Ten Million Strong...and Growing

I've hit that age now that was horrifyingly and inappropriately given to me as, "Miss, you'll never have family of your own, or a marriage... with everything, these drug interactions, allergies, your inability to thrive, sometimes (I think now that it was being put on and then raised up to high levels of, then dropping off Topomax, which this year we finally realized, oops a daisy! I'm actually allergic to, which in 15%  of patients cuts the appetite)- working to get past 600 calories, your episodes, a word used frequently by neurologists... frankly at times I was having boxed sets you won't make it to 30."  Some incidents came and went since then, one particular seizure in a bathtub had me bloody nosed and sore from hitting my head on tile and inhaling water... I wouldn't recommend it!- I realized after I was beginning to show fear of water and fought to be able to immerse myself in the complex pool. I came up bedraggled, the stink and sting of heavy amounts of chlorine in my sensitive nostrils... but triumphant. I do keep a hand on the sturdy towel bar in the shower now, and try to avoid dunking when feeling something coming on. I know I terrified myself immensely and spent the day after in my undies under the air conditioner, on a blanket, miserable. You get tired... an all encompassing, can't make yourself understandable, drunken sailor gaited,slurry tired. But I beat a developing fear I could have easily succumbed to.

I'm not a succumber... agreeable, maybe hair twiddly, seems too damn nice sort... and while I can't ask others to agree, I've taken on, somewhat of a " this is me. THIS is what works" attitude.

I can't say I'm brave, but I love to live, as opposed to survive. Learn from mistakes and be happy. I've felt what it's like to wake and be unable to move at will, willing limbs to cooperate, whomever has decided to sit directly on your chest and beat your head about - I'm certain now that was sleep paralysis and what had to be what I've taken to calling a Tonic Nightmare... to kindly, get off and fuck off. I'm not in the mood to focus on my bad days, marked in a tracker along with meds, the bulk of which looks like a pharmacy blew up on my dresser- with either an orange confused face, a red :-( or a lightbulb without the diagonal line through it, letting my doctors know I've taken meds, had a boxed set, and what I was doing... little notes- "Toga! Toga!"for a party taking place on the Ides of March, or "Had episode, etc."'. I don't want to be the saint. I'm not Catherine of Sienna ingesting  pus, and I'm no Little Flower. If I help anyone, I'm delighted... but want no earthly nimbus around my head. I just want to live, enjoy, go for hikes,find music to tap my toes to, watch movies. I won't fit into anyone's mold and ask them not to fit. Don't be the rollers on an old stereotype, the printing press, marking out where ink fills dyes and divots with a sound like "Cliche! Cliche!" to put the words on the paper. 

To be light, yes, that I want. To enjoy, for themselves, foods, music, my butterflies, my cherry blossoms, my creek ( ok,  a rather picturesque section of an 18 mile creek I like to sit on rocks by and sip my coffee, or record each season for prosperity.

To heal more, I've done a lot of that! To enjoy and be bad if I so choose, hell, to, if I like, have sex illegal in 30 states. To be silly. Being a saint... doesn't necessarily agree with me. (Never mind that there was a little gag that I got a pope for my birthday, finally driving out my feelings of complete and utter popelessness... and that he has the name of one of my favorite saints, Francis.) Enjoyment and growth is what I care for. The unspoken thought I had, unbidden, "oh, borrowed time"- it is anathema to me. 

I'm living, I'm dancing, enjoying. I'm... ten million strong and growing and have a vintage Flintstones Vitamin jingle in my head.