Stitches and Salt

  He saw her at a distance, the one - the only one- who that broke his heart so many years ago.  She had always been beautiful.  Now, there was an aura of maturity and refinement that seemed to flow from her.  On top of that, there was that radiance that belongs solely to new mothers.
  Just seeing her was enough to cause heavy sweating.
  She hadn't noticed him yet.  Maybe she wouldn't.  That would be for the best, really.
  But fate had different intentions.
  Their eyes met and he felt his stomach turn inside out.  The sweating intensified.
  "John?" she called out with a grin on her face.  The sound of her voice was like having stitches pulled out.  "Oh my gosh, it's been so long!"
  Any hope of escape vanished.  There was no avoiding it, he'd have to talk to her now.
  "Er, wow Jess, you look great," he managed to stammer out.  What a stupid thing to say.  Now she was going to know for sure that he still wasn't over her.  He became aware of the waves of sweat flowing from him.  Which, incidentally, caused him to sweat even more.  If Hell exists, this must be it.
  Jess had pulled her shopping cart closer.  She let out a laugh, the kind that John had always suspected was forced.  Stitches pulled, salt added to the wound.
  "You don't look too bad yourself," she said, looking him up and down. Great, now she was lying to make him feel better.  He caught a whiff of vanilla.  Even after all these years, she still used the same brand of lotion.  It was like reliving the Original Heartbreak all over again.  Stitches ripped, salt rubbed in vigorously, stabbed with knife, repeat.
  The baby, presumably a girl given the red ribbon wrapped around her bald little head, turned to face John.  There was a look that conveyed pity and disgust.  She had looked into the depths of his soul and knew him for the failure he was.
  "How old is she?" John asked.  Anything to get out of that tractor beam gaze of judgment.
  "My little angel just had her first birthday last week." Jess was looking at the baby, who was still quiet and fixated on John, with pride.  He couldn't deny that it was a cute baby, even if it unsettled him with that all knowing stare.  "What about you?  What have you been up to?"
  "Oh, you know, life," he answered.  There was no way he could tell her the truth.  That he was an antisocial loser working minimum wage odd jobs while still living with his parents.  That multiple nights a week he had dreams about the two of them living the life they were destined to live.  That he had crafted a shrine made entirely out of objects he had kept from their relationship hidden in the back of his closet.  That he actually believed one day she would come to the realization that they were meant for each other.  That he had a sincere belief that she could never be happy if he wasn't in her life.  That the sight of her with a baby was enough to send him plunging into suicidal depression.  That hers were the only pair of breasts he had ever seen in real life.  That they were burned forever into his memory.  That he hadn't even held another girl's hand, let alone be intimate with one, since she had "lost the spark."  What was that supposed to mean anyway?  How the hell do you lose a spark at eighteen years of age?
  "Can you believe our reunion is just a couple of months away?"  Jess asked.
  John wiped some of the sweat from his forehead.  There was a sense of imminent vomiting coming.  "That's crazy," he said.
  "My husband is going to Chicago for a business trip that weekend, so it looks like I'll be going by myself."  She still had that graceful way of running her hand through her hair.  Though this time John got the impression she was just showing off that huge rock on her finger.  "Are you bringing your significant other?"  Innocent enough question, but the casualness with which she assumed he had a partner was unsettling.
  Stitches.  Salt.  Knife.
  Fuck.  What was he going to do now?  He couldn't tell her how he really felt.  Not here in the dairy aisle.  Not when he was sweating enough to fill a small lake.  How could she be so oblivious to it?  There was no choice but to lie.

Where I was six years ago

It's hard to imagine what the nurse could have been thinking when I shot up out of bed, grabbing her arms and screaming frantically at her, "I have to go back.  I wasn't supposed to leave.  Take me back to the island."  As my mother related later, the nurse calmly told me that I had just had a kidney transplant and was in the hospital and needed to relax.  After some more back and forth, I eventually passed out again.

What a crazy day the first of April, 2008 was for me and my family.  It had started with a simple phone call around 10 that morning.  It was a number I didn't recognize, but knew from the area code that is was local.  Imagine my surprise when it was the transplant team, telling me there was a kidney and I was up as a backup.  Being April Fool's Day, my parents were skeptical, to put it nicely.  But after handing Mom the phone so she could hear for herself it was the transplant team, it didn't take long before we were off.  

First stop was at the hospital's lab.  There's a large amount of blood tests needed to ensure that you're a match.  And some of them take a few hours, so we spent a lot of the day waiting.  After getting blood drawn, I went to see one of the nephrologists (kidney specialist)  for a physical.  While I was here, I noticed that one of my fellow dialysis patients had also received the call.  She had been waiting for this moment for longer than I had and it felt weird and wrong to be up for this before her.  So during the physical, I told the doctor that I'd rather she get it for the aforementioned reason.  The doctor broke out in a huge grin and was silent for a few seconds before saying, "You didn't hear?  There are two kidneys and both of you are getting one."

The year and a half prior to this had been the most difficult, trying time of my life.  Few things could be worse than a kidney failure diagnosis.  Especially if you had been completely healthy beforehand.  I think I've written about this period in a different blog, but it's probably something I'll revisit later.  So hearing the doctor say that was like nothing I'd ever felt before.  I'm not eloquent enough to give it proper form.

After getting the all clear from the doctor, it was back to the waiting game.  I had called a few close friends to tell them about it.  (Incidentally, one such friend I had talked to the previous night about how frustrating it all had been.  There's a process involved with getting on the transplant list, but once that's done, it's all waiting.  Seriously, all you can do is wait.)  We -meaning my family- were taken to my room and told that my surgery would happen immediately after my other dialysis patient had had hers.

In the meantime, I decided to watch the last few episodes of season three of Lost.  Funny enough, the very instant the finale was finished, they came for me.  Emotionally, I was still somewhat in shock.  Things were rapidly changing and my life would once again get flipped over.  I went through a myriad of emotions as they were wheeling my bed through to the operating room.  The OR itself was cold and full of personnel garbed in white.  They moved me to the operating table and one of the individuals introduced himself as the anesthesiologist and tried to tell me about what drugs he was going to be pumping through me, but I was distracted.  On a counter against one of the walls, there was a styrofoam container and the surgeon was pulling something out of it.  From my vantage point, it looked like a large plastic sandwich bag filled with fluid that could have been blood and a roughly fist sized mass of tissue.  Which was, of course, a kidney.  That was the last thing I saw before they placed a mask over my mouth.

Some hours later, back in my room, I woke up and made a somewhat hilarious scene with my nurse, as was chronicled in the first paragraph.  What a crazy end to a crazy day.  Here I am, six years later, and with no complications from the transplant.  There have been some hiccups here and there, but any potential issue was caught and addressed early by an extremely talented and dedicated team of doctors and nurses.  To say they have my gratitude would be the understatement of the year.  

A (Narcissistic) Confession

I have a confession to make.  Well, several really, but for the sake of this topic, I'll stick to the one.  I have a compulsive urge to correct people.  Specifically when they've misinterpreted something or are just flat out wrong and/or contradictory in their beliefs.  (IE "I believe in the sanctity of life.  I believe that all lazy people should die.")  My desire to correct people on these points have led to a number of rifts with people I once had great (or decent) relationships with.  In hindsight, some of those people were fucking assholes and I'm better off without them.

Is it immature?  Certainly.  Is it worth the time and energy expended?  Certainly not.  So then, why?  Why do I keep going through these fruitless endeavors?  It's not for validation (or at least, I don't think so).  It isn't going to change that individual's views.  Because really, when has someone ever admitted to being wrong on twitter or facebook?  I've got one theory about it though.  I do it out of a sense of mass self-loathing.  Depression and an atmosphere of ignorance about it helped foster those feelings.  It's hard for someone that doesn't have depression to understand what its like.  I realize that's a rather banal and somewhat trite statement, but that doesn't mean it lacks truth.  

Regardless, over the past few years, I've come to recognize the aforementioned flaw as something to improve upon.  Maybe the best way to describe it is like an internal game of tug of war.  Sometimes I'm doing good, sometimes it's all I can do to avoid that giant puddle of mud.  

This is the point in which I considered deleting all of this because it sounds the incoherent ramblings of a late twenty something male narcissist.  Maybe it is.

Recently though, I've become more willing to open up to people and let them see the inner workings of my (disturbed?) mind.  (No, really, if you knew half of the things I laugh about, you'd think there was something seriously wrong with me.)  

Getting back to my original point, I try to pick my battles better these days.  Not for the sake of argument, but to promote a higher level of discourse and critical thinking.  That matters.  It matters even in the mundane, average day of a mundane, average person.  

The Nature of Holes

Sometimes life can be tricky.  Oh hell, what am I saying?  Life is always tricky.

One day, I'm sitting at the top of the world.  I had everything I had ever wanted.  There was a future I believed in.  The next day, things began spiraling out of control.  Within just a few days, I went from being at the top of Everest to a hole in Death Valley.  But that hole had some benefits.  I learned a lot of things in that hole about myself and about other people.  A support system that I believed in turned their backs on me and started throwing rocks.  Another group spat on me, like I had chosen to fall in this hole that I couldn't get out of yet.  One sat off to the side, unsure of how to help.  My honest friends tried to help in a more positive way.  Eventually, things turned around and, with some help, I was able to climb my way out of that hole.

Things were going smoothly for a time.  I wasn't on Everest nor did I really want to be again, but life was getting better.  Then life gave me a new hand and try as I might, there wasn't much I could do with it.  The ground itself opened up beneath my feet and I was back in that hole again.  This time, it felt deeper.  I tried climbing out of it myself, but just couldn't do it.  My support team was up there, cheering me on.  But there were people that unintentionally undermined my efforts to climb out of this hole.  They would tell me things like "The hole doesn't exist.  It's all in your mind.  Stay positive and stop being so lazy."  More than anything, that made me mad.  I wanted to get out and shove these idiots into the hole to show them it was real and not so easy to get out of as they thought.  There was another group.  Every time something a rope would come down, they would come along and cut it, telling me "You have to get out of this alone.  Needing help is for the weak, and the weak don't belong in the world."

Anger and disappointment began swelling up in me.  Sure, these people wanted to help, in their own bizarre and ineffective way, but they didn't know they were causing more harm than good.  Soon, I started blocking out anyone who came by my hole.  I just couldn't take it anymore.  I'd plug my ears or shout profanities at them.  Why they couldn't just leave me in my damn hole was beyond me.  The hole had become my home.  The rest of the world was beyond me and I was perfectly okay with that.  I started to blame a few people for my current predicament, even though I knew that it wasn't their fault.

Over time, I began to look deeper into the hole and made an interesting discovery.  Buried in it were dreams, dreams that were either dead or dying.  Not just any dreams though, they were mine.  A great yearning for the better days washed over me and I lay in that pool of a dead future.  There was no guarantee that things would ever be that good again.  At least I had my memories of those halcyon days to keep me company.

After a time, the hole began to feel too small to accommodate me anymore.  The walls were steep and high and offered no good footholds for climbing.  I tried to anyway.  Many times I tried, and many times I would end up on my ass with bloody hands and feet.  As it turns out, I'm still here, at the bottom of my hole, and I'm still trying to climb my way out of it.  Each day brings me a little closer to the top and a little closer to a new future.  But I'm only human.  Discouragement and past failures are tough demons to exorcise.  They like to taunt and pick at me when I make my climb.  Some times, I listen.  Most of the time, I can tune them out.  In the overall scheme of things, they aren't important and despite their efforts, I will make it out.  I will make it out, and I will create a new future for myself.  There might be more holes down the line, but I've already made it out of one and I'm making progress on the second one, so it doesn't really matter.

Ultimately, the point of this story is to remind you, the reader, that there are many people out there struggling in their own holes.  You want to help and that is great.  But you can only help those who want the help.  Not everyone is at a point in their relationship with their hole that they want out yet.  All you can do topside is to wait it out.  Trying to help at the wrong time can cause more hurt than it does healing.  Lastly, be careful how you word things.  A comment made with the best of intentions has often had the opposite of its intended effect.