ASC Pt. III

It's a week until school starts and my life feels like it's on the verge of change. In a week (and a bit) I start my final year of school. After nine years of elementary school, five years of high school, and 4 years of University, this will be my last year of school. That's 19 years of learning I'll have under my belt when I finally graduate and I will finally be prepared enough to live. At least that's the theory behind it, isn't it? You start school, you figure out what you want to do it, you learn how to do it (as best as possible) and then you go out and do it.

To be honest, I really don't care about school or even the occupation that it's supposed to lead me to.

*** As a sidenote, I don't know what my education is going to lead me to. I'm an English major and it seems like either I become a teacher or do nothing with my life. Maybe work at a Best Buy and give people advice on which iPod suits their personality best. ***

I feel stuck.

When I look at who I am now - 24 years old, confused, and depressed - and think back to who I was ten years ago - 14 years old, confused, and depressed - I do not see much of a difference. I still fit in all the same clothes, I still live with my parents, I'm still in school, I still slouch, I still masturbate quite often, I still watch wrestling, I still enjoy Dr Pepper, I still don't have many friends, I still want to fall in love, I still think I might, I still hang out with my cousins... everything is virtually the same. But there's one thing that I had back then that I don't know have now - Hope.

Hope.

Back then, everything seemed possible. I was told that if I worked hard enough at something and had enough skill or maybe fate would step in find what was right for me down the line... The world was just slightly out of reach and if I just took a step up the ladder than I would have it in my grasp.

That was sadly ten years ago. Ten years of wear and tear and punishment and broken breaking points. Ten years of yearning and longing and needs and wants not being fulfilled. Ten years of a static existence. Ten years and one severely broken heart.

But for the first time in a very long time, I feel optimistic again. It might have taken a shock in my health to do it, but for the first time in years, I see myself getting better, and for the first time ever in my life I've realized that it's not just going to come me and fall into my lap. I'm going to have to work hard at it or I'm going to die within the next ten years. (Ahem, I hope you enjoy the circular nature of the ten year intervals).

So for the last few months I've been getting these really bad headaches. I've had headaches in the past, usually going a long time without eating, but the ones I've been having over the last few months are far greater than excedrin headache number ones. When it would come at me my vision would kind of turn green, the back of my head would be in a tremendous amount of pain, my shoulders and neck would be really tense, and I would become so dizzy that any movement at all would make me want to throw up. It was not good times.

So I went to my doctor, told him about the problem, and my doctor being a quack says, "I don't know what it might be." Hello? What the fuck is that? No clue? You're a doctor, part of your job is to be reassuring to people that they might be okay. Even if they're shot up with a million bulletholes, you still have to give them some hope, and here I am with a headache and you're basically telling me it's some freak disease that only I have.

He also told me to get some blood work done. Well, the bad news is that I have high cholesterol and he basically told me that if I keep this up, then in ten years I'll have a heart attack, and since I really don't have anyone in my life, I'd probably die because no one would be there to call 9-1-1.

I realized something there. What you pushy asshole? I basically realized that I have to fix myself. I can't mope and complain about shit anymore. Well, I can, but if I wanna fix it, I have to something on my own. My body and my health are really all I have in my life and it just kind of occured to me that I've basically been trying to kill myself over the last few years because I didn't want to live my life anymore. I had a death wish. I had lost all hope.

Hope.

But the bigger news is that I had a health scare. The headaches, I was told, might be a tumor. He thinks it isn't, but I just have a horrible doctor and I don't trust him at all. So either I shape up, see if my headaches go away, or go in for a CT scan and ya da ya da ya da...

Life is great, huh?