Let imagination take us to new places, dream a bit bigger, dream that it gets better, we dream the biggest when we dream together
Dream Together – Barbie
I wanted to name this journal entry “Going to sleep and not knowing if I’ll wake up” but since this is public and published in the middle of the night, I didn’t want anyone calling the cops on me. So it’s we dream the biggest when we dream together! Oh gosh do I love kids songs. I know it’s childish but children’s movies and songs are filled with such positivity and upbeatness that I can’t help but love them. Sometimes you just need that burst of positivity. It’s actually very brave to be so unapologetically bright in a world that can feel unbearably dark.
According to this article, time does not exist in nature. Apparently time is just a progression of change, but if we paused right now, if there was no change – I stopped breathing, a bee’s wings stops flapping, the Earth stops spinning – time itself would still progress right? If someone was able to pause time and move freely about time for them is still in existence and the moment we return to a state of motion time begins. So time is not really a thing. It’s a social paradox and it doesn’t exist in nature.
I go to sleep without knowing if I’m going to wake up. It feels a little surreal how good things are right now considering the hell I’ve gone through in this year. “Oh, so my suffering here would have an end” Isa exclaims in Virginia Woolf’s Between the Acts. This is what I thought about when running today. My mom promised me we’d run on flat land and she took me on a course uphill. Oh, so my suffering here would have an end, I thought. That’s what I’d always be expected to be – forever enduring pain without complaint. When I was 8 I cried when the nurse inserted a needle inside my hand and I cried but I didn’t complain. It’s surreal how I wake up in the morning despite going to sleep the night before not knowing if I’m going to wake up.
I talked to Lauren (my therapist through my college) and she says that’s why I need to be grateful when I wake up. She’s so right. I’m so grateful for what I have. What do I have? I have a family that loves me. Check! I have friends that support me. Check! I have a community that wants me to live. Check! I think about all the kindness people have shown me throughout the years and I’m so surprised by how kind humanity is. For example, I’m working on my senior thesis and I’ve reached out to random researchers and they’re just ready to hop on a Zoom with a random stranger and help me work out my ideas with me. I’m so grateful for my mom. I was thinking in the shower about how she’s a pusher and how glad I am she’s a pusher. She’s always pushing me to be better than I currently am yet at the same time she celebrates all the little steps I’ve accomplished. She has her toxicity but she loves me. Most of all, my donor. I place my hand over my heart and think about my donor. How grateful I am to them for the ultimate gift of life. The most kind person ever. I hope I can know them one day.
I don’t care who you are, where you’re from, what you did, as long as you love me
As Long as You Love Me – Backstreet Boys
That’s why when I wake up I feel so grateful that I am alive. I think about those who didn’t make it to 20 and how blessed I am to make it to 20. After my 5 year heart transplant anniversary party, Vicki (a kidney transplant recipient I think 17 years?) sent me a letter saying:
“Looking back in my most difficult times, I wish I’d had more faith that things would work out okay. And they did. However, I wish I’d enjoyed the moment more, good or bad, instead of all the internal struggle.”
I think that’s going to be my mentality from now on. I’m going to have faith that whatever happens it’ll work out okay. Even if what happens is death, I’m going to have faith that it will simply be my time and for the best. I’ll have faith that whatever happens it’ll all work out in the end. Although, I don’t even know if there is an “end.” I don’t know if there is such a thing as an end. In Marcelo Hernandez Castillo’s Children of the Land, he believes that we’re in a loop that reiterates over and over again. However, in each iteration we derive different meanings even if the repetition is the same. I love that. Alas, I digress. I believe that no matter what happens, things will work out.
I’ve also learned that sometimes you just gotta have a laugh.
I’m going up! It’s about as bad as it could be, Seems like everybody’s bugging me, Like nothing wants to go my way…Even something as simple as Forgetting to fill up on gas… Just gotta learn to have a laugh
Up – Shania Twain
Sometimes there are things you can’t control. It’s better to let those things loose than worry about them. Izzy’s (a heart transplant recipient) mom says that you control the things you can control and don’t think about the things you can’t. Sometimes when things don’t go your way, you’re sad, stressed, worried… you gotta learn how to sing.
You think you’ve gotta hide it, Don’t hide it one the shelf, Let your waist start moving, watch the way I do it, do it See me do it like nobody else… Just sing, sing it together, Louder than ever, ever, forget everything Just sing like it’s what we’ve been missing And they’re gonna listen, listen, forget everything
Just Sing – Trolls World Tour
I love getting in my car, driving to nowhere, and just having a blast with my music. There are moments where everything disappears, including my sadness and fear. It’s not very climate friendly, but it’s extremely mental health friendly.
I could be better, faster, smarter, healthier; I could be more. But I am what I am. Take it or leave it, I am what I am. Acceptance of who I am, with my heart that wears its scars on its sleeves, is a process. I’d be lying if I said one day I reached a destination where I loved every part of myself. I grieve the healthier version I imagine Justin is living in an alternate universe. But acceptance of myself means that I feel contempt of who I am at this moment. I accept who I am now, who I was in the past, and who I will be in the future, if I have on or not.
Take it or leave it, I am what I am
I Am What I Am – Emma Muscat
Therefore, those moments when I go to sleep and don’t know if I won’t wake up isn’t a curse, it’s a blessing. It’s a blessing because if I don’t wake up, I won’t even know I didn’t wake up. It’s a very peaceful passing and many people pass away painfully. On the other hand, if I do wake up, I am blessed to have lived another day. My therapist was right! I should feel oh so lucky. And I do 🙂 At least for now and for the past two months. Since I received the fact that I do NOT have rejection at the end of April, life has been pretty good. Thank you! God? Maybe. Thank you God! If not God, then just thank you!
Let me leave this world with the hate behind me, And take the love instead. Give me only love, only love
Only Love – Katy Perry
