About Me of the Past

Below the cut is the old version of my “About Me” page, which I want to keep logged away for my own benefit.  It’s a little treasure, really: an insight into who I was five years ago.  I really haven’t changed all that much, but it’s been enough that the page no longer describes who I am.  And I’m truly all right with updating my own understanding of who I am in comparison to who I was and who I will most likely become.  So you can ignore this.  Goodness knows that I really haven’t posted much of anything here in years.  But this will be my own hidden snapshot of past-Missi.

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Things Change

We already know this as humans that things change.  Everything changes.  Sometimes it’s gradual and occurs so slowly that one day you open your eyes and feel your breath catch at the sight before you.  Other times, it’s so quick that no matter how many times you look at the change, over and over again, you can’t bring yourself to fully understand how much it’s not the same.

Summers are like that.  Each summer has its own flavour and its own unique changes that make it what it will be in your memories.  You sort through each of these archetypes that you have built and ask yourself what each summer is and how they changed from one to another.  Did you adventure on the train to Kansas and Colorado?  Did you go to nerd camp and Kansas City?  Did you leave on a whirlwind trip that took you half of the way across the world and challenge every preconceived notion that you had of another country?  What did you learn in that summer when you stayed home reading 500,000 words of fanfiction and planning a zombie-themed dance?  And what did you learn when you got your first summer job and spent two weeks trying to hide?  Or when you realised that it would be the last summer with her and last cruise and last anything?

This summer is met that flow.  It’s a question of what I’ve learned and what has changed.  Between friends being more or less scattered because of university, to the family dynamic completely changing from Grandma’s death.  From feeling more grounded in Saint Charles due to my job and having broken up with my boy-friend (and here I didn’t even tell you that story, and it has already ended).  There’s a natural progression that is both frightening and welcome because it is the meaning of what it is to live.

Living can be difficult.  Feeling can be difficult.  Waking up in the mornings to a task you don’t want to do can be difficult.  Taking pills, testing your heart, doctors visits.  They can drain you slowly, but they can’t slow down what a summer can do to the body.  How much more alive I, personally, can feel from the rest. I can feel the change, feel my joints go out of socket less and need less sleep.  Slow moving, but there.

It’s strange how I forget about this place.  I forget that I can write here because I’m so busy writing on tumblr.  Granted, it’s not personal writing but fiction, but nonetheless, I’ve become amazed at how much I’ve written in the past few months.  Thousands upon thousands of words with some truly amazing people. And there were some questions upon writing yesterday that reminded me of this.  Reminded me of Germany and the Roessles und die perfekte Welle und der perfekte Tag.  All of it came rushing about again, which brings back all of those memories that, if you’ve read anything here, you know that I still hold dear.  Scarcely a post goes by that I don’t at least briefly mention Germany. 

Things change.  They truly do.  But some things stay fairly static inside of their change.  And maybe that’s Germany.  Maybe that’s what it is to remember and hold on to something so tightly.

Das ist die perfekte Welle
Das ist der perfekte Tag
Lass dich einfach von ihr Tragen
Denk am besten gar nicht nach
Ich bin hier
Ich bin frei

–Perfekte Welle, Juli

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House of Tom Bombadil

Did I tell you all that I lost fifteen percent of my body weight last semester within three months?  Did I forget about that?  No…  No, I briefly mentioned losing weight, but I didn’t mention how much.  Twenty two pounds.  That’s how much.

You know, when I tell people about this, it doesn’t matter how negative my tone is or how upset I look–they congratulate me.  When I explain that it was stress and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome related, they still congratulate me.  When I say that I have never felt more weak and more tired in my life, that I’m blacking out more and not able to finish what I need to for uni, they keep on congratulating me.

There’s a major problem when health is pushed aside in favour of lost weight.  My weight has become more important and worthy than my own wellness, and it sickens me that shape is valued over substance.  I’m chronically ill with EDS, most likely POTS (I’m getting tested this summer), and now mono for the past two months.  I just can’t get well, and I’m dropping weight again, even though I’m already right at the line of having an underweight BMI.  And yet, I’ve never been told more in the past few months just how good I look.

I feel like I’m dying.  I need to be sleeping over twelve hours per day.  I am dizzy.  Tired.  Weak.  In pain.  Scared.  And I’m told that I look beautiful.  It doesn’t make any sense at all.

I guess that all I’m trying to say is that, you can compliment my looks all you please, but if I tell you that I am unhappy about losing weight because I’m slowly succumbing to some terrible diseases, please don’t tell me that my looks are more important.  I would gain back all of that weight and be pudgy again if it meant that I felt well.  I’d gain even more to feel like I wasn’t some elderly folk inside of a twenty year-old’s body.

Sorry.

I’ve spent a lot of the past month spiralling into another depression from health.  It’s caused me to re-evaluate a lot of my life, change future plans, and start doing some things for me.  I’m tired and upset and causing permanent damage to my body, so I’m taking a year off after I graduate from uni so that I can get an internship and then travel before starting grad school.  I’ve dropped tumblr recently since I think that an hiatus will help me focus more on my health and course work.  I’ve stopped trying in some of my classes. I haven’t turned in online French homework in a month, and I don’t even care any more.  I’ll have to find some time this week to finish it amongst all of the other things, but I just…  I don’t fucking care.  There’s so much else in my life right now.

This is so rambly.  Es tut mir Leid.

Last time that I spoke with you all, I was writing about my grandma.  I still think about her so much, but things get better with time.  They always do, emotionally speaking.  And I mentioned a few things about losing and gaining people.  December…  Well, I got a boy-friend.  Which sounds like I caught a Pokemon or something, but I assure you that’s not quite the case.  Our story will probably be better saved for another time, but at least I’ve finally mentioned it (only four and an half months later, tralalala).

No really.  This has just about been the shittiest post I think I’ve ever made on this blog.  But call it free-writing.  Train of thought.  Just some things that I need to get out.  I listened to Miho Fukuhara’s “Let It Out” one too many times this morning; blame that.

Anyway, this summer, I plan on getting better.  Lots of rest, working three days per week until I feel a little more human, seeing doctors to get diagnosis and help, going to Florida to visit family.  That sort of stuff.  I’m looking forward to the end of the semester so incredibly much.  Sleep.  It’s all I need and all I want.  Just sleep.

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Official Summer Tidings and Ramblings About the Northwest

I officially booked my trip to Chicago/Denver. After wanting to cancel and take an aeroplane instead, I realised the difficulty of that and decided to just stick with my original plan and head out to Chicago before getting to Denver. Booking my hostel was the last step, and now it’s all finished up. To those that I’ll be seeing in Denver, I’ll get to see you just as much with either plan, and I’ll be there from Thursday, the tenth, until the following Sunday or Monday. I’ve already forgotten which.

In other news, summer is going… all right, I suppose. I’ve been working a bit more than thirty hours per week at my summer job down on Main Street. It’s hot and sweaty work, but there’s a lot of it that I really enjoy. I wasn’t expecting to feel so stressed about it this summer as I am, but I’m attributing that to the increase in hours and the bizarre weather that we’ve been having. It’s far too hot for June. This weekend has been the first time in three weeks that it’s been even remotely nice outside. Sorry, but I’m so sick of constant 37 degree days over and over again. I need to be in the Northwest stat. I’m pretty sure that I’m far too Irish to put up with these extreme weathers from the Midwest. It’s just not suiting me any more.

It’s all that I can think about any more: how much I don’t belong here. I used to only get upset about the Midwest because of the lack of culture and things to see and do, but now I’m finding that it’s far more than that. Even aside from the fact that I am meant for cool and rainy weather (oh, hey Northwest), the personality of where I live just doesn’t fit me. It’s been difficult to explain this to my mother who doesn’t understand why I’d ever want to leave. This is, after all, the place where I have grown up. But I just can’t stay here any longer; it’s like trying to fit a puzzle piece where it doesn’t quite go. Sure, you can keep it there, and from a distant it won’t matter, but in the end, you know that piece doesn’t go there. That’s the best way that I can describe it.

I’ve started looking into grad schools, and I’m so sure that I want to go to the Northwest. Everyone asks me why. They tell me that it rains constantly there and that people are depressed. I tell them that there are book stores and coffee shops and interesting people there. I tell them that I avoid the sun like the plague to begin with, so this would finally allow me to live freely. I’ll keep searching in other locations, too, but I can’t deny that I’d like to spend some time there. At least for the five years of grad school. After that’s all finished up with, I can decide for sure what’s right for me. That, or I can take my doctoral degree and get the hell out to some place else; sometimes these things take experimentation.

I’m just a little torn between the fact that I want to go to the Northwest, yet a large university near my home town also offers the degree I want (family and marriage counselling at SLU). Everyone wants me to go to SLU.

Well, everyone except me, I suppose.

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True Words

I’m fairly certain that truer words were never spoken when dealing with online stalkers/trolls.

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Shit My Professor Says

I’d been mulling over the idea for a while about starting a blog about the shit that my professors say, and I ended up finalising the idea the other day.  If you would like to check out the new blog, here is the link:

Shit My Professor Says

If you can’t hit the link, then go to http://www.smpsays.wordpress.com

Anyway, if you would like to add any quotes or stories from your professors, you can comment here or send an email to smpsays@gmail.com.  Since I’m launching the site right now, I will take just about anything you have to give me.

Thanks, and hopefully you guys will have some quotes to add.  Just give me the name of your college/university and the department (i.e. math, physics, history…).

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Saint Patrick’s Day

I recently found out that I was Irish (should have been obvious with this hair, but when has anything ever been obvious for me?), so I’m here to wish you a very happy Saint Patrick’s Day.  Watch some Boondock Saints, eat Irish soda bread, and if you’re of age, go pour yourself some beer.

Sincerely, this way too Irish looking woman:

PS: Why, yes.  I am wearing green and will be watching Boondock Saints this evening.  But, I will not be drinking or having Irish soda bread.  I’m out of flour; schade!

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Invincible

Sometimes, I wish that Matthew Bellamy’s voice spoke the truth; that together we’re invincible. But, lately, I find myself more alone than ever. And it’s an odd feeling: loneliness. For starters, I’m of the type to rarely feel lonesomeness. But, the past few months have given me doubt as to whether or not I do feel loneliness, with the winner being that I most likely do feel it.

University has been a major change for me, though I’m adapting quite well when it comes to the basic emotions of the process. My room-mate and I get along very well, my house-mates are all great people that I enjoy spending time with, the food is spectacular, and my classes haven’t been all that bad. Adapting to the intense amounts of reading seemed to be the most difficult, but now I’m finding that there are other things going on in my mind at present. I’m not sure if I’m adapting emotionally enough, though. I don’t miss home. But I miss something. I miss my friends that I left in St. Charles. I miss the Missouri River and sitting beside it. I miss the feeling of the city lying on my doorstep. Kirksville is wonderful, but there’s something not right about it, and I think that it is the same with any university. It’s the fact that our lives are now taking a backseat, and everything focuses on Campus. These few blocks now make up my entire world, and I am not the type to be boxed in. I like existing somewhere large–it’s why I want to move to the city. Suburbs, towns, rural communities, and campuses just aren’t conducive to a happy Missi.

And I’m not sure if my missing something links back to loneliness. I see friends daily, and things work out. I’ve met some cool people, too, just not people to replace friends that I already have. There are a couple friends that I’m missing a lot that I just couldn’t replace. One of them being someone that I just realised I missed today. We were never super close, but friends nonetheless. In fact, I might have been closer to her brother. Still, I realised today that I missed her, and I told her so.

Anyway, though, none of this really makes sense. These are just thoughts that I wanted to relay, and organisation took a backseat. Which, I have to admit, is unusual for me. I’m more of a thinker than a feeler, though that line is getting narrower as time goes by. And maybe I only notice it more than the average person because I’m so in tune with myself. I know myself rather well, and it makes it easy to see the changes.

It probably doesn’t help that I study MBTI, either. But that’s another story.

I think I bring up these thoughts right now because of two things: I am terrified of my psychology exam tomorrow (one that is supposedly extremely difficult and that I have not yet studied for), and my dog is dying. The latter weighing more heavily on my mind. Teddy is the same as a sibling to me, and this is going to be difficult. Within this year, I lost my home, will lose my dog, and will lose my grandmother (who’s dying of cancer). Altogether, things just don’t seem to be going right.

But I’ll keep listening to Muse and sitting outside and trying to breathe. And, within the next few weeks here, maybe I’ll get the new Muse CD. Maybe that will help. Most likely not, though.

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