A New Word: Devotee

It's been awhile since I have written and I don't know why. There have been many things to write about, however maybe I just needed a little time to find a topic that would initiate my writing. So here goes, it seems like its been forever.

Awhile ago I added someone on facebook who I originally thought was a co-student of mine, however while the names were the same, this individual was not that student, yet someone who would stir up a lot of ideas and emotions.

While I was checking my inbox and just toodling around on facebook one day the little instant chat message box popped up with his name as the title and the first comment reading: "Are you in a wheelchair?" My first emotional reaction was insult, how does a person not even say 'Hello, How are you?', he jumped to something so personal right away. So I exited he message box and kept meandering around the facebook sight. Until the exact same message popped up ten minutes later, when I proceeded to log off completely in anger and humiliation.

I realized later on how immature I was being, yes he was asking something personal about my lifestyle, but it is apart of who I am right now. I realized it made me angry because it forced me to face the fact that at this moment in time I am running my life on wheels and not my two feet. It meant facing the fact that I did fit the definition of disabled, which for me was humiliating. Then the gates to guilt broke, and the river of guilt gushed in. How could I be insulted, angered and humiliated, especially when I had a sister who was disabled? I love her, I owe her so much, So how is it that I loved, accepted and defended(even though she didn't need to be) her so easily? And I can't do the same for myself? I know my sister could have cared less about being accepted and defended and playing a part in being the definition of disabled. She was just herself and that was all that mattered. For myself it's just so much more complicated, accepting myself now is difficult, because I was just beginning to know and love the person I was before the accident. The process of being me for me was interupted and starting all over again is like grinding big boulders into dust.

Anyways, about a week and a half later the same message pops up, and this time I decide to chat back a forth. I told the gentlemen I found it insulting that he didn't even say hello first, and he apologized, so that was nice. Then because I didn't know how I knew him I asked him, and he replied saying "We haven't ever met, but do you know what the word devotee means?", I replied saying "No," and he further explained. The word Devotee describes a individual who is attracted to people in wheelchairs. So this freaked me out, yet I continued the conversation, asking if he was turned off by walking women, how long he'd known about the wheelchair world, and how he had come to know he was one of these individuals. He was so casual about the whole thing, like it was nothing to talk about it, he seemed like a weirdo, to like girls in wheelchairs, how awful.

Then once again the gates of guilt opened again, how could I have such hopeless degrading thoughts. Especially when I saw my sister as beautiful and wished and hoped for he to find somebody exactly like this man. She deserved to be happy with a man who loved her more than life itself. How could it be that in such a short time, my thoughts and ides on loving people in wheelchairs had become completely reversed?

As we tied up the conversation I told the gentlemen "it's nice to know that there are people like yourself out there", he replied " I am glad that you think that way." It was nice to end the conversation that way, it was a conversation I needed to have. I haven't chatted with him since, but maybe once was all I needed, to expand the Mel Mind.

Scars

I know I've changed. I realized it even more today when I looked at my bruises and scars. I used to be so proud when I had a bad cut or bruise, showing it off to anyone and everyone. I was so prideful. At the fact that I had survived, made it through some sort of pain, it made me feel stronger. It made me feel like I looked stronger to others too, which for some reason was and still is extremely important to me.

When I looked at my scars and bruises today it was as if I was ashamed to have so many. I felt the need to cover some up because they make me look more pathetic and weak, rather than the strong from before. I realize I need to be proud of these scars and bruises, because what I've survived this time around is much more than the little scratches I got from climbing trees and falling off my bike when I was little.

Tired of Being Tired

It's hit the year mark, and my wish, my unrealistic hope hasn't come true. I wanted so badly to wake up and have everything back to how it was. I mean I didn't need to go back in time, I know thats not possible, but to have my body back; me back. My mind, body and soul have all been displaced, they're incongruent. One says one thing, the other does something else, while the other thinks something completely different.

I look in the mirror and see a tired, disheveld girl, with bruises and scars that she doesn't even know belong to her. Her eyes have shrunk, the light within them faded, her mouth tiny, dainty to the point where its so small it looks like it hasn't been used in years, skin has lost its shine, now pale and sickly. Its all I see, I look in the mirror and then I look at my grad picture and see a woman, not a girl, a lady with confidence and intelligence. It hurts more when I know the pictures were taken a day before the accident. How can time just crush the spirit right out of a human being? It seems like I've aged in body, yet rewound to be an insecure little girl again, running to mommy and daddy for anything and everything. I've had to focus for a year now on just surviving physically, and it's agony. I'm tired of just trying to survive, I was living before and I was beautiful and confident and strong, now all that seems to be erased.

I look at that picture everyday, longing for myself, wishing to be that beautiful woman again who looked as though she could have saved the world. But this new life, if I can call it that is draining me of every ounce of my soul left, I feel I've resorted to just being physical and my body is working overtime. I'm tired of saying I'm tired, I'm tired of using it as an excuse, I'm tired of hurting, I'm tired of wallowing, I'm tired of hearing people say 'You look tired'(it's so insulting, especially when I know I look it already, it's the last thing I want to hear), I'm tired of hiding, I'm tired of pain, but most of all I'm just tired of being tired. It's ruining me. Just another day in the mel mind.

A New Look

It was driving me crazy that I had such a basic blog page, so I finally decided to sit down and make it look better. It isn't done yet, but it certainly holds true to my personality more than the other one did. I have a few more changes that I would like to make as far as colours and pictures. At least it looks more presentable if someone rolls across it.

Simply Is.

She's pissing me off again. It is my life, I will do things when I want to, in my own time. I don't think I'm ready for school, or for moving on in life. After all I have lost a lot, at a time in my life that was extremely special for me, I won't be able to go back and relive my graduating year. But she doesn't get that, she doesn't see it. At least with her I gave her time and still give her time to mourn over her losses, I just wish she treated me like I treat her, it would be a real treat(haha).

I think its ridiculous what she is asking of me, $20 every day I don't call, its MY choice when I decide to continue MY education. I've never pushed her or asked much of her as a daughter, I left her be, because I knew my sister needed her more. And I realize that now because my sister is gone that she feels lonely, but now she doesn't get to turn around and mother me like I'm five. I'm eighteen and I graduated high school well I was in the hospital using my own brain, during recovery. I'm not a stupid kid, I had a Dad who has taught me plenty, and when she had time she was a good Mom who taught me lots, but now I've had enough of being five again. It is degrading and with what I've just been through I don't deserve it. What is she going to do with the money anyway? I don't see what she is trying to prove. I've simply had enough with her having power over me. I'm not powerless, even if I can't walk or shake it on my own. I have a brain and a mouth with powerful words inside each, and I'm not afraid to use it anymore. Its been a long time coming, but now it is time to speek instead of shudder. To rise above instead of fall down. It simply is.

Blah- Blah-Blah-Emotional Baggage and Rambling are Extremely Exhausting

It doesn't feel like time for a new year. I'll be brutally honest and say it's not fair to let the new year be now, after all I got cheated on last year. What did I get to do last year besides fight to live? And be forced to learn life lessons that I already know I have refused to absorb? I know this is insulting to all the people that have helped me along the way, but I can't even be thankful anymore. It's like my shadow has swooped in, covered the good girl up, dug her a hole in the forest to sit in, and is letting that good girl, who had a heart of gold, who wanted to do the old 'save the world' cliche. And that hole keeps getting deeper, closer to the center of the earth, making her sweaty, worried and extremely agitated. I've lost her, she's almost all burned, and I feel like I'm losing one of my souls. Like the Japanese warriors and their families believe, a person cannot be healthy or fully healed unless all their souls reside within that one physical body. So what am I supposed to do, especially when it feels like I've almost lost a soul, and I'm not even close to being healed?

The clock has ticked for almost a year now, and all I feel like I've done is lost mentally and emotionally, especially physically. I find it so tiring somedays to cry, it seems easier to tilt my head to look to the sky and let the tears seep back in, that way I'm guarenteed not to feel the burning on my face and I won't have purple bags underneath my eyes. I recognize it's not healthy to hold things back, emotions I mean, but all I've been doing lately is being emotional. I've done it for a year and I'm not only tired of it I'm bored of it. It's not like me, and it isn't providing any benefits at all.

I know as it gets closer and closer to the day, that day my life changed, that the law of attraction theory got the better of me, I'll catch myself saying it more and more. I can't do it anymore seems to ring and bounce around my head and triple each time it rikochets off my skull. That's the other thing, my skull. It still has the indent, the divet that now derives me as imperfect. I rarely recognize myself anymore, when I look in the mirror(which isn't often), all I see that I know are lips that have never been kissed, and eyes that seem to be shrinking, like they've lost site of their goal. My body doesn't feel like it's mine anymore, and because of that my mind only seems to get to speek when I write things like this. The rest of the time it seems like the shadow I mentioned earlier is processing and spitting out these horrible thoughts that I know aren't mine but I can't shut them off. It won't let me carry on in a day unless it has made it's point which generally means pissing me off or making me cry. The force behind it is so strong, but I know I have to push through it.

And by pushing through it that may meen these things:
1) Getting into school for me, not leting Moms' constant nagging about it drive me the other direction; knowing that it is immature to rebel this way
2) telling Mom this
3) Telling Mom that I may have been reduced to the age of a three year old or less physically, but my brain is still 18, and that because I've been through many of the things that she has I am strong, I just have to live my life by my rules, not hers. Telling her it is degrading that she treats me this way, and doesn't help that shadow disappear, it just makes it worse.
4) Telling Dad he can love me, but letting him know when he's crossed the line.
5) Sitting down with Mom and Dad, tell them about what they say to me about eachother, when the other isn't around; because those aren't my issues, its not my marriage, my role is the daughter and its taking enough energy to figure myself out right now, so I can't carry them on my shoulders too.
6) Maybe leaving, because home isn't home anymore, going to a hospital isn't an option as far as getting on with my life, and hiding in a friends house or hotel isn't an option, especially with all the shit I now have to lug around and the wheels and motor under my ass.
7) Being realistic about being a night hawk. Knowing it isn't going to get me anywhere
8) Being realistic about blogging; it may be a release, an immense help; but is it responsible? Or do I dare question it and its magic way of making me feel relieved?

All I can say for tonight is that this truly feels like the first blogg in a long time that allowed me to breathe, and for those readers after this blogg, BEWARE The Mel Mind.