Five Years.

Five Years

It's 6:10 in the evening, and tears stain my face. The words he said run through my mind: "And at 5 years, the survival rate drops to 50%." Half of the patients who receive a bilateral lung transplant die within 5 years. That's HALF, in FIVE. In his white coat, with his gently combed strawberry blonde hair and his sensitive but knowledgeable face, he explained that this means a patient wouldn't want to go through transplantation too early. The patient being me. For instance, he explained, if you thought you have at least ten more years to get out of your original lungs and you went with the transplant, you could be cutting 5 years off your life. Thus, as he so rightly surmised, it's a judgment call. Listening to him speak, hearing these earth-shattering words about a patient's odds, MY odds, I had to fight back the tears. And through these latent tears I wondered to myself, Can I live 5 more years on my own, on my original lungs? And honestly, I don't know the answer. But I feel in my gut that it's not good. And the whole idea got me thinking about my fate in general and how quickly everything can and will come crashing down. The thought didn't occur to me until now, but my life will most likely become drastically different in the next 5 years. What kind of fate is that for a 22-year-old, one with so much passion and dreams that I feel like at times I could burst, but with so little physical ability to chase after them. Where will I be in 5 years?

Written 12.10.09 @ 6:34 PM

The Brother.

The Brother

Young brother,
Though you loathe
Routine and great control
You must break this hold
Of anger on your soul

Your life
Will outlast mine
In the flurry of our time
So treasure all that's thine
Or else I shall resign

To feeling that my life
Was just a failed design.

Written 10.23.09 @ 11:15 PM

Here We Are.

Here We Are

Air off. Windows up.
Breeze blows in, I'm cool enough.

Eyes closed. Dreams a-brewing.
Heart is pumping, love's accruing.

Feel the earth. Breathe the air.
We're caught here, so unaware.

But here we are, without a care.
Keep us here, without a care.

Written 10.22.09 @ 11:34 PM

The Attack and the Decay: Part 4.

The Attack and the Decay: Part 4

EVERYDAY HAS A BEAT. A pulse. A rhythm. Sometimes I’m in sync with it. Other times I struggle just to move the many bones within my body. Sometimes I ache. Sometimes it’s physical. Many times it’s emotional. But I’ve carried it for so long that it’s ordinary to me. It’s a part of my life. I don’t think I’d feel complete without it anymore. It’s replaced the feeling of happiness that they could once provide me. If I don’t have this aching, I feel as if I have nothing. It’s my key to the door of my past; the link to the chains that surrounded my childhood. And no matter how hard it pulled me or choked me, I couldn’t give it up. It caused me pain, yes. But only because that connection once gave me so much happiness. That’s how it is with anything in life. The purest, most satisfying things are the coldest and most painful to look at once they’re no longer in your possession. But is it better to feel that pain in exchange for that one moment of pure bliss; or is it better to pass it by – unscathed, untouched, and ignorant to such contentment in the world? Is one-time love better than none at all? My mind wanders back and forth, and I can never choose a side. So I try to remain neutral…or at least appear so.

[...TO BE CONTINUED...]

Edited 10.7.09 @ 11:51 PM

Originally Written 6.28.06 @ 5:41 AM

New Beginnings.

New Beginnings

Don't let life break you,
Break it in first
Give it a show
For all you're worth

This time around
You may fall to your knees
But next time it comes,
You'll float on the breeze

You deserve this joy,
Go have some more
Life is a journey,
And it's time to explore.

Dedicated to my first love and my best friend, Amy. ♥

Written 9.28.09 @ 11:59 PM

Water Droplets.

We are all water droplets. Tiny, numerous, and swelling with energy...

To see, take a warm shower. Let it sit a bit. Let the steam work its magic - on your skin, on the air, on the walls. Let it take over. And once it has, stop. Do nothing, not one thing. But then, look to the water droplets growing on the shower walls beside you. Notice the thousands upon thousands of little beaming bubbles budding right before you. They gather like a mass, and they all start out small - so very small your eyes barely recognize them. And every single one begins to grow. They're all quick, and numerous, and at so many different stages of growth that you can't distinguish where it all began or which little drop came first. They are all one and yet individual. And they are all - with their many shapes and sizes and speeds - beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Once a droplet matures to its fullest, it descends. Into the unknown. Its journey happens so fast and so unpredictably that it's merely impossible to distinguish its destination. But even in its dark descent, the aged droplet leaves new hope, new life. If you trace its fallen track and watch so very closely, you'll see new drops conceived in its passage - new vitality sprung from old. And this cycle never ends. No, it never ends...

We are all water droplets.

Written 9.20.09 @ 11:55 PM

Energy and Soul.

I recently became a student again. (I say again because I already graduated in May with my teaching degree.) But after a summer of health-induced unproductivity, combined with the potential threat of losing my health insurance, the idea was born for me to return to school recreationally. (I am now attending CPR and Karate classes. Both are valuable life skills, I feel.) The drive to the campus is a bit of a distance. Approximately 30 minutes travel time, depending on traffic. But I don't mind. In fact, I rather relish it - the whole experience...

This entire summer has been a bizarre, slow awakening for me. Life after college is never what you anticipate, never what you dream it will be. But, then again, I didn't put much thought into post-grad plans to begin with; I simply thought I would start teaching, and find my happiness in that. Turns out we can be wrong about any assumptions, big or small or anywhere in between...

As a result of my unexpected situation this summer (the inability to work), I was beginning to lose direction, to lose purpose, to lose me. Life has never seemed more fragile or uncertain. But these classes, these drives to get to these classes, these moments all to myself where I am forced to face this new and strange world all on my own... these things are bringing little pieces of me back. I am feeling reason in life and rhythm of life. Just after a few days. And I can feel a new energy forming within me. It's beautiful, and comforting, and enlivening.

I'm starting to find me. ♥

Written 9.10.09 @ 10:54 PM