I often joke with friends and acquaintances that I lead a pretty boring adult life. I'm no longer a partier or much of a late-night boozer. I'm not one to set sights on a crazy trip to Vegas or a nutty road trip to the bush to get rowdy. I like to think my life is a good sort of calm. And although I've faced some hardships, I do my best to keep tabs on pessimism and find the light in the middle of the dark, cloudy days. You know... days with ravens and owls and black-caped men lingering in the fog.
This last week has been a different sort of ridiculous. And in so many ways, I've just had to laugh it off. There are powers out there that I'll never understand, and I can't help but wonder if there's a cosmic chalkboard tallying up, well, something to create some sort of balance. And I'm wondering exactly how that chalkboard is tallied. Because it's been a crazy few days.
Just over a week ago, I posted an entry where I was obviously jaded about the state of my relationship. Now, I can't say that I'm overly optimistic, but I still hold on to hope that things can find a way to mend. That's a long road that I'm walking, but it's one that I'm still willing to walk. Lately, this blog has been a release of all the anxious frustration and desperate longing I've felt for the woman who I gave my heart to (and still do so in a much more silent way). So I'm hanging in there. Last week was a bad encounter, and I was hurt by it. But as with everything, one must move on.
The day after the encounter, I ran my first half-marathon. It was a goal I'd had in mind for almost a year, and had been working toward for months. I trained and prepared completely on my own. I ran my miles solitary without anyone pushing me or giving me advice or helping me through the minutes where I just wanted to stop the pursuit all together. No one kicked me out of bed or reminded me of the importance of my long runs. I didn't grab on to anyone to hold me up when I had the urge to sit. And although I didn't train like a professional and I know that more work could've been done, I persevered and accomplished my goal on my own. And damn, it felt good. I spent the rest of my visit to the big city eating and catching up with friends and relishing in my feeling of self-satisfaction... this was something I did without a running clinic or a partner or a trainer... just me and the road. And I have to say I'm pretty proud of that. Funny how quickly the tables turn, from bitterness to triumph in two totally separate aspects of life.
The return back to the island was a smooth one, and I was quickly back at work. However, it seems like it couldn't last.
I ended up in the hospital last week and had surgery the same day. That was Thursday... I had just returned to the rock on Monday. Who would've guessed?
It turns out that when you feel like you have indigestion or food poisoning but you don't vomit or have diarrhea (and the pain stays localized to your right lower abdomen), you might have appendicitis. Which is what I had. I started feeling like rubbish on Wednesday night, and after trying to eat something, then trying some antacids at about 10:30pm, and then tossing and turning all night before going to the nearby Macs store for some pepto at 5:30 in the morning and STILL feeling like my gut wanted to kill me, I decided that I should probably go to the clinic. This turned out to be a bit fruitless, since the walk-in GP assumed food poisoning or possible appendicitis. His suggestion: sleep it off and it should get better, but if it gets worse, go to the ER. But after getting home and checking the expiration dates of the food in the fridge, and reassessing my pain and checking symptoms of food poisoning vs. appendicitis, I grabbed some books and my IPod and headed to the ER an hour after leaving the doc's office.
I got there about 11am, and at 11pm that same day, I was lying on a surgical table in the OR and was uncomfortably waiting to be knocked out. They removed the alien appendix that was causing all the muss and fuss, and here I am today, sitting on my backside, taking it easy. I actually went back to the ER for about 6 hours yesterday because of a new and brutal pain I had the previous night, but it turns out that my aversion to pain killers is what caused the extra pain... I weaned myself from my Every-4-hour-tylenol-ingestion within 2 days and was trying to go sans-drogues. That and my quick return to my regular food habits caused some irritation around the internal surgical site and I just needed to take some more tylenol. It's just that easy I guess!
So, 5 days post-surgery and I'm sitting on my ass, watching a whole craploap of TV (or, in reality, multiple TV series on DVD), and trying not to move around too much. I should be at work (although I'm not sad about being away from work, I hate just sitting around for any length of time), and I want to go for a run. But sit I will, because I'm willing to override my stubborness to get better in a more timely fashion.
Oh... and I was even able to do a bit of a good deed for a cousin of a brother-in-law that I'd never met, and was lucky enough to do so with the help of a fantastic friend.
So this is how my life goes. And there's still light. And laughter. I do just laugh at the comedy of errors that seems to present itself in this tale of tragedy and woe. It's not all clouds and darkness... sometimes it's triumphs in between the lows, and cookies and popsicles from friends, and relatives who take you in when you've got three holes in your guts, and well-wishes, and upcoming visits from parents, and the knowledge that I kicked just a little bit of ass in my first 1/2 marathon (the next one will be significantly faster). And words from the girl I still love, even if we're still a million miles apart.
T
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