First One’s Here!

Welcome to Un-Wally World.  Park’s closed.  The moose out front should’ve told ya....

That’s what it feels like sometimes.  Like you’ve planned it out, packed your bags, filled the car up with gas, the map is marked (or googled, whatever), you go through Hell to get there, you show up and the parking lot is empty giving you prime parking, you get to the gate, and you’re sent away because of ‘repairs.’  The journey sent you to a closed destination.  It was all for not.  And now you have to get back into your car and start all over again on your way home, with no kitschy t-shirt or funny coffee mug to commemorate your fun family trip.

I didn’t want to go to college, but started to anyways because my parents told me I was ‘supposed’ to go.  It was never about what I wanted to study.  I wanted to study theatre and film, but was told that would be a waste of time and I wouldn’t make any money, so I should get a degree in something else as a fall back.  If the time was right, then maybe I could make a little money doing what I loved.  But really, I should be a teacher or computer tech or something else I could never imagine myself doing.

After getting my gen ed credits at the local community college, I enrolled in a REAL college about 600 miles away from my home.  After only one single quarter, I hated it.  I could NOT find a job for the life of me.  I didn’t care for the type of people that were up there (dirty hippies that literally didn’t bathe in anything but patchouli and sandalwood oils), and in all actuality, I missed my family and my home.

So after that first semester, I moved back home and started over.  The first time....

I didn’t want to go to back to school.  Structured learning was not my forte.  I wanted to get back into theatre.  So I did.  Then I fell in love with the director of a theatre group, and a year later, we moved to Los Angeles to start our careers in the film and television biz.

Starting my life over: time number 2.

For 4.5 years, I worked a shitty bank job, became completely disenchanted with the idea of becoming an actress, and got my first writing gig as a theatre reviewer.  Some shows were amazing and a complete gift to watch and review.  Some shows were such crap, I wanted to throw my keys onstage and curse the actors for ruining all of our lives by being at the heart of such a terrible piece of shit.

Then, my uncle died and for whatever reason, it opened my eyes to do something that would make me happy.  I wanted to keep writing, and I was often typing out another short story about how misunderstood young women were during their journeys through pregnancy tests and mommy issues.  My uncle’s life was cut short, and I didn’t know if he died satisfied with his life.  Our family was shocked by his death and felt short-changed by his short existence.  I wanted my life to be so complete, that nobody would feel short changed.  Least of all, myself.

Life starting over: time number 3.

I enrolled myself in Massage Therapy school.  I really don’t know why, other than at the time, it rang in my ear like a constant doorbell.  I had to answer it or else it would never go away.  I got through my schooling, I passed my licensing exams with flying colors, and started my first independent job at a little spa.  Within three weeks, I learned that the other massage therapists stole clients from each other’s schedules, the owners were essentially stealing money from potential clients by selling relaxation packages that they didn’t ask us to honor, and another therapist came into my massage room wanting to kick my ass (seriously) because I used one of her business cards to write my name on and give to a client because my business cards hadn’t come in yet.

To top it all off, my 5.5 year relationship with the theatre group director had fizzled to a simple friendship and I wanted out.  We ended it amicably, and I couldn’t find another massage job.  The best option was for me to pack my things and get relicensed back at home.  So that’s what I did.

Restart number 4.  (For fuck’s sake)

Almost immediately I got a great little apartment and great massage job working at a great doctor’s office.  Then my creepy next door neighbor kept coming over asking me if I wanted to come over for a few beers and a smoke, and when I would decline (‘cause, um, NO) he would then ask if I HAD any beers or cigarettes.  Again, I would decline and shuffle out of my apartment as quickly as I could.  My job ended up not paying me well and I struggled to pay my bills.  I had to move back in with my parents (again), get a part-time job, then another, then another.  I started dating a great guy that I had known from high school and it was going really well.  But almost as suddenly as the relationship had started, the problems started, too.

I switched jobs to a busier doctor’s office, made more money, and even won Best Massage Therapist in the county in 2012.  The relationship kept fizzling and we kept fighting, but for whatever asinine reason, we wouldn’t break up.  For almost 4 years, we struggled to make the other one happy.  Then one day, I just knew, and I ended it.  I moved back in with my parents for the 74th time, and within a year, I had a mental breakdown.  The money stopped rolling in, I was heartbroken, exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically.  I had to stop.  Everything.  I quit my job and surrendered to rest and some minor financial support from my parents.

Do we hear number 5?!?

After one month of this uninspiring lifestyle, I started working in a flower shop.  The colors and smells and constant smiles on customers faces was uplifting and relieving.  I started coming back to life.  I learned how often to water certain plants, names of roses, how to get lilies to open overnight.  It was as if learning about all these little lives that grew and bloomed helped my own life to do the same.  I started a new relationship, which bloomed as well.  Things were on the up and up.  My depression was manageable, I smiled often, I was in love.  Every morning I’d get to work and I’d smell the heavenly aroma of fresh cut flowers and earth.

Feeling back up on my feet again, I felt the itch of another restart.  Dear god, the itch…. I knew it was time to move.  I brought this up with my man; he hesitated for a week or so, then agreed.  Even more amazingly, he wanted us to move to San Francisco.  Even MORE amazingly, he wanted to support us completely, meaning I didn’t have to work and could focus solely on my writing.  And then even MORE amazingly, he paid for the entire trip for us to head up there for a three day weekend, intent on looking at as many places as possible in hopes that we would find the right fit.  We found three.  Hell, one of the apartment managers offered it to us the same day.  We came home to ponder.

The very next day, my boyfriend said we were making a mistake moving in together.  I ran off into the night, devastated.  He dumped me a week later, the day after my grandmother died.

I decided to restart on my own.  I HAD to do this.  I had to try.  I gave myself two options: either Seattle or the central coast, where I had luckily spent summers with my grandparents as a child.  I figured it would be smarter and easier if I kept it more local and immediately began a job search.  Within a couple more months, I was employed and had a place to live.  Eager with my 6th new beginning (if you’re still keeping track), I went off, practically abandoning my old life and friends, needing some space to build myself and my new life up.

Then, my brother went into renal failure.

It was obvious and unconditional: he would get my kidney.  There was no doubt or question in my mind.  He grew incredibly sick incredibly fast, and my family struggled to keep it together.  I put this new life of mine on hold to give every piece of energy I had to my brother and the rest of the family.  His life was in my hands, in my abdomen, actually, and I was practically willing to cut the damn thing out myself.

As he got sicker and sicker, he developed a polyneuropathy disorder and lost the ability to walk.  He was on dialysis for 12 hours a day, and it wasn’t working.  We were referred to the Keck Kidney Center at USC.  For over a year and a half, we waited for them to let us progress forward and start the compatibility testing necessary to determine if I was a good match.  And they LITERALLY forgot about us.  We didn’t receive phone calls or emails.  Both my brother’s and my coordinators kept either quitting or moving on.  We would leave messages, write emails, call to complain, and kept getting forgotten.

As my brother’s polyneuropathy got worse, everything was put on hold.  All of our lives stopped solely to focus on what the fuck the next step would be to get him well.  He was dying, and we weren’t sure how much longer he had.  My brother was a healthy athlete, married to his longtime sweetheart, with a gorgeous little boy.  No history of alcohol or drug abuse.  He lost his first kidney as an infant, and after all this time, the second kidney failed.  There was no rhyme or reason for the torture he was being subjected to.  So we waited for the fucking shitty kidney center to call us back and give us the green light.

Then by chance, he was referred to Cedars-Sinai by his neurologist to deal with his polyneuropathy.  At that referral appointment, that doctor referred him to the kidney transplant center.  And six months later, both my brother and I were on the operating table, exchanging a body organ.  I had saved his life.  It was time to get back to mine.

Until my belly started bloating and I kept getting sick.  I looked five months pregnant within 6 weeks, I couldn’t eat any food or drink any water, and I was in constant discomfort and pain in my abdomen.  After a diagnosis of Chylous Ascites (a very rare and random surgical complication), my body was poked, prodded, drained, ad nauseam (pun fucking intended, trust me).  Over the next six months, my belly was drained of over 50 pounds of fluid, I lost 30 pounds of my own, was hospitalized 3 times, had about 15 medical procedures done, was deprived food and put on IV nutrition for months, until I finally had to have exploratory surgery to fix the problem, which had a 50/50 chance of working.

It worked.  Thank fucking god.

Six weeks later, I was able to eat solid foods again.  I got a return to work date from my surgeon.  It was time to get back to life.

Enter my second mental breakdown.

The anxiety became unbearable.  The depression crashes practically daily.  I had no idea how to go back to work like this.  I couldn’t, I just fucking couldn’t.  My boss had tried to be patient but had occasional anger flare ups, telling me I had to “make a choice”.  The lack of compassion made me feel like I had ruined every single work relationship I had there.  I couldn’t handle the thought of working for someone that treated me like that anymore.  One night while taking a stroll with my boyfriend in the local cemetery, I literally snapped and ran away screaming that I couldn’t take it anymore.  Screaming, you guys.  FUCKING SCREAMING.

What was I supposed to do?  My job was very physical: heavy lifting, gardening, running around the property.  I had hardly gained any of the 30 pounds back and had no muscle left in me.  There was no way I could go back to the job.  And my boss…. I was afraid that if he said one rude comment to me, that I was going to either cuss him out like a little bitch or run away screaming as well.  So at my boss’s behest, I made a choice.  I resigned.

Restart number 7.

So, here I am.  Unemployed.  Living by the beach.  Endlessly morally supported and encouraged by my boyfriend.  Doing freelance writing and editing to make a buck or two.  Trying to get this restart up and running before anything else shitty happens.  And you know what I’ve learned?  It never fucking stops.  EVER.  Life will never stop throwing bad shit into your face.  But it also will give the good stuff, too.  Sometimes, it’s all about timing.  Sometimes, it’s all about love.  Sometimes, it’s all about common sense.  Sometimes, you just have to close your eyes and run through it and hope that when you open your eyes on the other side, you’re still in one piece.

I had a nightmare (or was it?) the night I resigned.  One of my best friend’s (she actually helped me write my letter of resignation) and I were in a car, driving on a windy and icy road.  When she hit a patch of black ice on a curve, we spun out of control and fell off the cliff.  As the car fell through the air down to the unforeseen ground, we held each other closely and said I love you.  I was grateful for the impending death, and I was grateful it was going to be with her.  We waited for the sudden explosion.  When it happened, it wasn’t a loud crashing sound.  More like a stereo speaker being hooked up to the wrong cord.  In the dream, I awoke in my neighborhood shopping center, aware I had died, and yet was brought back to life.  To start over, yet again.