Change is Not Like a Sunrise

Good morning, friends and readers.  I recognize that it has been quite some time since I wrote anything substantial on here, but for the most part it's because I felt like I didn't have much of anything poignant enough to share with the world.  Some whining, some bickering, some complaining... some good news.

If you have not already heard, my best friend in the world (my "brother from another mother") spent the past five months battling cancer.  As of last week, my dear friends, I am happy to share that the battle, for now, is over.  Six rounds of chemotherapy and fifteen radiation treatments, combined with loads of medication and hundreds of blood thinner injections, have rendered Mr. Robert Joseph Belcher CANCER-FREE!!  Just after his thirtieth birthday, we celebrated the last of his radiation treatments with a nice dinner out, just us and his parents.  He's still going to be recovering and regaining his strength for some time, so the big party will have to wait a few weeks until he's feeling up to it, but the occasion could not go unmarked.

As for my own life, I guess you could say things have started to "go back to normal", as if there is any such thing as "normal".  It's kind of a strange concept if you think about it, since every person, every moment, every routine is constantly changing in magnificent and subtle and lightning-fast and creepingly slow ways, some that we notice right away and some that we never realize until they are so far changed as to be unrecognizable for what they once were...

Change is NOT like a sunrise.  At least not often.  Change is as the seasons, always a little different from the year before, always subtly sliding from one into the next in constant swirling motion, as the leaves drift in many-hued swirls through the crisp breezy air, the clouds racing by overhead in not exactly the same way as they ever have before.  Each year seems like a huge year full of changes, but if EVERY year is different, then aren't they all, really, the same?  No one day, one minute, one second, can ever be EXACTLY the same as the one before it, or the one after it.  The whole world is constantly changing.

So what, then, is "normal"?  We could say normal is the least amount of noticeable change, that when things seem the most similar to how they have been in the recent past, that things are now "normal."  We could, on the other hand, say that Change IS Normal - that the state of being constantly learning, growing, altering and improving ourselves is what is "normal" - in that case, stagnation and inertia become strange and foreign concepts.

So many things have changed in the past year.  As we shift rapidly through Fall, at the time of year when my family recognizes and follows the teachings of the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which both occurred about a month ago), I am always given to reflect on the changes in myself and my life since this time last year.  What did I do that was new and different?  What big decisions did I make?  What do I regret?  What do I want to do even differently in the next year?

This year, I worked at a new job that I really enjoy, and stretched myself professionally in ways that helped me to grow in confidence and intellectualism.  I helped students to discover what the future might hold for them after college, and found the joy of knowing I have made a difference to a young adult not that much younger than myself.  I was able to proudly attach my name to projects, seminars, training events and publicity materials that I created and distributed, and add those materials and accomplishments to my portfolio and resume.  I started writing more articles and blog posts, and published a new article in an online news source for the first time in years.  I wrote for the school newspaper and saved copies of every article.

I kept a potted plant alive for an entire year.  This, sadly, is an accomplishment for me, as all my other plants and growing projects have died from neglect.  This poor little plant is scraggly and a bit pathetic, but it is still growing and living in my office, having survived the trip from Northern Virginia when my parents first came to visit and help me move after starting the new job over a year ago.

I have been in a wonderful relationship that is just about to celebrate it's official one-year anniversary next weekend.  My boyfriend has been sweet, romantic, caring, surprising, goofy, supportive, and fun through all of the trials and tribulations of the past year.  He saw me through some hard times that I don't know how I would have weathered without him.  We traveled together to Florida for his family's summer vacation and a family wedding, and he attended my brother's wedding as my date.  We've spent time getting to know each other's families, each other's passions, each other's friends and hobbies and a few annoying habits.  I've learned so much in the past year about how to be in a relationship, how to act and what to expect and how to balance my free time between self and friends, family and relationships.  I have learned to say "I love you."

I have learned to cope with more changes than I thought I could experience at one time, as in the midst of a change I was wrapped up in and freaking out about, something bigger and more unexpected came out of nowhere.  I finally made the decision to try living on my own for the first time ever, but was not quite ready to have to make that leap yet.  We had a whole plan where we would move to the new town, to the apartment I had picked out and which I believed I could eventually afford on my own, and Joey would work and save up for a few months until I was more settled and ready and Joey had some money saved up to move out on his own, potentially to somewhere out of state to start a new life for himself.

Well, that all changed when the cancerous tumor was discovered in his chest, just weeks from potentially becoming fatal.  As he lay in a hospital bed contemplating his own mortality, I cried and stressed out over having to move into the new apartment by myself - I blanched at the idea of having to do everything on my own, right away, without the comfort of the pre-planned months of transition.  I became sad and depressed at the idea of losing my best friend, and even after his prognosis turned very positive I did not know how to cope with the multitude of changes his new situation introduced.

I changed, albeit more slowly than I would have liked.  I worked my butt off exercising four days a week to train for a 5K race to benefit the Cancer Center Bridge Fund that was paying for Joey's treatments.  I spent every evening either with my boyfriend or visiting Joey, through the hospital, through the chemotherapy treatments, through days when he felt awful and did not want visitors.  We watched movies, we played video games, we talked online.  I made homemade chicken matzah ball soup in large quantities.  I showed up for many a family dinner unannounced and found a second family welcoming me with open arms through it all.

Eventually, as the chemo treatments progressed and then switched to radiation treatments, my schedule started getting less insanely crowded.  I spent a few nights alone in my new apartment, without crying at being lonely or needing company.  I played some online video games, watched some girly movies, cooked dinner for myself.  And I also let the house become embarrassingly dirty, let dishes pile up in the kitchen, stayed out far too late on work nights more than I'd care to admit.  I stopped going to the gym, gained a bit of weight, became aware that my cholesterol is pretty unhealthily high.

But at some point recently, I realized that I am not afraid of the way things are changing.  I have a good job, though I wish it paid a bit more.  I have a second job which is going to help me make up the difference for a few months, though I have to give up my Sunday evenings.  I have an amazing and inspiring best friend, who will always be a part of my life even if we are never going to be roommates again.  I have a boyfriend who loves me enough to think it's adorable when I fall asleep on the couch at 10pm with my Xbox live headset still on and the title screen music from 'Borderlands 2' blasting out of the tv.  I have a hectic life which is never boring, and in which I get to see my family, best friend and boyfriend as much as possible.

In the past year, I also got a new sister (-in-law), a new baby cousin, and new friends.  I stopped believing I was a complete failure for not being able to pay off my entire credit card balance right this minute.  I started taking on new projects at work, and acknowledging that sometimes it's okay not to make a deadline if you apologize and work to complete the project as soon as you can.  I stepped up and filled in for my boss for a week when she had an unexpected family emergency, and I didn't fall apart.

Change is not like a sunrise.  The sun rises every day, but never once does it look exactly the same.  But I say that change is not like a sunrise because when the sun comes up, it changes the whole world from dark to light, from stars to sunshine, from cool to warm, from black to a multitude of colors.  Change is sometimes colorful and majestic, and sometimes it is subtle and unnoticed.  Change is constant.  Change is life.

If you've read this far, I thank you.  This was not a pre-planned post, or something I wrote in multiple drafts.  This is simply the stream of my consciousness on a Friday morning spent in contemplation, and now I go back to a day filled with changes of various magnitudes...  Until next time, friends, I bid you adieu.

Published Article

This: http://augustafreepress.com/kathleen-herring-why-i-run/

Published in the Augusta Free Press this morning.  Enjoy =D

Sanity Walk

Every day after lunch, I take a few minutes to check email and make sure nothing pressing has come up while I was on break, and then I go out for my daily walk.

My 'walk' is to the college post office, where I pick up any mail for the department.  But really, that's my excuse to spend a few minutes outside, walk off a few calories, see what the weather is like, and clear my head before the second half of my workday really gets started.

I take the long way around, doing a full circuit of the 'Lawn' (or 'Quad' as I usually think of it) before stopping in at the post office on my way back to the office.  This way I get the best view of one of the prettiest parts of campus, while spending more than half my walk in the cooling shade of the trees lining the Lawn.

I walk out the door and my first thought is, "Man, it's hot out here."  I know they were forecasting 90-degree days all week, and had been complaining about it.  But at the moment, it feels good.  I've just spent 5 solid hours sitting behind a desk in my always-slightly-too-air-conditioned office, under my artificial lights, staring at a computer screen or working through the massive pile of notes, unread emails and to-do lists before taking an hour out to watch Gilmore Girls and eat my salad and half-sandwich and two cookies for the day.

The afternoon heat actually feels good, and even as I squint at the bright reflection of sunlight off hot sidewalks I feel the skin on my arms soaking up the warmth of natural light.  As I walk under the trees I ponder the strangeness of not feeling overheated.  It's not uncomfortable; it's not too hot.  It's just hot.  It's what Summer is supposed to feel like, that season which I feel like I've missed most of already while I was busy being stressed out and busy and working and sitting behind that desk at that computer in that always-slightly-too-air-conditioned office.  THIS is summer; THIS is me, out in Summer.

I can hear the soft clop, clop of my little grey ballet shoes on the pavement, and I contemplate how these thin little sandals both remind me of real ballet shoes and of walking barefoot.  The soles are so thin I can feel the unevenness of the cracks in the sidewalk.  I contemplate how it would feel to take off my shoes and walk in the grass.  I think how undignified that would look if anyone were to see me running around barefoot while I'm at work.  I keep walking.

I look up briefly to check that no cars are about to run me over then proceed into the crosswalk, coming out from under the trees into direct sunlight.  It is hot.  So hot.  I think of past summers that seem far away, summers with vacations and sand and swimming and sunscreen.  I think that I have already missed out on most of the summer because I've been too busy sitting in my air-conditioned fake lighting and staring at artificial words and pictures and videos on a variety of televisions, monitors and other electronic screens.

I chide myself quietly.  I have not "missed out" on summer.  I remind myself of the day spent at King's Dominion, of the feeling of butterflies in my stomach as we clicked slowly up the hill of the new roller-coaster, questioning my own judgement in boarding the ride in nervous anticipation of the height of the unknown hill.  I remind myself of the feeling of dryness in the back of my throat from screaming, screaming, screaming until my breath runs out and my world spins upside down.

I remind myself of the Fourth of July.  Of cookouts and fireworks and hundreds and thousands of fireflies twinkling in the trees, and thousands and millions of stars shining out bright in the night sky.  More stars than I've ever seen in this country.  More stars than I'd seen since that one night four years ago in the Negev Desert in Israel, when I stood still and silenced by the sheer enormity of the sky.

I remind myself of our tubing trip down the river, of how nervous I was about getting ready for the day.  About the copious amounts of sunscreen lovingly applied to every nook and cranny which had no effect whatsoever once I submerged myself in river water.  I remember the days spent wincing and cringing and cowering in a darkened room, applying rivers of aloe vera and plunking my raw red legs inches from a fan while watching Star Trek and playing Lego Lord of the Rings with my equally-sunburned boyfriend.

I remind myself of hours spent training and practicing and running and complaining about running, of the training log I've kept for months of how and when I exercise and my successes and failures in running practice.  Of the leading up to the Big Event, the 5K run this past Saturday.  Of the nervousness getting ready, the sheer panic of not knowing what I was doing or why.  The feeling when we took off from the starting line and saw hundreds of strangers running beside and behind and in front of me (the majority, I think, being in front of me).  The feeling of neighborhood folks sitting out on their front lawns at eight o'clock in the morning on a Saturday, just to cheer us on and tell us we are wonderful for doing what we are doing, waving signs that say 'Runners are Awesome' and waving as we pass them by.  They don't know me, but they're cheering for me.  While I'm doing something incredibly hard and that I'm not good at.

I think that a college campus in summer is a good place for a walk and a think.  These perfectly manicured green lawns, the flowers which never seem to wilt or droop despite the blazing heat of the day, the sculpted hedges and neatly trimmed sidewalk edges are empty save for me, no students talking or laughing or walking or playing on the Lawn.  This place, which was created for Them, which is currently devoid of Them, has a sort of haunted quality to it, like it, too, is waiting for them to come back.  Waiting for something to happen.

It's quiet.  And yet, there are many sounds in this Quiet.  The wind murmurs quietly in the tops of the trees, rustling leaf against leaf in a constant conversation of which I am not a part.  The birds twitter and chirp and flit from branch to branch.  A squirrel, startled from his search for food, scampers up the bole of a nearby tree, chattering to himself.  And the steady clop, clop of my quiet little shoes.

I'm beginning to sweat from the heat.  My eyes have glazed over and I plod along the straight line between the trees, looking vaguely towards the ground a few yards in front of my feet.  I think that I should get out more, that I should do more, but I'm tired.  I need to get back, to get back to work.

My feet carry me back up the steps and into the refreshing blast of artificially cooled air, into the darkened hallway and through the door to my artificially-lit office, and plunk myself back down in my leather swivel chair, back to my unread emails and to-do lists and words and pictures and screens.

I think if it were ever decided that I had to give up my after-lunch Sanity Walk, I wouldn't make it through the day.  It's ten or twenty minutes of essentially nothing, just a little sunlight and random thoughts.  Or days when I walk in the rain with my umbrella, getting my shoes wet and reveling in the smell of summer storms.  The days in the winter when I got all bundled up in scarf and gloves and hat to walk in the brisk cold air.  The fall, when I admired the leaves which seemed to change drastically each and every day of the week.

Until tomorrow, dear Walk.  For now, I have three more hours to sit in this swivel chair and muster up the energy from seemingly empty reserves to go work out at the gym again.  It's been over a week and I don't want to lose my rhythm.  Like my daily walk, the same route at around the same time every day, my workouts are a stabilizing force in my life.  A time to be alone with my thoughts in a quiet environment, while my body is too busy to get restless or bored.  And yet, after nine hours of work it gets hard to motivate to actually go in there and put my workout clothes on.  To actually get on the treadmill and force my lethargic muscles to burn away these excess calories.  All I want at that point is a nap.  Ah, well.

Until next time, then.

The Waiting is the Worst

Good morning, friends.  I wanted to start off by thanking you, as today I crossed over my 1000th pageview on this blog, which prior to the past two months I think only my mom and cousin even knew existed and which I hadn't contributed to in about a year.  Your readership, and comments, help me to stay motivated to write and share, and as an outlet I find this both therapeutic, at times surprising, and deliciously brainpower-flexing.  As my tagline has always stated, this is a forum to exercise my (mostly) dormant writing ability, which I feel has significantly and sadly deteriorated out of disuse since my college years.

I have always loved writing.  When I was about eleven or twelve I attended the summer writing camps at George Mason University, where I had my first creative writing workshop experiences.  I was so weird, so inspired, so *artsy* in those days, I could often be found wandering the backyard with an old film camera, drawing sketches of flowers or practicing at the piano, of which I never took one professional lesson.  I daydreamed, and wrote stories and poems, and thought that when I grew up I would be a writer and illustrator of children's books.

As I grew older, I started to evolve my plan to include young adult fiction, and maybe not so much illustrating as just writing them.  I had one big project, which I worked on for years and even brought back in high school and then for a time in college, which I always thought would be "my first novel".  My mom and my best friend have seen the first chapter or two.  It was during a creative writing workshop in college that I dug it out of the old computer files, restructured and rewrote and added to parts of the story, and realized that I had close to 50 pages worth of writing, with chapter-by-chapter plans for the entire rest of the novel, and yet... I decided it was complete garbage.

Any young aspiring writer who takes a creative writing workshop in college should be forewarned - classmates make AWFUL critics.  NOBODY in a creative writing workshop (except possibly the professor) is a real professional writer or editor, and NOBODY knows what they're doing.  Everyone is terrified of sharing their work, their most personal creative endeavor, their soul, and baring it in front of their peers, and everyone fears that their own work is not good enough, that nobody will understand, that they won't like it.  And yet, they can be so seemingly cruel and unfeeling about the work of others.

My classmates did not like my story.  They didn't understand it; they thought it was outdated, or that they were missing some important aspect of the story.  One classmate had the gall to go on and on about a minor point in the story - that the main character happened to have a Walkman CD player - and used it to prove a point that the story was obviously either taking place in the past, or that the kid was poor and therefore couldn't afford an iPod.  This made me mad - partly because this detail was based on the fact that I had my own Walkman CD player (YES, they made CD players and not just portable radios!) which I was using at the time and happened to have with me in my backpack, and partly because HOW SPOILED AND NAIVE ARE YOU TO THINK THAT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD HAS AN IPOD IF THEY CAN AFFORD ONE???

Sorry, friends.  I guess this still bugs the cr@p out of me.  I did, in fact, also have an iPod.  I now have an iPhone 4 which has most of my music on it, and I do think portable CD players are a bit outdated.  But I don't think the choice of music electronics had anything pertinent to do with my story, and I resented the assumption that just because my character didn't have the latest technology, that my story was somehow old-fashioned or that the character was poor because of it.  Upper-middle-class over-privileged college kids who don't have to work to pay their own college tuition can be so narrow-minded sometimes.

I'm going off on a rant and a tangent, and for that I apologize.  Let me take a moment to rein it in back to the present and the point.  The point was that they didn't understand my story.  They thought it was childish without realizing it was intended for a younger audience, and was therefore purposely written that way not out of a lack of writing ability but for the simple reason that college students were not my intended reading audience.  They focused on silly details and failed to grasp any of the points which I held so dear, and they ripped my private story, one which I had never shared with anyone, to shreds.  My confidence as a writer was completely shot on that day, and has never fully recovered - I have not tried to write any serious work of fiction since then.  Ironic, as Creative Writing classes are supposed to spark our creativity.

So now I write mostly from real life.  I write news articles for the student paper at work, make pamphlets and fliers and marketing blurbs.  I interview students for a departmental newsletter which I create on a bi-weekly basis.  But I don't write poetry, I don't write stories.  The closest I come to creative writing pursuits is in this little blog, where I pour out the contents of my brain which don't fit into my nine-to-five (actually eight to four-thirty) lifestyle, and hope that somewhere somebody is reading and sharing and understanding me.  That somebody will leave a comment or acknowledge that it is difficult to share that which is most personal and unstructured.  That they understand, or want to understand, or have a question to ask.

Three posts without a comment and I find myself discouraged but not dissuaded.  I will keep writing, keep sharing, keep trying to recapture that sense of wonder I had as a young aspiring writer, and hope that someday that spark of imagination will come back to me.  I miss that about me.  Life as an actual REAL LIVE ADULT is kind of boring without it.  Working, grocery shopping, exercising, paying bills and stressing about them, driving and paying a fortune at the gas pump every week, I'm not old enough to be jaded about this life.  I want to play.  To wish.  To daydream.  To TRAVEL.  But, alas, traveling is expensive, and until I can figure out a way to have this full-time-with-benefits job that I really enjoy and yet which does not earn me enough for extravagances such as travel or memberships or vacations or fancy groceries, I'll have to settle for virtual play, virtual travel, virtual daydreams.

Come and daydream with me, friends.  Because life is too short to spend it being bored, eh?

I mean to write today about how we are waiting on the news from Joey's doctors, to find out whether the Chemo is working or not, to determine the outlook and course of the remaining treatments.  To muse on how the waiting and not knowing is the worst part, and how helpless and alone I feel.  To tell you all about my training for the upcoming charity 5K race, and how I've surprised myself by channeling all my stress and frustration and helplessness into beating myself bloody against that indoor track (no, not literally - there is no blood, just sore muscles and exhaustion and a few new blisters on my feet).  How I've beaten my projected goal time by ten minutes already, and feel like I could probably improve even more in the next several weeks.

But perhaps all that will have to wait for another time, as I've already probably gone beyond my allotment of time to ramble at you for the day.  If you're still with me, if you're still reading, if you care or have any thoughts about what I've shared here today, please leave a comment below so I know somebody's still listening.

Thank you for sharing this with me.  I love you all, dear friends.  Try to do something interesting and creative today, if you're of a mind, for me.  Until next time,

~swinginpoet

Today's the Day

Today could very well be the day that determines everything, yet I find it hard to get too worked up until I know for certain.  I don't want to delve into probabilities or statistics, or examine too closely the various options until I know which one is the truth.  All I can do is maintain my calm and focus on work until I know for certain, and then move forward with the information at hand.

This morning, Joey went in to the Cancer Center for his second PET scan.  This scan will determine the extent to which the chemotherapy has been working - either the tumors will be gone or nearly gone, in which case the prescribed treatment schedule could cure him completely; or the tumors will be somewhat diminished, in which case extra treatments or additional therapies might be needed to achieve that result; or - and this is the one I can't contemplate too closely - the tumors will have made no change (or grown more o_0) in which case.... I don't know what will happen.

I feel like for the most part I have been doing better about this whole thing in the past week or two.  I am back on track at work, being productive and getting assignments done again.  I have been sleeping... okay.  Better than before, I suppose.  I have been exercising and working towards that goal of running the 5K in just a few weeks.  So far my best has been a 2 mile trek, alternating running and walking each quarter mile, which took me about 28 minutes.  At that pace, I could finish the 5K in 43 minutes, which I think is probably pretty decent.  I think I might even be able to do better, if I keep up with my training.

I spent my first full week in my apartment alone.  Yes, I did visit Joey on two separate evenings, but I spent every night at my apartment alone, cooked for myself, cleaned and organized, watched tv, and generally kept myself fairly busy.  It wasn't terrible.  Towards the end of the week I started to feel the familiar lonely / bored / I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-myself-and-I-hate-this feeling, whereupon I had a glass of wine and went to bed early wishing I wasn't alone.  But I got through it, I didn't weep or rage or do anything especially impulsive or crazy.

It has been six weeks since the diagnosis, six weeks of living on my own, and I still feel like I'm living in Limbo.  I wonder if finding out the test results today (or later this week if they take awhile to process) will change that.  Once we know, once the plan is sure, will I feel relief?  Will a burden of stress be lifted from my shoulders, or will I feel pretty much the same?  It's entirely impossible to tell at present.

And so we wait, and we work, and we wonder.  Life goes on, one way or the other.  But we hope and pray and cross fingers for one option over the other, and silently cry out in frustration at the waiting.  But only silently.

Leave some thoughts below, if you would.  I'm not feeling particularly eloquent today, but it has been too long since my last post and I don't wish to lose momentum on writing.  Thank you for reading.

-Leenie

Running for Health and Healing

I am not a runner.

I have never considered myself to be very athletic.  As a child and through high school, I took dance classes (ballet, tap and jazz) and I even made it to performing a solo as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker my senior year of high school.

I did marching band, which most people don't consider a sport per se,  but it did involve being outside (sunburn!) and practicing outside in the heat (passing out from dehydration!) and competing against other bands (trophies!), so it's kind of like a sport.

However, I have always hated to run.  P.E. classes, to me, were a unique form of torture.  I never managed to get through the mile run without walking about half of it, until one time in 10th grade when I decided to push myself and see if I could run the whole four laps without stopping.  I pulled in at 8:05, surprising my teacher (who always thought I was just lazy), and then sat down and almost immediately passed out, landing myself in the school nurse's office.

It was almost a yearly tradition that I passed out at least once during marching band practice, from heat exhaustion or dehydration.  Once I got hit in the head with a bass drum during a water break.  Only once did this happen in college, after a particularly brutal practice in the heat with not enough water.  An ambulance came but I refused to go with them because I was embarrassed.  I insisted I was fine and they finally let me go back to my dorm.

After college, my exercise routine consisted of walking from my room to the fridge or tv, from my apartment to my car, from my car to work, and really not much else.  And I ate whatever I felt like.  I think I spent an entire summer having cheesy eggs and bacon for breakfast nearly every day.  After several years of this lifestyle, I finally had a doctor tell me that my cholesterol was dangerously high.

I started small.  Eat a salad sometimes.  Try to have some veggies in the house.  Maybe not have bacon EVERY day of the week.  I thought about buying 1% milk instead of my usual 2%.  I joined a gym with my mom for a couple of months, and went to zumba classes once a week with her.  This was by far the most fun I'd ever had working out, and it was a nice activity to do with my mom (who, admittedly, is in way better shape than I've ever been despite being much older than me).  I quit when I moved and couldn't afford a gym membership, but I did miss that.

When I got hired at my current job, they told me that one of the benefits was free access to the gym on campus.  I went a couple times, but didn't really know what to do there.  I walked on the treadmill.  I tried a few of the weight machines.  I got frustrated that I wasn't magically dropping pounds left and right from my half-@$$ed attempts at being healthier.

Joey and I had talked about trying to get healthier, and when he joined a gym in the hopes of training for the Tough Mudder event (see his post, "Something is Wrong with Me, Part 1" to hear that story) I was trying to really buckle down on this whole "going to the gym" thing.  I started going a few times a week, and decided one day to see if I could still run a mile.  I hadn't attempted this since tenth grade, and wondered if I would be able to do it.

What people think they look like when they run: 

What I actually look like when I run:

My first attempt at running a mile came in at about 12.5 minutes.  And I was exhausted at the end of it.  Like, feeling sick and wobbly and my legs were cramping up.  I had not properly hydrated beforehand, I hadn't thought to stretch or anything, and I was overall just embarrassed by how out of shape I was.  But I kept trying it, every few days, and kept turning up the speed bit by bit until I was running the whole thing at a steady speed.  After several months, I had my mile time down to 9.5 minutes, where it started to plateau.  I couldn't go any faster.  I was still getting light-headed at times, and there were days I had to stop early.  My heart rate seemed dangerously high, according to the built-in heart rate monitors on the treadmill, but I kept at it with enthusiasm that started to flag.  My best ever mile time was 9:07.

Finally, one day at the gym when I couldn't stand the thought of stepping on that treadmill one more time, I noticed that they had some student-led group fitness classes and decided to give their version of zumba a try.  It was fun, but not as high-impact and fun as the professionally taught classes at Gold's Gym had been.  I went to a few of these, and did my usual run and weight-lifting workouts on the days off.

Joey and I decided one day to make a deal.  I had been getting frustrated with my lack of progress at the gym and getting bored with my usual routine.  Joey challenged me to see if I could go to the gym *every* workday between that day and the move (March 1st to April 26th).  The time limit on the goal made it seem attainable, but I had never spent so much time at the gym.  The first few weeks were the worst, but once I started going it became routine and I actually looked forward to it.

I always went right after work, since the gym was on campus and I was highly unlikely to come back to work out (a 20-minute drive) after going home for the day from work.  So almost every afternoon, I was at the gym at 4:45-5pm.  I started looking at what fitness classes happened to be offered at 5:00 each day, as I was highly bored with running by this time.  One day the front desk girl suggested I try out cycling, which was offered on Tuesdays at that time.  I assumed I would hate it, as I have never been any good at bike riding, but was bored enough to give it a try and quickly fell in love.  By the end of the semester I had gotten to personally know the instructor and several of the regular students - we had a group of about six who came every week, and we started to get to know one another by chatting about our lives during our cycling time.  The people in the class, the fun music and the adrenaline made this an activity I looked forward to each week, and was sorry to miss when I had to work late or wasn't feeling well.

Between moving and then Joey's cancer diagnosis, I stopped working out entirely for the past six weeks.  I was too emotionally exhausted, too busy with the move, and then I was sick for awhile.  Spring semester ended, and with it the fitness classes.  I felt a little bad about it, but after all I had mostly completed my goal.  I had worked out regularly for two full months, and had even started to lose a little weight and feel a bit stronger.  I intended to go back once things settled down a bit.

This was around the time I heard about the 5K charity race coming up in July.  It will be held at the Waynesboro Extravaganza, a yearly tradition of crafts, music and fireworks which I have attended with Joey's family almost every year since we became friends.  We usually just watch the fireworks from his family's front yard, but it is a fun tradition and I was looking forward to going this year.  Well, it turns out they are having a 5K to raise money for the Augusta Cancer Center Bridge Fund, which happens to be the fund which is directly paying for all of Joey's cancer treatments.  Next thing you know I was filling out a sign-up form and turning in my registration fee.

I'm going to run a 5K, which comes out to 3.1 miles (I looked it up).  I started going to the gym again last Wednesday, and am now formulating a training plan for how to accomplish this.  Yesterday, I walked exactly 3.1 miles on the treadmill (just walked), and clocked in at 54 minutes, so that is my baseline from which to improve.  I will work up to running at least half of that, and I will be asking my friends and family to donate to the fund on my behalf to help raise money for this wonderful charity, to help Joey and others like him who can't afford their cancer treatments.  You can find the event page here: http://www.runthevalley.com/summer-extravaganza/.  I will find more information on how to make donations and post that here as well.

Well, that is all for now.  I'll let everyone know how the training is going.  Who would have thought I would ever be running in a 5K race?  But it's for the best cause I can think of, and it not only gives me motivation to get back in the gym and get back to working out, getting in shape and hopefully continuing to bring down my cholesterol numbers, but it also helps me to feel like I am directly helping Joey in a way that not everyone would or could.  I am doing something that will help pay for his treatments, and all it takes from me is a few months of hard work and dedication and physical torture (haha) - what else could I possibly hope to do in this situation?

Wish me luck!  Leave your comments below and I will post a link if any of you would like to donate to the charity fund :)

P.S.  Please check out the new imgur post I've created for Joey, to introduce a wider community to his story and blog: http://imgur.com/gallery/KgHJp.  Please take a look, follow the link at the bottom to his blog if you have not done so already, and click the 'like' button on the bottom.  If he can reach 300 likes, this post will make it to the front page where everyone on imgur can see it and generate more traffic to his blog, so more people can share his story!  You will need to create an account with an email address to be able to 'upvote', but I promise it's a legitimate site and won't be sending you spam or asking you to pay anything.  Thank you for helping me to promote this cause and story, dear friends.  I love you all for being here with me. <3

Baby Steps

Hi there, dear readers.  I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for sharing in this journey of self-discovery with me.  It's been a pretty bumpy road lately, and probably will continue to be so for some time yet, so thank you again in advance for sticking by me.  Some of you are friends of Joey's who have come over from his blog, and for that faith I thank you.  Some of you are my family members, with whom I have not traditionally shared such soul-searching monologues, and for being here now and reading this I thank you.  And then of course there are my closest confidantes, who know a lot of what goes through my head on a daily basis but yet who read this anyway to show their support of my writing attempts, and for that I wholeheartedly thank you as well.

A few things have come to my mind in the past 24 hours.  I've been rather mopey and seemingly depressed for the past several days, and feeling like nothing was likely to get better anytime soon.  Watching my best friend draw strength from his support system and his innate positivity and feeling unable to do the same has left me rather frustrated and lonely, but I did not wish to burden him with my self-doubt.  I felt lost, and alone, even though I kept reaching out to those around me.

But I've realized a few things.  One is that I'm not afraid to live alone.  I don't *love* it, I don't even really like it that much right now, but at the end of the day I'm not afraid to go home to my apartment, make myself something to eat, sleep in the big empty quiet room, or get ready for work in the morning.  In the past, being home alone (when my roommates or parents were out of town or gone for the night) had always kind of spooked me, and a dark and empty house had always been slightly unnerving.  But for whatever reason, maybe because I feel safe in my own place, maybe because I'm just so exhausted that I don't have energy to spare for silly fears, or maybe because all this talk of Cancer and Chemotherapy scared me so much more than the idea of just being alone, that I don't really mind it all that much, most of the time.  And I hadn't even noticed this big change until last night.

True, I spend a lot more time out of the house than I used to.  But when I lived with my best friend and didn't have too many other friends in the area (or any money to go out) it made sense to stay in almost every night. Now that I live alone, I spend a lot more time going out to see friends or family or my boyfriend.  I probably need to get used to spending some evenings at home, but that will come in time as everyone gets used to Joey's Chemotherapy cycles, as I get more settled in to my new place and it starts feeling more "home"-ey.  As it is I don't feel like spending much time hanging out there because I'd rather be with people than doing nothing at home, but that's not necessarily so unhealthy in my present state.

Another thing I've noticed is that it's actually kind of nice to make my own meals, occasionally.  Since I'm currently having some financial setbacks, I've still been mooching off my friends for a lot of dinners, but when I am home I don't mind heating up whatever combination of things out of my fridge sounds tasty and edible.  I don't have to conform to anyone else's expectations of what goes in the meal, don't have to worry about what anyone else doesn't like or prefer in their pasta sauce or on their sandwich.  It's just what I want, and once I have some grocery money and start actually stocking my own fridge, I only have to stock it with things that I want and need to eat - it's kind of liberating in a way.  Though I still love cooking meals for others, and recently made an awesome dinner for Joey and his parents, I think this is something I will have to work on and explore further (after payday anyway) as I get used to the apartment (and when my stove gets fixed and I find a microwave).

The third thing I've realized is that I'm not really afraid of Joey's cancer, or the treatments.  His positivity and confidence, and the confidence I've had in the complete competence and caring of his treatment team has removed any doubt that something unexpected will come up that can't be handled.  We don't know what the future holds, but he is in the best hands he could be, in the best mindset he could be, and he has so much support from all sides that I know everything will turn out as well as it possibly could in that regard.

What is still bothering me was a silent mental response to something I keep hearing Joey tell his audience: that, except for that silly Cancer thing, his life is now BETTER in every respect.  He's found purpose, positivity, understanding and support that he never had before.  I admire and respect that, and I'm so glad to see him growing and changing in these ways that I could never have helped him achieve before.  It's why I know he's going to be okay, no matter what.

The silent retort that I didn't want to voice in front of people because of it's self-centered and somewhat shameful nature, is that *my* life is NOT better because of this.  I don't have that purpose, that sense of what I should be doing, that unflinching wall of support at my back.  What I do have is the potential to make it better.  Better than it would have been otherwise, if we had continued on our merry way with our financial problems and our lack of socialization and our lurking depression.  I have a chance, an opportunity, to push my life towards the sort of purpose that Joey is sharing with everyone around him, but I need to do it on my own.  I CANNOT ask him to help me, as that would be unfair and would possibly lessen the importance of what I am trying to accomplish.

My own future is out there somewhere, and I don't know what it is yet.  At times it seems terrifying, daunting and unreachable.  At times I'm just too exhausted, too worn down from stress and financial concerns and worries that I don't want to proceed or know where to go next.  But it's out there all the same, waiting for me to get used to the new burdens, the new situation, and to keep taking baby steps in its direction.

I realized that I'm not failing, not yet.  I'm just moving very slowly towards an unclear goal.  But the above realizations show that I have taken at least a few of those small steps, and while there are still miles to go, I'm not lying inert on the ground.  I'm still moving, still standing, still searching for a path...

Thank you for listening.  As always, please comment below so I know who was here.  And feel free to go and visit Joey as well, http://perspectiveodysseum.blogspot.com.  I believe he is writing a new post today as well.  Love you all <3

Achieving Clarity, one Leap at a Time

Something began to come clear for me last night, as I sat at the dinner table with Joey (best friend), Sandi (his mom), Jim (his dad) and Jennifer (family friend).  Joey was explaining to Jennifer, who had been out of town until recently, why he was so optimistic, so not afraid of the process of his diagnosis and treatment, why he was able to gather so much strength from the well-wishes of those around us and seem to glow in an aura of positivity and even humor.

After several awful jokes where he talked about the fun of using his "cancer card"... (but mom, if you don't watch this show with me, my cancer will grow... [getting in the car] I call shotgun! ...I have cancer.)  You get the general idea =P

Joey, looking radiant with his beginning-to-be-noticeably-balding head at dinner last night:

Up until this point, I had been repeatedly taken aback by his attitude and attributed it mostly to the wall of support from everyone around him.  He was receiving such positivity from his parents, his extended family, the friends and acquaintances and strangers who contacted him and visited him on a daily basis ever since his release from the hospital two weeks ago.  And as I wasn't feeling particularly positive or supportive, I didn't know what to do - I wanted to see him, because seeing how fine and normal he seemed always made me feel better, but I didn't want my lack of positivity, my emotional turmoil to bring him down in any way.  As I felt, and as he even told me (not in a critical way but in the practical, advice-giving way he's always helped me through things), I was no help to him, no use to him, in my present condition.  I seemed welcome to spend time there, but I wasn't doing anything to HELP the situation or anybody else.  This was frustratingly disappointing to me, as I felt at once like a huge available source of comfort was bundled with guilt and shame because I wasn't supposed to be taking that comfort for myself but rather, adding to the pool.

I think I'm beginning to ramble.  Let me simplify, as only became possible after last night's conversation and the over eleven hours of sleep I got last night (I'd probably still be sleeping if my alarm hadn't gone off!) - taking into consideration that I haven't slept well in weeks and haven't slept more than 5-6 hours at a time - so here goes, in the simplest way I can put it:

Joey's and my relationship, over the past several years, had grown to a point where we were both metaphorically leaning on one another for support.  Emotional support, social support, moral support, and yes, financial support.  We kept each other from falling precisely because we were each leaning at the same precarious angle, and when one or the other was having a particularly rough patch, the other was able to pull them back up to neutral.  We were balanced.

When Joey found out he had cancer, for one reason or another when all would have expected him to break the balance by falling, he broke it by standing up straight for maybe the first time in his life.  He no longer felt alone, no longer afraid of being misunderstood forever, no longer worried that he would die in obscurity.  As strange as it seems to one who hasn't heard him explain this (in his own eloquent and passionate way, which I can't hope to duplicate), having cancer made him special, made people listen to him, truly listen to him, in a way that he never thought possible.  Suddenly his dreams of becoming a writer seemed not only possible but allowable, in a way that they always seemed like a silly fancy to outsiders before.  He found his purpose, and his support system, and his confidence all in the span of a few days in which he was being pumped full of poison in a hospital bed.  Remarkable, no?

And where was I during all of this?  Well, as anyone who's ever built a card castle knows, if one card moves aside, the whole castle comes crashing down in a heap.  When he stood up, I fell over.  The whole process of the life we had been moving towards was based on the premise that we would each gradually begin to stand ourselves up, with the support and encouragement of the other, until we were able to balance on our own.  Yet here we were, he standing in a crowd of supporters, and me lying in a puddle on the outside, trying to figure out what had just happened.

In the midst of moving to my own apartment, a transition which I was already emotionally freaking out about because of the symbolism of the eventual separation between a relationship that had been so (unhealthily) codependent for so long, the other half of my codependence seemed taken away from me.  He was over there, with his circle of admirers boosting him up on their shoulders and forming a protective shield around him, and I was stuck unpacking my new apartment (still not done), cleaning out our old place because he went into the hospital before we could finish moving his belongings, helping to transport his stuff out of the new apartment and into the space at his parents' house that is now designated as his Sanctuary, and going to work full-time.  I lived in another town now, and I was mentally and emotionally exhausted from trying to stay afloat, plus I had to keep going to work so I couldn't physically be there all the time as I wanted to.

I will take a moment to thank all those of you who have helped me to tread water during this time, so that I didn't totally lose it: Talon, my wonderful loving boyfriend who has gone above and beyond what I ever could have asked in terms of support, and with whom the relationship has strengthened in great leaps and bounds over the past two weeks.  My parents, and extended family, who first heard the news during and after my brother's wedding and have been patiently reading this blog and checking in to see how I was doing (not great).  My friends and coworkers, with whom I've opened up and shared in a way I never would have when I had a built-in support system waiting at home.

So what does this mean for me?  It means that I need to let go of the notion that my relationship with Joey will ever be the same.  It means I can't lament that, because it had to happen someday and because he's so much better for it.  This diagnosis, and the reactions to it, has changed his life immeasurably for the better from where it was meandering off into obscurity before.  It means I need to learn to stand on my own two feet, and that I can't achieve this by leaning on Joey or anyone else.  As tempting as it has been to find a 'replacement' for my support, to begin leaning on my boyfriend for everything, for instance, I can't live up to the faith Joey always had in me if I just collapse onto someone else at the moment when we both have the chance to jump years ahead in our gradual personal growth plan.  I can lean on people at times, can reach out for support and continue strengthening the other relationships in my life, but I cannot in good conscience lean on Joey for support, not when he's doing such an amazing job of supporting not only himself but the entire circle of supporters around him.  I need to be a part of that circle, but to do so I need to be able to stand up first.

I need to buy groceries, to start cooking for myself.  I need to get the rest of his boxes of stuff out of my spare room, stop thinking of it as "Joey's room", and start setting it up in the way that I will use it for my own apartment.  I need to finish unpacking, and decorating, and start thinking of this place as my home rather than "the house where I keep my stuff".  I need to stop spending nearly every evening on the couch at Joey's parents' house, staying with my boyfriend, visiting my parents, or traveling to see other friends and family members.  I need to get back on track with my workload at the office, start being productive again, and start building my own strength back up.  I need to pack my own lunch, go back to working out regularly at the gym, and I need to explore my new town, make friends and learn my way around.

All of you can help me with those things, but you can't force me into them until I am ready, and I think now that I understand, I can start taking those steps.  I thank you all for following my emotional journey, for putting up with my random acts of impulse, for listening to me and checking on me.  I will still need you in the days to come, but I think I am starting to see what I have to do, and that gives me confidence to start on my new path.  The old path is gone, and trying to find it in the wilderness will only hurt those I am trying to move towards and waste my own time.

Thanks for listening, dear friends.  I will ask again to please leave some acknowledgement in the comments section below, so I know you were here and that you're with me on this journey.  Ask questions, or just say hi so I know somebody is listening.  I appreciate that more than you could know.

And, as always, please visit Joey's blog, read and share and comment so he knows we're all out here for him.  He really is an amazing writer, as you'll see for yourself when you go to Perspective Odysseum.  Thanks again, dear listeners.

Stop asking if you don't want to know

Have you ever noticed that the simple question "how are you?" doesn't mean at all what it seems to?  I would say about 95% of the time, the person asking how you are just wants you to say "Fine." and go on about their day.  The only seemingly acceptable response, a polite "I'm good, how are you?" is so expected that sometimes they don't even wait for the response but simply wave and keep on going.  They might as well have not bothered to ask at all.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but the crux of the matter for me is, I'm NOT fine.  And when the only interaction I have during my day is by people asking how I am and expecting a non-answer, it is difficult not to get frustrated.  Here's a sample conversation to illustrate my point:

  Other person: "Hey, how are you?"

  Me: "Oh, not so great.  Here's what's going on-"

  Other person: *oh jeez she actually wants to talk about stuff, I was just being polite, now I have to smile and nod and say 'oh I'm sorry to hear that' for awhile before I can get away*

  Me: *feels sheepish, trails off vaguely and keeps on walking*

At a time when I'm feeling lonely and need people to talk to, this sort of thing is just starting to get on my nerves.  If you want to know how I am, ask me how I am.  AND THEN LISTEN TO THE ANSWER.  If you don't want to know, why ask?

Okay, all irritation aside.... *takes slow, deep breath*... I'm not here to yell at my cyber-audience, it's just been a really trying few days with nobody to talk to all day at work and my motivation to be super-productive in the deserted office building continually dwindling despite my guilt at being so far behind on several required tasks.  All right then, I think I'm calm now.

To be completely truthful, I think I am doing better.  Better than last week, anyway.  I'm not weeping in my office, moaning about and shuffling like a zombie.  I'm not afraid to sleep alone in my new apartment.  The furniture and kitchen are starting to have some semblance of order to them.  I don't feel the dual compulsion to both call Joey crying and whining about how hard this is, and the equally powerful force telling me that's not fair and I should leave him out of it and deal with my own stuff myself.

I owe a large part of this newfound sense of calm to my amazing boyfriend.  I don't know how he'd feel about being written about in a public forum, so I will simply say that he has been there for countless weepy and sniffly and frustrated moments, has stood by me and listened to me and made sure I had dinner and helped me regain my sanity.  He made me laugh, and smile, and took me out on a proper date to a nice restaurant last night just because he thought I needed it and it had been awhile since we did anything other than reheat leftovers and watch tv (besides attending the various family social functions of the past few weeks).

I have transitioned from feeling helpless during my visits and expending energy trying not to be weepy, to simply feeling sort of normal and able to 'hang out' with Joey and his family.  I'm going over tonight, as a matter of fact, to cook one of our favorite dishes for dinner with the help of his awesome cousin Ayla.  Ayla has a passion for cooking that rivals if not far outstrips my own, so with her help we should have a delicious evening ahead of us!

However, despite my seeming improvements, I feel somewhat... disconnected.  I've been spending so much time reaching out - to my family, to my blog readers, to various coworkers with whom I can actually talk about how things are going... I even took an unplanned vacation day to drive up north and visit my two best friends from high school, simply to catch up and reconnect with them during the limited time they were in town before leaving for various far-away lands.  I've talked to old friends and new friends, I've talked to Joey, I've talked to my boyfriend... and yet, possibly because of all the students having left campus for the summer and my boss being on vacation this week, my daily life seems very quiet and somewhat lonesome lately.  The other issue is that I seem to be working increasingly slowly, accomplishing far less in an average workday than I am accustomed to, and still have ZERO motivation to finish setting up my apartment or get back onto a normal routine (which includes working out at the gym, actually making my own lunch and dinner, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.)

I have no energy.  I have been tired every day for several weeks, no matter how much sleep I do or don't get.  I've been eating junk (whatever's handy, whether it's a can of soup, restaurant leftovers, or half a bag of Dorito's), drinking too much coffee to try and stay awake, and yet I've lost 12.5 lbs apparently.

Clearly, I'm not "fine".  But I think I'm better.  And I hope I will continue to get better, and that my coworkers will continue to be patient with me while I struggle to catch back up to normal.  As for the gym and the grocery store, I don't think it'll hurt me too much to put that off until next week, nor will my wallet complain at the reprieve if I eat a few more dinners at other people's houses, at least until after payday.

Thanks for listening to my rambling, dear blog readers.  If you're out there, please leave a comment below.  I do so need some regular human interaction, in whatever form it might be available these days.  Thanks for being there with me, as intangential as that may seem.  Not sure if that's a real word or if I've used it correctly, but apparently I'm too lazy to actually look it up so... deal with it?

Back to work now, before any more of my day ticks by without me accomplishing anything.

How My Best Friendship Began, Kathleenside

This is the story of how Joey and I met.  Or rather, the story of how and why we became friends, and the start of the relationship that has come to be one of the most meaningful friendships of my adult life.  To understand the story fully, however, you should read his parallel account, which was written in tandem with this one and will be publishing simultaneously.  If you choose to read this story in its entirety, please go to Perspective Odysseum and read his account of the same story.  Only by reading both accounts do we believe you can get a true representation of what happened on this occasion.

I’m going to apologize in advance to anyone who heard a different version of how we met, one in which he miraculously saved my midterm paper from the evil library computer when I was stressed about school and my computer was dead and it was late at night and I was so tired… That story is true, in fact, but it’s not how we met.  The true story is one which I’ve never shared with anyone until today, and which I never anticipated sharing in so public a manner, because it is embarrassing and frankly doesn’t reflect very  highly on former me.

There are three reasons why I’m choosing to share this particular story at this particular time.  The first is that Joey asked me to share the telling of this story with him, and I want to do everything in my power to help him tell his story, to share what needs to be shared with the world concerning his realizations and who he is as he continues his struggle with the forces of nature… The second is because for years I’ve felt guilty about the fact that nearly every person we meet and most particularly friends and family who are closest to me have looked down on and misinterpreted my relationship with Joey, and I have felt incapable of convincing them how wrong they were because I could not tell them the truth.  My pride and my shame kept me from sharing stories such as this one, which would have illuminated for anyone listening the true nature of our friendship from the very beginning… and Joey has had to deal with those negative perceptions of him and of us for the same number of years, and has done so without complaining, without trying to set the record straight, because he knew how important it was to me.

Until yesterday, when Joey asked me if we could tell this particular story, I had never intended to share it with anyone.  I had buried these feelings and facts so deep inside me that I thought I could pretend they were gone.  It was only in moments where I have felt the judgment of people I care about, the judgment of Joey and of the nature of our relationship, that I have realized how hard I’ve been working for years to try and explain away the doubts in a way that kept me from having to share my own shame and blame for some of the mistakes I’ve made in my life.  Mistakes which, as you will see, Joey saved me from and helped me to learn from.  I think it’s time to set the record straight, for those who are and always have been curious about us, and for those who are just joining into the story and will no doubt have the same questions about whether we’re romantically involved or whether one of us is secretly in love with the other… (for the record, it’s no on both counts).  But nobody ever really seems to believe the simple answer, so now I will finally begin to share the truth that explains the evidence to the contrary.

The third reason I’m sharing this story is because I finally feel at a point in my life where telling how I was before, sharing the things which I’ve been through which have been hard for me, and being able to see how far I’ve come and how much I’ve grown… Now, finally, the ability to choose to share those stories makes me feel stronger rather than weaker for them.  The fact that I did grow, and change, and learn from all the mistakes of my young adult life, most of which Joey was direct witness and confidante to, makes it okay to talk about and to let out the bad feelings which I had buried so deep I had almost forgotten they were down there, festering away in the bottom of my gut.

So, it all began when I was a young, naïve, 19-year-old sophomore in college.

  Here's me in my dorm room, around that time:

I had recently ended my first ever relationship with a high school boy who knew even less about dating and relationships and adulthood than I did.  We had parted as friends, but even so I was feeling somewhat lost and alone at this time.  I had become very active during my first year of college in the swing dance club, which was incidentally how Joey and I (though he was going by the name ‘Adrian’ at the time) had come to be acquaintances and even I would say, friends, though we hardly knew each other.  Here, by the way, is what "Adrian" looked like at the time:

The story starts when my friend’s friend Adam came to visit from out of town.

I contemplated leaving his name out of the story, as I am going to leave out a few names of people who might not wish to be written about, but it occurs to me that aside from the fact that there is no conceivable reason why he would be reading this or connected to it any way (nor will I use his last name as I am not writing this out of vindictiveness), the story will show that I really have no reason to try to *protect* him in this instance, as you will see shortly.

Adam was a Navy cadet and a wrestler, and he looked the part.  It’s strange for me to admit that I actually can’t remember what he looked like, aside from that he was a little on the short side but had big arm muscles.  Anyway I suppose at the time I thought he was kind of attractive, and he must have had some charming qualities to him because I found myself interacting with him (some might say flirting, but I maintain that at the time when this took place, I had no idea how to flirt, nor would it have occurred to me to *try* to do so) for the better part of a day, and that we had somehow gotten disconnected from our mutual friend (with whom, supposedly, he was staying for the weekend as apparently his car had broken down).  It got to be late and he needed someplace to stay, and as we were enjoying each other’s company (and because I’m such a nice and trusting individual by nature) I finally agreed to let him stay in the common room of my dorm.  This, of course, was against dorm rules, but I didn’t think anyone would catch us.

At some point in the night, I began to get very uncomfortable.  I have tried so hard not to think about this night that I think I have legitimately forgotten the exact details and timeline of events, but we may have been making out on the couch and I know at one point I got nervous and told him to stop touching me and went into my room.  I also know that at some point, he followed me into my room and tried to get into my bed and feel me up.  I believe that my roommate was sleeping in the next bed at that point, so when I began to protest (I believe by starting to cry) he eventually went away and slept in the common room on the couch.

The next day, I had no idea what to make of this.  Having never dated a college guy, I didn’t know if it was my naïveté making me feel so awkward about this situation or the fact that I legitimately was being made to feel uncomfortable by a guy being too forward with me in a manner I did not feel comfortable with.  And yet somehow I was sort of stuck with him, not wanting to abandon him and not knowing what had become of our mutual friend.  And also because part of his being in town was to attend the swing dance club’s big Halloween dance (a yearly ritual involving a costume contest), which was to be that night.  I threw on a jean skirt and some cowboy boots and went as ‘a cowgirl’, but it was a half-hearted effort.  Adam followed me around all day, ate with me, hung out in my room, and accompanied me to the dance that evening.

Here is a photo from the dance.  You can see Joey the second from the left:

Within five minutes of arriving at the dance, Joey somehow knew that all was not right with me.  He had seen me come in with a guy he did not know, could tell that I was feeling awkward and uncomfortable, and did not like the way the situation looked from the outside.  And even though we hardly knew each other at that point, he felt the need to find out what was going on.  He will tell you himself, and he told me years later, that it was at that point he felt a driving need to protect me, to make sure that I was okay, that nothing was going on that would hurt me in any way.  Joey pulled me aside to ask what was wrong, and when I nervously didn’t say anything, asked me to step outside with him to talk.

Joey was dressed as Indiana Jones that night.  I can still picture him exactly, with his leather hat and the whip and his airsoft pistol (which technically probably shouldn’t have been brought onto school grounds, even though it was not a real gun and had no ammunition).  I had been taken aback by Adrian (sorry, Joey) from the first time I met him because he was so… disarming.  His easy wit and charm and the confidence with which he could approach and talk to even complete strangers and engage them in meaningful conversation out of thin air seemed miraculous to one as shy and self-conscious as myself.  Anyways, on this particular evening he seemed to look straight into my brain and see what was going on, but he made me try to tell him for myself.  I was embarrassed, but told him the basics – that Adam was stranded because of his car, that I didn’t know where our mutual friend was, that I kind of liked him but that I was uncomfortable by the circumstances of his being in my dorm.

Somewhere around this point, Adam himself came outside to see what was going on, and he looked like he didn’t like the situation that was developing.  I got so nervous that, as was often the case with me at the time, I completely clammed up and became physically incapable of speech.  [Side note: I’m sure Joey could tell you from personal experience how frequently this would become a problem between us in future conversations, how completely frustrated and crazy it made him when I did this, and how long it took me to finally get over that defense mechanism to one where I could actually speak my mind, to him as well as others.]  Joey, however, had heard enough, and he confronted this navy cadet with all the confidence of someone who had a right to be in the middle of this situation.  Never mind the fact that the navy wrestler could probably beat him to a pulp if he wanted to.  Never mind the fact that we barely knew each other and that he only knew a tiny bit of what was going on at the time.  He knew enough: that I was in trouble, and that this guy was the reason for it.

Joey told Adam that he was making me uncomfortable, that he was overstepping his boundaries and that he had to go away and find someplace else to stay that night.  A further fact that I have left out but which probably factored into the conversation was that Adam had actually asked me to lend him money to help fix his broken car (a good amount, if I remember correctly) and that I had blindly already agreed to such.  Telling this story now I just want to slap my former self for being so weak, so afraid, so gullible.  I want to warn her, to protect her.  But at the time, that was what Joey saw, what he felt, what he needed to do.  He protected me, he stood up for me and he acted as the older brother I didn’t realize I was missing at this moment.  [No offense to my true biological older brother, who was off at college himself over an hour away and would have had no idea any of this was happening at the time.]

The situation looked bad.  I had never seen a real live fight before, but I felt sure there was about to be one in front of me.  And worse yet, *about* me.  I didn’t know what to do so I continued to stand there saying nothing.  I vividly remember sitting on the edge of the sidewalk and Joey handing me the airsoft pistol, asking me to hold it for him.  I felt a little better knowing I was holding a (fake) weapon, because at the very least it gave me something to do with my hands.

Before they could actually start beating each other up, at that opportune moment five of our fellow swing dancing friends (all male) came out to find out what all the ruckus was about.  They were wondering where Joey had disappeared to.  Our dear friend Andrew, who you all know from one of Joey’s previous blog posts as the one getting Joey involved with the ‘Tough Mudder’ event, was one of them.  I don’t recall how much Joey told them, but realizing that something had happened to me and that Adam was causing problems, the situation immediately became one where six (some of whom were very tall, I might add) male friends of mine were suddenly facing down one navy cadet, and I think he felt his chances were lessening that this might turn out alright for him.  I believe he left at that point.

So many thoughts and feelings were going through my mind at that point – shock, that I might have been in a situation requiring me to be saved, amazed, that I had new friends who cared enough to defend me from perceived injustice, but most of all shame, that my private life and uncomfortable embarrassment had suddenly been made public knowledge.  I needed time to process these feelings, so I decided to walk home from the dance, which was a bit far but which I had walked many times before, enjoying the quiet of a nighttime stroll and needing the space to clear my head.  Several people, including Joey of course, tried to talk me out of walking, of going alone, tried to get me to accept a ride home from somebody going that way.  The building where we held the dance was separated by the formal campus by a few blocks and it was a bit late to be walking at night, especially given the circumstances of the evening so far.  But I flatly refused, insisted I would be fine, believed that any threat was over at that point and walked myself home.

I must have realized at some point that this was not the best choice, and I think by the time I reached my dorm I was a little frightened that somehow Adam might be there waiting for me, might have remembered where I lived and made his way there.  I didn’t know what I would say to him after that whole incident at the dance, but he was supposed to be staying with me again so I did not know what I expected to find when I got back.  However, I would find out later that Joey had already anticipated this scenario and had acted in my best interests, without waiting to see if there was need for alarm.  I remember being on the phone with him and being angry that he interfered in what I felt was a complete overreaction.  He had called the campus cadets, and they had sent someone to check out the dorm building.  A campus cadet actually gave me a ride to the dining hall to grab some dinner, as I had not eaten and was feeling too shaken up to go out alone at that point.  I was ashamed and embarrassed, and I couldn’t believe Joey had the gall to interfere with what I thought was my own little embarrassing situation and not anything anybody else needed to be worried about.

Joey did not tell me until just now, but when he called the campus cadets that night, they actually had intercepted Adam outside my dorm, where he was waiting to be let in when I returned.  He had given them a description and called Adam a ‘rape threat’.  He may not have had *all* the details, but he just wanted to make sure Adam didn’t get away with being a jerk to me or of overstepping any more boundaries.  And it turns out that he was probably right to do so, and I was probably wrong to not be concerned for my own safety.  When Joey tells this story, he sees it as the time he prevented me from potentially being raped.  And up until this came up in conversation a few months ago, it had NEVER crossed my mind that something like that could have or might have happened to me.  I still thought of it as the night when I was awkward and uncomfortable and Joey overreacted.  When the campus cadets got called out for no reason and there was no real threat.  Had I known then what I know now, I think I might have seen it all very differently.

I don’t know whether anything bad would have happened to me that night, but I do finally acknowledge the fact that it was a possibility, that I might have been coerced into things I didn’t want and wasn’t ready for, that there was no good reason to let that boy back into my dorm or my room or to lend him money(!!) [that part still gets to me, even today writing this].  Joey saved me from something that night, and it was the start of our relationship as brother and sister, though I did not recognize it as such at the time.

Over the years, Joey would bear direct witness to some of the most shameful and embarrassing moments of my life.  He would pick me up from parties when I’d had far too much to drink.  He would sit outside the bathroom door while I puked all over the rug and cried about it.  He would help me into bed, give me water and Tylenol and rub my back until I fell asleep when I was too drunk to walk up the stairs.  He would help convince me to break up with the boyfriend who had been mistreating me for months after I came home from a fight at 3am and sat crying on the stairs of our apartment.  He was there when I got the news that my dog died.  He handed a box of belongings to an ex who wouldn’t get the hint even after I slapped him in the face and told him to leave.  He wrote a threatening letter to another ex just to make me feel better.  He was there when I found out I was failing a class in my last semester and would not be graduating, and he helped me to arrange it so that I could, in fact, graduate after all.

These are the stories I have not shared, the moments that defined our friendship and our relationship, the moments that made us as close as we are and that cemented the big brother / little sister aspect of our friendship that everyone always chose to disbelieve, to question and to ignore.  Everyone always assumed, always secretly thought, that the only possible explanation for how close we were was either a romantic or physical relationship, or the hidden desire of one or both of us for it to be that way.  I’ve grown so tired of trying to explain the opposite with half-information and half-truths that I hope this story has helped to shed some light on how it all began, what gave us the confidence in each other to survive and grow together through all the challenges we have faced over the years and into this great challenge of helping him beat cancer.

Joey has always been my protector, my confidante, my counselor, my mentor and my Big Brother.  I have become a part of his family, though I feel he never had the chance to become a part of mine, partly because of my own inability to be forthcoming and truthful about stories such as this one.  He has shielded me from the dangers of the world while at the same time, teaching me to build my own defenses so that I would be able to face the world myself.  He has taught me to be self-confident, to be able to share my thoughts and feelings with others, to respect myself, and most importantly, to feel like I deserve to go after the things I want in my life.  To not always put others first.

Had I not chosen to remain by this driving force, this teacher of life, I probably would have led a very different life up until this point.  I probably wouldn’t have become an officer and teacher in the swing dance club.  I might have moved back home after college.  I might have been mistreated by one or more of the male figures in my life.  I certainly would be more cautious, less self-aware and less knowledgeable about the world without his influence.  But we became roommates, and then best friends.  We helped mutual friends who were in trouble.  We supported each other when financial difficulties and unemployment rocked our foundations.  He helped me to stay strong and to keep fighting for what I believed in – that I wanted to make a life on my own.  He believed in my talents and abilities when I did not trust in them myself, and he made me want to live up to what he saw in me.  He even introduced me to my current boyfriend, and browbeat me into admitting I still had feelings for him after having broken up with him (sorry, babe), and talked me into telling the guy I still liked him and wanted to give us a second shot.  Joey has given me so much over the years that it seems silly to me that my relatives and friends could possibly not see (what I haven’t shared with them).

It’s true that we have had our share of financial difficulties that might have been avoided if we had not relied so heavily on each other for support, but I maintain that the lessons I learned and the skills and confidence I gained during those times far outweigh the value of any debt or money issues I had, no matter what my friends or family thought at the time.  I supported him through unemployment because he always supported me, through heartbreak and sickness and stupid decisions and indecisiveness and weakness, and I continue to support him in his fight against the tumors in his body because to do less would be to turn my back on one of the greatest influences in my life.  I cannot conceive of not helping, not doing everything in my power to make this struggle easier for him, to lift his burdens if I can.  He is my Best Friend, my Brother, and nothing anyone else says or thinks can take that away from us.  We are strongest together, as we always have been, and although I am now, accelerated by the circumstances of his illness, living on my own and spending much more time than I would like away from him, I will be there for him no matter what happens.

Thank you for taking the time to read this epic saga, for sharing with me as I pull these feelings of shame out into the open at last and view them for what they are: a crystal clear representation of the reasons why our relationship became what it is, and the beginning of the story of our shared adulthood leading up to the moment where he is undergoing chemotherapy treatments, sporting a new buzz cut in anticipation of the oncoming hair loss, and I am wearing a mask to prevent any risk of passing along a cold germ that could weaken him further and going home to my very own empty apartment.  We are coming into strange and hard times, but I have no doubt that we will face them together, and will do so with more strength and courage because of the friendship that has carried us this far.

As you have reached the end of my story, please go over to Joey’s blog and read his parallel account, if you haven’t already.  It’s a much different perspective but one which I believe lends itself perfectly to the understanding of everything I have herein discussed.  http://perspectiveodysseum.blogspot.com/2013/05/07-how-my-best-friendship-began-joeyside.html.