern I’ve been. So we’ll do all that. And then at 5pm I’ll walk out the door, and the finality of it will crash onto my head and I’ll probably do something idiotic like start crying.

Lastly, on this disjointed laundry-list of things that is the insanity of my past week or so… the weekly newsflash of my dysfunctional family is that I am apparently not important enough to warrant an international phone call from my father, who is vacationing abroad, to let me know he is extending his vacation. He told my grandmother, who I rarely talk to - but serendipitously I did to talk to her the day he told her - but if he hadn’t told her, I would be stroking out at this point! I mean seriously - if you are traveling abroad, and you extend your vacation, you call your family! Because at this point, three days after they were supposed to return home, with no contact and no idea where they were - I’d be at the embassy of the country they traveled to filing a missing persons claim, and he’d get dragged off the beach by INTERPOL… all because he couldn’t bother to call me.

I mean, I’ve already been drifting in and out of irate moods (for various reasons, notably certain controversies that I can not escape on the blogs I read no matter how hard I try to ignore them) - so for full disclosure I’ll say I’m somewhat susceptible to becoming more irate by an aloof dad who refused to inform me of his desire to remain 10,000 miles away from me; but nonetheless, it doesn’t help sweeten my mood at all.

The point of this entry: I hope that newfound freedom (for freedom here, read: time to write papers) and a rockin rock concert tomorrow night will lift the curse of crankiness that has slipped over me the past few days. Fingers crossed.

 

April 7, 2008

Make a Plan to Love Me

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Administrative: Oh my goodness WordPress!! I turn my back for a week and come back and the whole thing is different!!! Yay new blogging/dashboard interface… wow. This is pretty swanky. Sweet.

In other news. As much as I feel like pouring my heart out into this little text-box, I know I’d regret it later. I’m not usually one to buckle under pressure but I guess that’s what’s going on, more than anything else, right now.

I think I posted a while ago about advice - how everyone gives it because they think they know the answer to all your problems - and how much I hate it. Especially free, unsolicited advice. You know, there’s an Alix Olson quote I always feel is relevant:
sometimes i feel like a warrior
just for making it through the day
you know sometimes you feel like a fighter
because you fight
just to keep the fighting away
And that’s so true. And I don’t think that the people who so freely and forcefully give their opinions on how badly my partner and I are living our lives appreciate just how hard we are fighting to keep everything afloat. And I don’t think they remember, when they yell at us, about what they were like when they were our age. I mean, the mistakes they made, and how they had to make them to learn.

I think that one thing I’ve learned, more than anything else, is that this is all just a big fucking work in progress. I mean every now and then we have to tear it all down and start again and it hurts and it sucks and it’s a failure but it’s also a new start, and that’s the way it goes, when you’re 22 and 24 and just starting to carve your way in this loud, terrifying, violent, difficult world.

And, you know, when you look back, I think the truth is Liz and I have done a damn fine job. We’ve fought our way through a lot, and we’re still standing, and our life is still afloat, we’re still holding it all together, and you know, I think that’s pretty fucking amazing. So no, things are not perfect, but tell me where they are - I really don’t think things are perfect for anyone, anywhere. But we have something, and we’re making it good, we’re making it work, and if that isn’t the most adult, mature thing any two human beings can do then I don’t know what is.

So tell me we don’t pass the litmus test for adulthood. Nobody told us how to do this. Nobody gave us an instruction manual, nobody read us the rules, nobody taught us what we’ve had to learn ourselves. So tell me that after 2 years of living on our own in this ridiculous city and not sinking once, after knowing when to fight and knowing when to ask for help, after making mistakes and learning from them and not making the same ones again, after working to build something, tearing it down, and building it up again, after fighting tooth and nail to build a family and a relationship and a household that works - tell me, tell us, that we’re not doing just fine on our own, or that anyone could have done it any better. I just can’t buy that.

I just wanted to write this, because, in case anyone has any doubts about our choices, or our ability to survive, I want them to know that I don’t regret any decisions we’ve made. Even if they’ve led to hardship, you know what, we’ve learned from it, and that’s fine by me. At our age, that’s okay. And the most important thing is that we’re happy. We’ve built our own life - our own life as a couple, a new family that we have built, and we like what we’ve made, no matter what. So to our critics - don’t take the bumps in the road as anything more than what they are, and don’t underestimate our incredible strength and power and our ability to overcome any obstacle, no matter what kind, as two individual adults and as a family.

 

January 24, 2008

learning not to fear the cure

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So as the move to Seattle becomes more and more imminent (and by imminent I mean about 6 months away) - I find that I have to remind myself more and more frequently that this is what I want.  What I’ve been wanting.  The answer to coastal fatigue - move home.  Home is Seattle, or at least, that’s the closest viable city to the large amorphous area I call home.  So if I want to quit switching coasts every time I need to see someone important to me, I have to consolidate, I have to move out there.  And I couldn’t ask for better - I mean, Liz wants to come with me, it’s a tier 1/top 30 school, I love Seattle, I already have a ton of friends there, both my parents will be close by and they’re both happy with the decision (the last time I could say that? can’t remember.) - there’s nothing to stop me.

Except, I mean, that I love DC.  Which is ridiculous really because I hate DC.  But that’s the problem with this city.  That you can’t really love it without really hating it, and you can’t really hate it without really loving it.  And now I have a ton of friends here too… actually my first real adult friends… who I’m going to have to leave when the academic centrifuge picks up again and spins us all around and away from each other.

You know this was the first place I ever lived as an adult, on my own, without the bubble of a dorm/school/whatever to protect me.  I moved here in the summer of 06 without ever having set foot in the city, drove down the day after I graduated college, moved into an apartment I’d never seen, said goodbye to my dad and friends, and forced myself to get a job/internship and forge a life here.  I’d spent the six or so months before that hearing from a fairly nasty influence in my life that I didn’t stand a chance at surviving on my own in the city, and I had a huge chip on my shoulder and something to prove, and I think without even realizing it, I really did.  And dammit, I made this place my home.

So now the scary thing is, that for the first time ever in my life (and I know this is part of that whole “Growing Up” checklist) - I have a place that I have chosen (not a place I just kinda landed) that I have made my home.  A place that every time it’s quiet, some little voice in my head whispers, I could live here.

I’ve always called Seattle my home.  Which is strange I know since the truth is I’ve never actually lived there (but home, really, is just as constructed as any other part of our identities, so I might as well get to choose where I say it is) -  but for the first time (and I haven’t stayed anywhere for more than 4 years since I was 11, I’m 23 now) - I found myself missing DC when I was home in Seattle for December.  I’ve never missed another place from Seattle.  I always felt at home there, whole.

As much as I think it would piss my grandmother off to hear me say this (she thinks gypsies steal babies and replace them with demons) - I have a gypsy heart.  I’m allergic to staying in one place.  And now the world (and me, too) threw all these obstacles up in front of me just as the choice that I thought would be the easiest of all is looming in front of me.

I mean I think I know what choice I’ll make in the end.  But I just need to underscore the bitter irony here, that the easiest choice of all - the choice to go home after all these years of wandering - is turning out to be the hardest choice I’ve ever made.

Currently listening: Carsie Blanton - Ain’t So Green 

 

January 22, 2008

rumors of this blog’s death have been greatly exaggerated

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So if anyone still reads this - I apologize for the more-than-excessive dead time on this blog.

I came back to DC to a short weekend and then began my full-time job/internship and then began classes, meaning 2 days of my week are 12 hour days for me, plus I tend to have appointments in the evening… so things have been more than hectic trying to get adjusted to the new schedule.  I was so used to the student life that it took me a good 2 weeks to get used to getting up at 7am and not getting home until 6 or, sometimes, 9.  It’s hard!!  Haha I know, no sympathy.

This will be short but I wanted to let you all know the blog is NOT DEAD…

And in one piece of brilliantly good news: barring some sort of bizarre natural disaster, next year I will be a 1L at the University of Washington School of Law in the JD/LLM Asian Law program.  WOOOO!!!!!  I got in!  It was my first letter, it was from my first choice, and it was great news.  I couldn’t ask for more.  I got more than lucky.  I am blessed.

 

December 10, 2007

I have to remember - He appears to me as the one who tells me what I can’t do.

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I will never make fun of, berate, or belittle my child’s dreams or life goals in any way.

It’s funny.  I tried to talk to my dad and he’s always so unhappy with what I’m doing.  I have to tell myself some things to protect myself from getting hurt, because I don’t think he means to be hurtful.  I have to believe he doesn’t realize how much it stings to listen to him say the things he does.  I got off the phone with him a couple of days ago and he had been telling me that since I wanted to go to law school, the incredible internship I got for next semester (I mean really incredible), was a waste.  A waste.  He told me basically that going to law school was throwing away all my dreams in international relations.  That everything I’m doing now is a waste.  A waste of time.  All the things I love are a waste of time.

I don’t really know how to deal with that, so I made the argument that I have, canned and ready, to explain why it’s not.  I mean, I can tell myself any number of things.  That he doesn’t understand how many different things you can do with a law degree, that I never plan to actually practice law, that I’m going to be doing international relations my whole life, except I’ll be doing it with a law degree… I told him what I tell everyone - that my heart is in activism not academics, and I need to be able to get my hands dirty in a way that an academic track won’t let me… I didn’t get more than a one-world, half-disbelief response out of him.

It’s better that he couldn’t hear the sounds of his words hurting me.

Now I sit at my computer trying to write final papers and wondering why I can’t focus.  A waste??  Really?  I’m working my ass off out here, following my passion on a path nobody in my family has ever followed, fighting so fucking hard every day, and that’s the best you’ve got for me?  That I’m wasting my time and (here’s the real subtext) your money?

I’m 23 years old; every educated person in my family (both sides) is a medical doctor, has been that way for generations.  Hard science is the only thing that carries any weight with my family - immigrant old world Eastern Europeans.  So I’m treading a new path, and I’m cutting my way through a shitload of resistance (from the places I least expected it too), and it would be nice, it would be really damn nice, just once in a while, to hear, “Hey Lex, I think you’re doing a great job - I couldn’t do what you’re doing, I’m proud of you.”  But I know I’m never going to hear that.  At least not from him.

I wanted to tell him about this amazing chance I’ve gotten, to join this global social network of Burma activists - which is so incredible and so powerful, I mean, I’ve been studying global social networks and internet civil society and this type of activism since I was at SOAS 3 years ago, and I almost picked up the phone to call him and tell him out of excitement that I got invited in, but then I realized he’d have no idea what it was and wouldn’t care to learn, and would probably ask “Are they paying you?” and if my answer was No, then “It’s a waste.”

I think the best way for my to think about this, the best way for me to make this stop hurting, is to be thankful.  It’s probably better that he’s like that, that he questions everything I do and makes me fight to establish any small sense of self; I think it’s good practice for the world.  If I can’t stand my ground with my own father, I won’t survive the world out there; if he were nice to me about these things, I wouldn’t be prepared for the rest of the world and their competition, cruelty, and cutthroat attitude.  Maybe he’s just doing it to give me good practice so I can fight a better fight against the people I’m up against in my daily life.

Still, it’d be nice just to have a safe place to go.

 

November 13, 2007

gold in the air of summer

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I should have been asleep an hour ago.  I have to get up early tomorrow, and run the ten million errands I never have time to do on Mondays.  Mondays are classes, noon to 8.  No time for anything.  Did manage to get my GOCard replaced though, so I’m no longer a GU refugee.

I told my dad the other night (this is mostly what inspired the last post) that I was really targeting Seattle, at least West Coast, law schools for next year.  I was really excited when I told him, I know it was in my voice, and I thought he would be really excited too, because I’d be closer too home and I could see him (and my mom too) more often… but the response was really quite the opposite.

First, I was a little taken aback that he was surprised that I was going to law school.  Hmm… it’s been a priority for at least the last year or so, and the application process has consumed my life for the last 6 months.  But the Worst Part was definitely the fact that suddenly the approval and support that had been there all along seemed to suddenly have dissipated.  I was left on the other end of the phone, hurt and confused, while he berated my choice of life path by telling awful lawyer jokes about how it’s funny that Musharraf is shooting lawyers.

Well, first, the lawyers he’s ‘disappearing’ happen to be dedicated, passionate people risking their lives for the cause of an independent judiciary in an autocratic state, so they don’t sound so horrible to me…

And second… why is it ok to berate your child’s life choices? It’s not like I said, hey dad I want to be a mechanic!

I know, I know.  I’m 23, and sooner or later I have to learn to be proud of myself, and not need my reassurance to come from anywhere else but me (or Liz, or friends, I guess)- but deep inside I think there will always be this little girl who just wants her dad to be proud of her.

Luckily for me, though, I’m strong and confident and capable and independent… and I do believe in myself, and though it breaks my heart that my family isn’t behind me, I know that no matter what, I’m going to shine like gold in the air of summer~ just by the fire of my own will, just by my own ability to follow my heart where it leads me in this life.

 

November 7, 2007