Drawing-a-Day Sidetrack: Reflections on Turning 28

Built To Spill – You Were Right

Most of my friends are at least a year older than I am. As I've been a part of many birthday celebrations over the last few years, several of my friends have made jokes about avoiding membership in the 27 club. I was tempted to do the same -- the opportunity appears only once in a lifetime, after all -- but it seemed unnecessarily macabre in light of recent events. Had just a few details of my car accident in March of this year been altered slightly, I could have been severely injured or even killed -- a thought that has alternately terrified me or allowed me the freedom to consider restructuring my life completely, depending on my mood.

But let me backtrack a bit: In July of 2011, while sitting innocently in a lawn chair on a friend's patio, I had my first grand mal seizure of my life. I regained consciousness in an ambulance soon after, but I had no understanding of where I was or why. I couldn't speak, I couldn't think clear thoughts, I couldn't move; it felt like one of those surreal dreams that result from slipping into the shallowest of sleep. I understood on some level that the EMTs were asking me questions, but I couldn't figure out what exactly they needed from me or how to provide it. As the hours went by -- hours that felt like minutes to my confused mind -- I regained the ability to process information and form coherent sentences, but only very slowly. Even toward the end of my ER visit, about five hours after the seizure, it took a few seconds for me to bridge the gap between the doctor's questions and my answers. I was unsteady on my feet and completely exhausted. I felt almost drunk or high, but it was incredibly disorienting and frightening. Once all the basic tests had been administered, the IV drip had done its job, and my heart rate had fallen to a normal pace, I was released -- with no insight as to what had gotten me there in the first place.

Over the months that followed, I endured many medical tests -- some draining, some embarrassing, some merely inconvenient, and all rather expensive. The day I turned 27 -- the same day a nasty storm plowed through Massachusetts -- I began my day at Mount Auburn Hospital with a brain MRI. Eventually, my neurologist flatly told me that sometimes people have one seizure and never have one again, and that that was probably the case with me. We agreed to schedule another check-up down the road, but he seemed quite confident that I was just fine and dandy, and maybe my body had merely had an unusually strong response to stress or sleep deprivation. He gave me the green light to resume all my normal activities -- exercise, swimming, driving, and so on -- once six incident-free months from the first seizure had passed.

Fast forward to late March 2012, during the week when it was unusually hot, in the mid-90s. Then-boyfriend TJ was out of town; I was taking Memphis, the dog, to visit my friend Jen at her apartment not too far from mine. The location was just far enough and the weather just hot enough that I opted to drive. I remember the dress and shoes I was wearing that day; I remember that I was chewing peppermint gum; I remember the feeling of the humid air swooshing through my windows; I remember approaching the intersection of Temple and Broadway in Somerville, where I was preparing to turn left. What I don't remember is the impact of rear-ending an MBTA bus, demolishing the front end of my car and scraping the tops of my feet beneath the brake pedal. (I found out a few days later that the car was totaled.)

I awoke for the second time in less than a year on a stretcher in an ambulance, motionless and completely baffled by the circumstances. I remember freely shedding enormous tears, frustrated at having been rendered mute once again by the misfired electrical pulses in my brain. The EMT, a young woman, showed immense patience as she tried to coax information from me: Where was I going? Who was I going to see? Who could she call to come get the traumatized (but unharmed) dog from the scene of the accident? Somehow I conveyed to her that we should call Jen, but when Jen answered her phone, I was still too out of it to explain what was happening. Somewhere in all this, a very angry police officer stomped into the ambulance, thundering at me about how my license would be revoked. My heart rate was stuck at a whopping 160 beats per minute, so I ended up with another (ultimately inconclusive) trip to the emergency room.

Adding to my feelings of helplessness and utter frustration, two weeks after the car accident, TJ and I broke up. A few weeks after that, I moved out of the apartment we shared, and in with Craigslist strangers; meanwhile, my job moved from the South End to middle-of-nowhere Newton, dragging out my commute to an average of an hour and a half each way. Many friends were also going through big life changes, but positive ones -- weddings, babies, home purchases, grad school, and so on -- and I felt completely out of sync with everything that was happening around me. I struggled to adjust to the sedative medication I was given to control the seizures -- medication that was eventually doubled in dosage when my doctor decided that what he once thought were panic attacks were, in fact, minor seizures. I oscillated between an odd sense of manic relief at the possibilities provided by a fresh start, and the feeling that my entire world was crumbling, far beyond my control.

The late spring and summer had that contradictory and impressionistic feel to it -- somehow simultaneously insanely fun and horrifically depressing, assembled from smears of dulled colors and unfamiliar sensations, blurred by the new chemicals coursing through me as well as too much alcohol, made complicated by too little sleep and disturbing dreams of ex-boyfriends and lovers. The energy at my new home was unpredictable, and I felt compelled to stay out late, overindulge in rich foods (after initially losing my appetite completely for about a month), skip showers and much-needed trips to the laundromat, leave mail in unopened piles on the floor. I spent more time socializing than I had in many years -- maybe ever -- yet I was suffocated by a ruthless isolation.

Gradually, some sense of balance -- or at least a more urgent need for it -- crept into my life. I celebrated my 28th birthday on August 27th, a perfectly warm and blue-skied day that I spent away from my office, basking in glorious sunshine and the company of dear friends. Now, as fall settles in and everyone is slowly returning to their tamer routines, I'm attempting to prepare myself for transition. I've spent most of my life analyzing everything to death but rarely acting on my instincts. I have been in a constant state of doubt, letting other people's opinions slither into my world view until I forget which ideas originate within me and which are infiltrators. I think I'll always struggle to conquer my anxiety over potential failure, but I'm wearied by the equally heavy burden of all that I could have done by now and simply haven't.

In the aftermath of all that has happened over the last few years -- and especially the last six months or so -- I've realized that I'm so much stronger and more capable than I ever dare to give myself credit for. I know myself better than anyone else, and the vast majority of the time, I know what the best choice for me is -- I just don't always listen to myself closely enough. Year 27 was extraordinarily difficult for many reasons, but the truth is that nothing has gotten in my way as much as I (and my unrelenting fear of rejection) have gotten in my own way. I can feel my perception of my future shifting, allowing me to see the many different directions in which I can go rather than all the lurking obstacles. That need for validation is slipping away and revealing something better: myself, as I have always been and always will be.

I've been reading a really excellent book that frequently refers to Michelangelo's belief that every block of marble contained a statue, and it was his job to chip away and "set free" the work of art that already existed within it. I see myself this way -- that is, a store of potential confined by the weight and restrictions of everyday life, waiting to be liberated. The difference between me and Michelangelo's block of marble is that I am both art and artist, the instigated and the instigator, the idea in need of emancipation and the emancipator. I think maybe I have been waiting all this time for someone else to chip away at that exterior, that fear, when I have had the power to free myself all along.

One week from tomorrow, I'll begin classes at Cortiva Institute and thus begin my journey to become a massage therapist. I hope it's just one step toward a better life, a happier one, a life that is defined by my terms and my goals. I know it will be hard for me to tune out the static of doubt, but as I said to a friend early in the summer, I feel more like myself now than I ever have -- and that should be more important to me than the other (mostly arbitrary) markers of adulthood and/or success to which I have previously held myself and inevitably fallen short.

This is my year. I know it. I feel it in every cell of my body, vibrating with anticipation. There will be struggles, as there always are, but I'm ready.

"The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

-Michelangelo

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 14

"In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be."
- Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, 1965

I've always been a bit of a hopeless romantic. I'm not really sure how that happened, considering that my parents divorced when I was eight and they viciously hate each other, but somehow, I came out on the other side still believing in some version of happily ever after. Cinderella is at the top of the favorite fairy tales list -- maybe because it reinforces the idea that no matter how bad circumstances may seem or how many people kick you when you're down, a little sacrifice and a kind heart can eventually lead to everlasting love (a bit cheesy, perhaps, but not the worst idea I've seen on a TV screen).

Most of you reading this know that I just went through a pretty difficult breakup myself (immediately following a very traumatizing combination of a serious medical issue, the resultant car crash, and the revocation of my driver's license -- another post for another day). It stings a little less every day, as one might expect, but every now and then the hurt still takes my breath away. Sometimes I wish I could harden my heart and mind, develop an unrelenting cynicism, put my desire to marry and have children in the same category as my desire to win the lottery... but I can't. No matter how many times my heart is shattered, I keep hoping -- and I guess on some level, believing -- that finding a long-term partner to be happy and make babies with isn't totally out of the question.

I guess I am my mother's daughter in that regard -- despite how difficult that divorce must have been for her, she got right back in that saddle and started dating, eventually leading her to my amazing stepdad. It's difficult to imagine going through such a traumatizing relationship experience and being willing to open up to someone again, but she did, and she was rewarded handsomely. Maybe it will take a few more trials and errors and maybe the source will surprise me, as was the case with her; maybe I will come up with a less conventional way to arrange my life and be just as happy. I'm trying to move forward with both eyes open and mostly focused on myself, for now, and perhaps one day, things will fall into place in some form or another.

I guess we're all doing the best we can... but I think I can do better. Honestly, I think I deserve it. And pushing myself to return to this 30-Day Drawing Challenge is as good a place to start as any, don't you think?

No matter how how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.
- Disney's Cinderella, 1950

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 13

I've always considered myself a cat person -- I've never disliked dogs, exactly, but they always seemed so needy and noisy and annoying to bathe. I grew up with cats (our one dog was an outdoor dog and, honestly, didn't get the attention she really needed, which made her more irritating to try to play with, which just made it less likely we'd go out and spend time with her, and so on), and they always seemed to me to be a perfect combination of affectionate and aloof.

When TJ and I moved in together, we brought his little dog, Memphis, along with us. I hadn't had a pet in several years, and I had never had an indoor dog. Having seen how aggressively cuddly he was in our few encounters before, I knew I'd be OK in the lovin' department, but I was a little nervous about suddenly being thrust into the stepmom role with a pet I hardly knew -- he had, after all, been living with TJ's brother in Quincy up until move-in day.

Now, I'm damn-near obsessed with the little nugget. We've had to kick him out of our bedroom, as he constantly wakes me up with his frequent location changes under the covers, but I sing to him, snuggle him, smooch him, and tug on his enormous ears like he's always been mine. He can drive me nuts with his eternal lick-fests (anyone who has been to our apartment knows exactly what I'm talking about), but I can't deny that he's a never-ending source of entertainment.

The following comic represents a fairly typical day in our apartment.

Memphis, bless his little heart, ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. He convinces himself that he can't jump up onto the couch or the chair in the living room, despite the fact that he's done it a million times before. He burrows himself into blankets, only to find himself stuck. He can't always find his chew toy once we throw it. And even though this isn't his fault, the fact is, he has really bad fart breath.

But I have fallen completely in love with him, more than I ever would have imagined. The excitement he shows every time I walk through the door -- even if I've only gone on a fifteen-minute Walgreen's run -- shatters my heart (in the best possible way, of course). I still love cats and always will, but come on -- just try to resist this precious face. I dare you.

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 12

I feel like it would be a little silly for me to draw this, my drawing/blog project, even though it feels like a much bigger accomplishment (despite how far behind I am) than what I'm about to discuss. I have to save that for the end, unfortunately, so instead I'm going to talk about a small accomplishment that still feels really, really good: staying in the no-hangover zone.

I'm not an alcoholic (though it does run in my family on my dad's side); on the other hand, I've realized recently that it's rare that, once I start drinking, I stop when it's appropriate. I like to think I knew where that line was at some point, but maybe I'm romanticizing the past. I don't know -- I just know that there have been way too many times where I've told myself I could have just one more, only to deeply regret it the next day.

It was different five or six years ago, in my early 20s -- which is funny considering that that's the time when everyone expects you to drink the most heavily. My self-destructive phase was more in my mid-20s, after college, when I was single. I went out all the time, especially when I lived in Allston. I think mostly I was bored, and getting drunk and being foolish was an easy way to distract myself without feeling truly responsible for the consequences of my actions.

These days, I don't go out with self-destruction in mind the way I used to, but alcohol has become a part of my daily existence in a different way. I don't drink every day, but it has somehow become an integral part of every weekend and every social engagement. It's extremely rare that I spend time with friends in any context without alcohol. It's not the worst thing -- we're all fully functional adults with jobs and creative lives and relationships and blah blah blah. Maybe it really isn't that big of a deal. But... maybe it is?

As someone who struggles with anxiety, it's disturbingly easy for me to rely on alcohol as a social lubricant. After a drink or two, I stop clenching my teeth and fists; my tongue loosens and I laugh more frequently. On paper, that sounds like a good thing... until you read the next chapter and discover what happens after drink four or five or six. My habit of mentally reliving embarrassing drunken moments for days after they happen should be enough to stop me or at least slow me down, but it doesn't. Hangovers don't seem to bother me much, either.

But how difficult would it really be if I went out one night and hardly drank, or drank nothing at all?

I tested myself twice last week. As it turned out, the fear I had built up over confronting the world sober, anxiety and all, was much worse than the reality. And waking up the following days, maybe a little tired but without a hint of a hangover, able to remember the conversations I had, was heavenly. I'm a creature of habit, so it may take a lot of reminders that I am just as awesome sober as I am tipsy to make social sobriety a regular thing, but I think it's worth a try. That doesn't mean I'll never drink again, of course, but I don't have to drink every time alcohol is available to me, and I don't have to drink to the point of intoxication. I have a lot of nasty habits I want to change, and it seems like this is a good place to start. Wish me luck.

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 11

I hadn't lived in Boston very long when I met my first real boyfriend. The beginning was, as it always is, intensely lovely. I instantly fell madly in love with him. I really, truly believed we were going to get married and have beautiful babies and live happily ever after.

And I really, truly believed this not just because I was so in love, but because I ignored a lot of red flags. I ignored all the long periods when he was so high-strung and nervous that he depended on a combination of weed and Nyquil to get to sleep. I ignored the times when he'd sleep entire weekends away and resist going anywhere or doing much of anything. I ignored the OCD, the jealousy, the obsession with obtaining alcohol (and weed) above most other things. I ignored his unwillingness to admit that there was something more going on with him than simple depression -- and that a bottle of anti-depressants, prescribed by his pediatrician from another state, couldn't fix everything.

Once he got to the point of having suicidal thoughts, it took only a few weeks for the relationship to completely deteriorate. I still loved him passionately, but it was too much responsibility for me to be his primary source of support. He couldn't accept that. The details are somewhat irrelevant now, but eventually, I was forced to file a restraining order against him. The day I faced him in court was probably the most devastating day of my entire life. I had never cried so much in one day before that, nor have I since.

By that point, I had fallen far behind in all of my classes at Northeastern. All the drama (and I've left out quite a bit of it) made it impossible to focus. My professors were as understanding as they could be and extended many deadlines, but every time I sat down to do school work, I was completely overwhelmed. For the first time in my life, I started having panic attacks.

I finally recognized that if I tried to finish out the semester, I would fail. It became obvious that the only viable option was to take a medical/mental health leave of absence, putting Incompletes on my transcript for all my classes, and take the rest of the semester (as well as the following one) to get my life back together.

I felt strongly (against the advice of many people) that the best way to gain strength from such an awful situation was to stay here in Boston, away from my best friend and my family, and push through the sadness and panic myself. It wasn't easy. I had to work a full-time retail job plus a part-time job working the door at a bar just to pay the most basic bills. I ate as little and as cheaply as possible. I was sick from exhaustion nearly the entire time and had no insurance to go to the doctor. I had no financial help and little emotional support, especially as a relative newcomer to Boston. My parents worried that I wouldn't return to school and regularly questioned my decision. I had frequent nightmares about my ex breaking into my apartment and trying to kill me. I felt utterly alone.

But the truth was that I, like my ex, had issues that I'd been unwilling to confront for a very long time. I had always had bouts of depression and anxiety, and I'd always been insanely insecure -- and of course, like everyone, there were things from my past (both in my childhood and more recently) that I'd never fully processed. I acknowledged this to myself, but I was ashamed to acknowledge it to anyone else. As traumatic as the experience with my ex had been, in some strange way it liberated me; I finally had a reason to seek the help I had needed for most of my life. It was a turning point. I began weekly therapy for the duration of my leave of absence, and I continued to see my therapist for a long time after. When I went back to school (as I'd always known I would), I was highly successful, earning solid A's and generally kicking butt for the remainder of my college career.

I took a break from therapy for awhile, once I felt like I'd eliminated most of my PTSD symptoms, and I came off the anti-depressants I'd been prescribed. A few years later, when my job situation became unbearable (and the panic attacks returned), I started again. I also used anti-anxiety medications for about a year, despite the protests of a few people who are close to me. Throughout all of this I have realized that, for me, mental health work is never done, and therapy is a key tool in keeping me a relatively sane and happy person; I've realized that none of this makes me defective or broken or less valuable than anyone else; I've realized that I know myself best, so it's up to me (with some help from my doctor) to figure out how to make my life better, even if it occasionally invites negative judgment from outsiders.

And though I wish mental health issues on no one, I feel some measure of comfort knowing that many of my friends struggle with similar issues. I don't know if we're naturally drawn together, if we recognize that feeling of brokenness in each other, or if everybody is equally screwed up and some are just better at hiding it than others. It doesn't matter, really -- I just hope they know that it is a show of great strength, not weakness, to ask for help.

And everybody needs a little help, every now and then.

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 10

I love sugar.

I love cookies, I love cake, I love nearly every form of candy from Jolly Ranchers to the fanciest dark chocolate. I couldn't get myself addicted to cigarettes -- and I did try! -- but I have never been able to break my addiction to sugar. It's the thing I crave most and the thing I always turn to when I'm having a crappy day.

Oh, sugar, I wish I knew how to quit you.

My enthusiasm for sugar drastically increases when it comes to holiday treats. After all, the normal stuff comes in fun shapes (a Snickers that looks like a little soldier!) and there are certain mind-blowingly tasty things you can only get that one time a year. I think you all know what I'm talking about.

Cadbury Creme Eggs, y'all.

I have loved those things for as long as I can remember. They were a major reason I looked forward to Easter as a kid (and they're pretty much the only reason I still do). When I worked at CVS, I used to buy tons of them on post-season clearance with the intention of hoarding them year-round; instead, they'd all be gone within the week. In more recent years, I've purchased a box or two of the miniature ones, thinking I could enjoy the smaller doses of deliciousness and thus feel less guilty. That didn't work either; I could never eat just one.

These days I try to just avoid the seasonal aisle at Walgreen's as much as I can. A few days ago, however, I caved and bought one. Some childhood loves lose their luster after a few years, but that Cadbury Creme Egg was every damn bit as delicious as I'd remembered.

And I didn't feel even a little bit guilty.

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 9

"If we live our lives the right way, then everything we do can become a work of art."

~Claire Fisher, Six Feet Under

I'd never really considered how much we sanitize death until I watched Six Feet Under. Suddenly, it seemed very strange: the way we try to preserve the bodies, make them look like they did in life, lay them on a bed of satin, cry on their graves not once but over and over and over (but quietly, and mostly in private), until we die ourselves. When did this become the normal way of doing things? Why is death -- just as natural and inevitable as birth -- such a shameful thing, so blanketed in denial?

When I started watching the show, I hadn't really experienced death myself. I knew some elderly neighbors or distant relatives or family friends who had died, and although I felt a lot of empathy for their families and some measure of sadness for myself, it wasn't until my grandparents died that I truly felt grief.

I don't have much to compare it to, of course, but I'm so grateful that my grandparents opted to skip the embalming/viewing stage and go straight to cremation. The thought of having to see them as mannequins, false representations of their former selves, made my stomach churn (as it still does). I'm unconvinced that literally seeing them one last time, but minus the opportunity to say any real goodbyes, would have done much to help me grieve. I'm also unconvinced that having a grave site to obsess over would have made the process any easier, especially when I already have such complicated feelings about living far away from my family. Everyone has their own way of grieving, of course, but for me, there is no point in trying to have an ongoing emotional relationship with their bodies; the people are already gone, and pretending otherwise gives me no comfort.

One of many things that drew me to this show was its willingness to confront a wide range of people's complicated feelings about death, along with what actually happens in a funeral home, how many things about death are concealed from the mourners, and how bizarre (and often darkly funny) it all really is. Outside of the macabre, its brutal honesty, no matter how controversial the topic, and the complexity of all the characters make it a shoo-in for my favorite show. So far, I have found nothing else that sucked me in as immediately or tugged as forcefully on my heartstrings. I can't wait to watch it all again, from start to finish.

Sorry, I couldn't get it to stay rotated, no matter what I did. :(