Friday, December 20, 2013

If I'm An Artist Now, Does That Mean I Need To Wear A Beret And A Turtleneck? Because I Look Awesome In Berets.

So, getting back to the story, I'll actually let you back in on the timeline.  In my mind, the times get a bit muddled around this part because the depression part of my life seemed to stretch out for years.  In reality, it had only been eight months.  Once I started getting back on my feet (quite literally) and getting into my life again, I had some fun things happen.

I met a new guy, for one. He's not super important on the boyfriend scale, but he did become a really awesome friend and a really supportive person.  There have been a few people in my life like this (my nurse friend, my friend from computer science, my work husband from the uni, my Seattle friend, some family friends who are ALWAYS supportive and there for me, and of course, my own family, immediate and extended), but to be honest, people like this are just so few and far between that it's worth it to mention.  He made me feel normal, and still does. When I told him about my health stuff, he nodded and said "everyone has stuff." But then he was also the first person to text when I had surgeries. He made me realize how bad I'd had it with Josh, so he came in at a good time in my life.  I'm not going to say a lot about him in this, but he'll show up in the future briefly.

Another awesome thing that happened was I decided to add an art minor to my school.  This is a huge thing in my life because I'm not very artistic.  I wanted to better myself and step out of my element. A lot of amazing people that I know are artists, and I really respect them, so I did feel like I had a lot of hard work to do to get anywhere near the realm that they were in.  The title of this post is symbolic of what people think before they do anything artistic. Artists are some of the most creative and hard working people. It's only the one's that are obsessed with their image that wear the beret's and turtlenecks. Josh had previously wanted me to finish school asap so we could work on paying off his debt and he could go to school again, but now I was ready to add on to my degree.

One thing I did that I never thought I'd do is I got a tattoo on my left inner wrist. It says Fight.  I used to write this on my wrist all the time because it gave me strength when I needed it, and I needed it a lot. One day I decided I was wasting a lot of ink, and I may as well just waste a little and get it put on permanently.  I've never regretted it, and I don't think I ever will. I look at it several times a day and feel a bit stronger.

On top of all this, I got a wicked new Smart car, Smarti.

Despite having so many great things going on, my life felt like a constant battle. I felt like I was trying to roll sideways up a steep hill because there was cheese at the top (I love cheese).  I had so many appointments at the pain clinic. They were all massively helpful but doing them between school and work and life was draining. I kept with it though because I knew I had to.  I didn't want to slide back down that hill and away from the cheese.

Around October or something, I got back in line for my left shoulder bone graft.  My parents were very hesitant about this, saying that I should just have some time to be me without surgeries, which I understood. However, my shoulder was still dislocating several times a day, so I was pretty ready to have that fixed.  Just as I respected their opinion, they respected my decision, so I jumped back in line and got ready for it. There was a hitch though: I also needed to get out my gall bladder now. Apparently the steroids I'd taken for my brain surgery and meningitis all those years ago had also given me gall stones. So I went and talked to my shoulder surgeon about timing, because I needed to know what would happen if I got my gall bladder out and my shoulder came in.  He assured me that they would do it after a minimal amount of recovery time, so I decided to go ahead with the gall bladder surgery.

For New Years of 2012, I decided to go to Hanna to hang out with my cousin one last time before she moved away.  I went to this big Hanna dance with them all, and I wore this tight, tiny blue dress.  I hardly hung out with her at all, because there was a lot of people she knew there and she was everywhere at once.  So I ended up hanging out with my other cousin and his friends. One of the people I hung out with was this guy that he'd known for a long time. I'd always heard stories about him but hadn't really talked to him. He was pretty shy and kept bringing me coke's all night (I wasn't drinking). At the end of the night I drove him home, even though you can walk anywhere in Hanna in about five minutes. It was cute.  I contacted him on Facebook a bit later (I realize now he was too shy to contact me) and we ended up hanging out in Calgary again. Then we started dating. I though it would be great to date someone long distance because there would be the added bonus of having no pressure to hang out all the time instead of focusing on school. I didn't account for all the driving time, mind you. That's fine though. So we started dating, and he and I started alternating driving back and forth from where he was, which was Red Deer for a couple months, and then Hanna for a long, long time. But you'll hear more about that in the future.

It was around this time that I got a text message from an ex, the one I dated for 2 years and a bit. He told me he wanted to talk to me and that he was sorry for everything that happened. This stressed me out terribly. I told him not to talk to me again, and even considered changing my phone number. It had taken me a long time to get to where I was in my confidence, and I just wasn't ready to have him bring it down again. In hindsight, I should have been more willing to listen.  You'll hear about that soon too.

So the clock ticked towards the new year, and I stared into my future with apprehensive but excited eyes.  I had a lot of stuff that was going to get done in 2012 whether I liked it or not.

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