Thinking of Death

Another day of summer has passed. I've had a pretty awesome week so far, but I've been feeling kind of off. I don't feel like myself. I've been quite happy for the past few days and I've had a lot of fun, but there's something that I can't seem to shake from my mind: DEATH. (Yes, I felt it was necessary to put in all caps.)

I can't understand why I've been thinking about death, especially when I haven't been upset or afraid. Thinking about death doesn't necessarily mean that a person is depressed or scared, because I've been perfectly content for some time now. Sure, I've been bored, but not unhappy. The reason I find this sudden contemplation of death to be so odd is because my mind wandered to it when I was in a good mood, when I was happy.

On Monday, June 25th, I had an amazing afternoon. I was so cheerful during that time and yet death was on my mind at one point. I didn't feel lonely or broken. The people who were around me had nothing to do with what I was thinking. They never said a word concerning the matter, at least not that I can remember. Why was I thinking about death in the company of those two people? Those two who will never fully understand what they, among a handful of others, helped give back to me...why around them? 

I'm not surprised or shocked to be thinking about death. Actually, it seems very fitting according to events that have occurred recently. Though I can't answer my previous question, I believe I know why Death has decided to take up residence in my mind. Due to all of the fun I've been having and how everything has seemingly returned to whatever normal was and is, I seem to be forgetting the friend I almost met. 

Two sides of the same coin

The words that I say now will undoubtedly sound ridiculous to me later, seeing as I am writing this post past 1 in the AM. I needed to let this out though. This is subject to being deleted at a later time.

Stuff

It's been a few days since I've shared so I guess I'll scrape together some stuff to say now. Summer is boring and fun like it always has been. There have been fun days and boring days. I don't know how I ever got through the previous summer. Summer feels like it'll never end, but I know that time will start passing quickly now that I've said that.

Alley and Taylor came over on Tuesday and Thursday. On Tuesday, we watched some Nabari no Ou and part of Mulan. On Thursday, they brought some video games just to show me what they were. We finished Mulan, chatted, and lazed around. I felt kind of bad because I'm extremely boring. 

SAT scores came back. True to my feeling, I did improve, but only by the slightest bit. I just keep wasting money. I'm not expecting anything great to come out of my third try, but it would be nice to not feel like such an incompetent fool. In addition to SAT scores, report cards came too. My GPA is finally what I've wanted it to be, but I suspect that's only because I was enrolled in four classes for my junior year. I need to maintain my GPA, it's all I have going for me. What's so great about having a high GPA though? Why do I feel like I need it? Did I want it for me or to impress someone else? 

Anyway, I've started to talk to a few of my cousins again, via Skype and Yahoo Messenger. I stayed up until almost two in the morning chatting with them. I went over to my aunt's house yesterday and today. I absolutely love her cooking. While I was at my aunt's house today, I realized something: I don't like curry; the little person inside my head laughed at that thought because the only reason I remembered that little fact was because my aunt had made curry. After eating, I went upstairs with Rabia and we played Uno. Usama came in and every now and then to talk. I found humor in a lot of what he said so I started laughing. He finally noticed that I laugh very easily. Sumyya came in after a while and turned on the TV. We (Sumyya, Rabia, and I) ended up watching almost two episodes of How I Met Your Mother. It's a funny show. 

I'd like to add that I've been on Netflix quite a bit...and I started watching Pretty Little Liars not too long ago. Don't judge. I just like the drama and ridiculousness of it all, plus it's kind of interesting to me. Basically, I'm trying to make it sound like I don't really like it when I actually do. Don't be disappointed in me, pleaseeee. In addition to that, I started watching Avatar: The Last Airbender today. I should have watched that show when my cousin told me to, he was right about it being a good show. I've been on Netflix way too much, but I can't help it. It's all I feel like doing to pass the time. I think that's why I'm getting dumber...okay, I'm done for now. Later!

Brain Dump

I have a lot on my mind at the moment. I don't know if it is normal for me or not. I've been overly emotional for the past few days. I'd like to blame that on my medication, but I can't blame my emotions on my medication forever, especially when I'm not even on steroids anymore. No, whatever I'm feeling is a result of my mind wandering and searching. Why is my mind wandering and what am I searching so desperately for? I still don't know yet. This entire post is going to be a jumbled mess of thoughts, more so than usual so I apologize in advance. 

I was thinking about my DCM friend, Carol, today. I've been thinking of her every now and then. She hasn't emailed me lately. I've been meaning to email her, but I don't want to keep giving her my life story. It's not fair to her. I wonder how she and her family are doing, especially her grandson. She tells me about his life when it relates to what I say to her. I should email her soon and make sure everything is okay. 

There's something important that I still haven't done. I need to send a letter to my donor family. It's absolutely necessary that I write to them this summer. I want them to know how grateful I am for the decision they made. I don't mean to open up their wounds, but I need to reach out to them. I need to know about the girl whose death gave me my life back. I need to know about her.

I was thinking about sleeping early tonight. Early meaning before 2 in the AM. I'm still awake though. Like I mentioned already, I've been overly emotional. I don't know why. Maybe it's just who I am. If that's the case, then I hate that about myself. Anyway, I wanted to sleep early because I was starting to feel depressed. Then, I noticed that Casey had texted me. Her text prompted me to stay awake and blog instead. 

I've been feeling a mixture of sadness and jealousy for a while. I feel unwanted by certain people. It's almost as though I'm not good enough to be friends with them. I'm jealous because I'm not needed in their lives. I could run away and those people wouldn't care one bit. They wouldn't wonder where I've gone or if I'm even safe. I've realized that we cross paths with many people in life and walk with them for some time on the same path. The sad truth is that we often go our own way without ever walking down another path together again. And then we wonder if our loyalty meant anything at all. 

Casey and I talked about dreams via text messaging. Her dreams are strange, but they seem to be in the norm, whatever that may be. I'm glad I can remember dreams after I wake up, but the details, the most important ones at that, often become fuzzy for me. I'd like to believe that I write down my dreams correctly according to what happens in them, but I can never be entirely sure.

I like dreaming. Lately, I've wanted to stay in my dream world instead of living in the real world, where I've been riding a coaster of silly emotions. Dreams are lovely and sometimes much better than reality. In dreams, anything and everything is possible. Of course, that should hold true for reality as well, but I don't think it does since we are limited by ourselves and those around us. Dreams are special for many reasons, but I'll just give a few. Unlike real life, you can see anyone in dreams, including those who are no longer of the real world, here on Earth. Another wondrous thing about dreams is that they can take place in any setting and even in any colour; I have yet to dream in black and white or anything else besides full colour. I think I hear sounds within my dreams because I sometimes remember things that seem to have been said. Maybe dreams are like movies with the sound turned off and the captions turned on. I've always thought that dreams were interesting, kind of like a second life. Truthfully, I sometimes enjoy my second life better than this one.

I feel better now, much cleaner. I'm sure there's plenty of junk left in my brain that I forgot to sweep out. When it comes to be too much, I'll clean up again. Right now, I'm ready to sleep and see if I can dream. Even if I don't dream tonight, it'll be okay since Alley and Taylor will be coming over. I can't wait to see them.

A Flower Waiting for Death

What am I holding on to? A person? The person's expressions? The memories? 

I guess the better question is why am I holding on? I can't make the person care when I know for a fact that I mean absolutely nothing. Why am I trying to mean something? Why am I trying to reassure myself? Why am I still listening? Why can't I tell whether this person is a true friend or just someone set to hurt me for fun? I don't understand. 

This friendship, it blossomed in spring. Now it's trying to withstand the summer heat. By autumn, it will probably be dead; in fact, I kind of hope for it to be dead. And when winter comes around, it will have vanished entirely. It will be as if it never existed. Would it be better to kill the flower now, instead of waiting for it to gradually shrivel up and die? I wonder.

What prompted this? It was a nice day outside. I was just standing in place and staring around when the thoughts started flowing in. I need to go outside more often and spend time alone so I can think more.

Veer-Zaara

Out of all of the Bollywood movies I've seen, this is one of my favorites. Veer-Zaara is such a beautiful love story. It was definitely worth my tears; and I really enjoyed the songs, not just for the sound but for the meaning as well.

I'm not going to go in depth as to what the movie is about, but it was different from what I was expecting. It's still slightly typical since it involves a sudden blooming romance between an Indian guy and a Pakistani girl. Unlike other forbidden love stories, this one ended with the two lovers being together.

There was one aspect in particular that I really loved about this movie. It's a love story that occurs and lives on, without involving the partition. That's why I love this movie so much. It has nothing to do with the partition, it's all about love and how it shouldn't matter whether Veer is an Indian or Zaara is a Pakistani. It's not only a love story, but a story of acceptance. Both Veer and Zaara come to see each other's country as their own.

Although, I'm still bothered by the flaws present in the movie. The two lovers don't even have the same religion. Then again, love knows no religion. It felt more like Zaara drifted away from the religion she had because of love. Technically, her marriage would not be valid from a religious perspective...but this is just a movie, of course. Still, I wonder if something like this may have happened at one point in time.

Movies like this make me even more of a hopeless romantic. I'm not just going to happen upon a guy who likes me. We're not going to sing and dance in a field of flowers or anything like that. That brings me to this question: aren't there bees among the flowers? If you did that in real life, wouldn't you just get stung like crazy? Back to my point, I sometimes wish love worked like it does in certain movies. I don't know what it feels like to love someone or to have someone love me. I'm still too young to understand love. Perhaps when I'm older I'll understand. Okaaaayyyyyy, I'm done sounding like a teenage girl.  

My Recent Visit to the Hood Away from the Hood

I had an appointment in Baltimore this morning so my dad and I stayed with a friend of his last night. His friend has three children: 1 baby girl and 2 little boys. Seeing the three of them reminded me of how much I love kids. I love that at such a young age they already have their own personalities, not to mention that they're super cute. They're full of energy and very entertaining to watch. I felt awkward, but that's how I usually am around kids. I was happy to see them, but also sad too. The three of them reminded me that I'll never be able to have kids, but that's another topic altogether. 

Before my appointment, I had to get blood drawn. Call me crazy, but I really like getting my blood drawn. I'm used to the way it feels. When I was "living" in the hospital, it bothered me sometimes because I was sick of constantly being poked. I'm glad I don't get stuck every single day anymore, but it kind of feels nice to be reminded of the pain that I once felt. I know that it sounds kind of twisted, but I am who I am. And who I am just happens to like needles. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

My appointment went pretty well, extremely well actually. I saw Dr. Scheel (my cardiologist aka The Boss), Peggy (one of the nurse practitioners who works with my cardiologist; she's amazing), Dawn (the social worker of the team; she's great), Katie (one of the nurses I had on the 9th floor; she's so sweet), and a few other people that my dad and I know. It was such a great feeling to see Peggy. I was so happy to see her that I almost cried; it felt so good to hug her. Seeing Dawn was great too. She always makes me laugh with her stories and the things that she says. I was so surprised that I ran into Katie because I wasn't expecting to. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get to go up to see the new and improved PICU since it was my first time in the new building and I really wanted to see who was working today, but I'll see the PICU with Peggy next time, I hope. The best thing about my appointment was hearing that I'm free of taking three medications now. Staying healthy pays off kiddos! 

Anyway, the new building, the new Children's Center, is huge! It's unfamiliar to me because today was the first time I've ever been in the building. The building is absolutely gorgeous on the inside. Everything is so spaced out so it definitely gives a good workout.  The furniture is so vibrant and colourful, the walls are decorated with paintings with lots of colours here and there, and even a few of the elevators are coloured! It was really pretty. Next time that I'm there, I'll take a picture of the ginormous red loop-de-loop thing, it was so cool! Even though it looks much nicer and more appropriate now, I don't ever want to be an in-patient ever again. I hope that the only two reasons I go there are for appointments and biopsies.

Side Note:
-The Hood = Brooklyn
-The Hood away from the Hood = Baltimore
-I am not even joking...

Another Friendship Thing

Most of us belong to more than one circle; by circle, I don't necessarily mean clique. I mean that we all have different groups of friends. We have the friends that we are always nice to, the friends we can insult, the friends we spend a lot of time with, etc. 

The different circles bother me sometimes. I'm bothered by how I can never be in some of the circles that I wish to be in. I don't care to try anymore though. I'm not going to force my way into other circles anymore. I'm not going to try to find a permanent spot in places that I don't belong and never will belong in. I know when people don't want me and when I don't fit in. 

Where am I going with this? Who really knows? I just needed to let this out of my brain. I'll probably read this over again later and question what was wrong with me when I wrote it. Time to do math homework...or at least look over the homework.