Silence and hospital rooms

I’m sitting in the hospital at the moment. My brother is resting. He’s been so tired lately… I guess it’s only natural, right? For one to be exhausted when they’re going through all this. It’s just… I don’t know… odd. Odd how I’m feeling at this moment, at any rate.

I’m sitting here writing while he sleeps. I came in, and he was resting… he looked at me, saw me and just laid his head back against the pillow and closed his eyes again. I said hello and asked how he was doing and got some information, and… that was it. I told him I brought him some more lysol wipes and put them away for him and now he’s sleeping.

Sitting here quietly, writing now, while he sleeps… is weighing heavy on me. I’ve fully understood the severity of everything that’s going on here since the beginning. But… he’s always been so strong and lively since the beginning, and that gave me all kinds of hope. These last few days he’s been more and more tired… and this is the first time that he’s just… asleep. So I’m sitting here, listening to the iv machine as it pumps his anti-biotics, saline, and blood into him and… I can feel the tears welling up… because for the first time since he came to the hospital, he actually seems sick. And that worries me.

He may go in for surgery tomorrow for his appendix. We don’t know for sure yet. Either tomorrow, Monday, or Wednesday. It’s so strange how quickly things change in a hospital… it makes me understand the phrase, “One day at a time”, even better. I hope it’s tomorrow. Tomorrow or Monday. I have to work Wednesday morning, and I want to be able to be here when he goes for surgery… and I want to be here waiting for him when he comes back. Because we don’t know when he’s going for sure yet, there’s a good chance I won’t be here when they take him, but I can definitely be here when he comes back from surgery.

For now… he sleeps and I write. I’ll be here for a few hours, just as I am every night, even if he just sleeps through them.

That is all for now.

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2011

The start of growth, perhaps.

Yesterday was the first time since Michael went into the hospital that I wasn’t able to visit him because of Snowmageddon.  It gave me a chance to look into myself and study what I was finding. 

It was so hard for me yesterday. I found myself laying around on the couch for the first time since this ordeal began.  I just felt awful. Which is how I typically feel.  I normally just find myself laying around doing nothing and feeling blah.  I was able to discover last night what that “blah” feeling is.

I felt useless.

Since this whole thing with my brother began, I felt needed.  Like I finally had some sort of a purpose.  Yesterday, it was sort of taken from me by the snow.  I couldn’t go and sit with him.  I couldn’t go and help in the minor, insignificant ways that I typically do (the meaningless ways that yet somehow have given me this odd sense of purpose). So… I just laid there, feeling exhausted and drained.  I napped for a short while (which was probably good, because I’m definitely emotionally exhausted).

I then went about trying to work on Michael’s main Christmas present, which was just… not working.  I was tired, and frustrated, and feeling useless, and I just… yeah.  The stress and frustration was nearly unbearable.  So I took an anti-anxiety pill and that helped with all that, but without all that added emotion, I realized how drained and exhausted I am.  I was able to do some work on it before going to bed to get to work this morning.

In short, I’ve discovered (or rather “re-discovered”, as it’s really something I already knew) that I need to find my purpose in life.  That is basically what I was hoping to find through changing myself through the project.  Realizations are always beneficial, as they bring us closer to solutions.  So as of this time, I don’t have any solutions… but realizations are the start of personal growth, so I thought it would be beneficial to post about it.

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

The Becoming Fantasy Project: Revisited

We’ve covered my absence. We have not yet covered why I’m returning.

  ”I think we all are fighting for ourselves. 
            For ourselves… and that someone… something… whatever it is, that’s important to us.
                                              You can’t fight without a reason, right?”

The first party member to join (who was with me from the beginning, whether he knows it or not)… my best friend… is sick.  No… that’s not exactly right. As we’ve been saying a lot recently, “He’d be completely healthy if it weren’t for the life threatening illness.”

The short of it: He hadn’t been feeling well for about a month, then vomited around Thanksgiving, which made him decide to go to the doctor. After a couple weeks of waiting, countless blood tests, and a bone marrow biopsy, he was diagnosed.

Myelodysplatic Syndrome. Woah, that even sounds obscure.  That’s because it is.  It normally affects people in their 70s. Very, very rarely does it ever occur in people around the age of… oh… 30.  What it basically does, so you don’t have to look it up, is it alters the way that the blahblahblah Stem Cells in the bone marrow mature. No, not THOSE stem cells. Think of them as just the base cells. Normally the Base Cells will mature into Red Blood Cells, White Blood Cells, or Platelets. Sometimes they will also mature into leukemia cells (this is rare, and refered to as Blast Cells… I think.  I could be wrong). A typical person should be at around 1% or less of these Blast Cells. When it’s higher, there’s a problem.  Anyway… so MDS prevents the Base Cells from maturing into anything resembling what they should be… which means that duplicating themselves is fine, as is maturing into leukemia cells.  So with MDS, there’s a high risk of it becoming leukemia. Which brings us to what it is becoming:

Erythroleukemia. You’ll notice the red and understand the severity that it entails, as red typically means “caution“ (“or beef, if it’s a bouillon cube”). If Erythroleukemia was a child on the playground, you wouldn’t want to play with… that… child, just in case you were wondering.

So… he’s in for extensive chemotherapy for a while and then a bone marrow transplant, which I’m hoping I’ll be a match for.

I know… the question on all your minds must be, “What is the point of telling us this? And what does this have to do with this so-called ’Project’ of yours?”

I was looking for change.  Change found me.  I was thinking about this on the way home from the hospital last night… and it occurred to me that the one thing that all the leading characters have in common is that change finds them, and that is when they grow and adapt and become who they are to be.  We observe their change, their growth and the actions that shape their character as they progress through the challenges and tasks that are presented to them. Their plans and goals are mostly reactive. They react and decide what to do as things occur. That’s what we all do, isn’t it?  I never thought of it like that before. Maybe this is the lesson I need to learn through all this.

In many of the games, a significant event is the catalyst that forces a character’s journey to begin. 

This is my catalyst, and the start of my journey.

Before I knew I needed a change. I knew what I wanted but when it came right down to it, I didn’t know why I wanted it, and when it came time for me to try to force it, I just didn’t have the motivation required. I had no reason.

So… as I process and think and experience, I will react and document. I will do so so that I am healthy and strong in order to help my brother, be it through support, or by giving him my bone marrow. In doing so, we will all witness whatever growth I may experience, and we will all see who I am to become.

            “I think we all are fighting for ourselves. 
                             For ourselves… and that someone… something… whatever it
is, that’s important to us.
                                                      What about you all? 
     I want all of you to find that something within yourselves.
                                                                           If you don’t find it, then that’s okay too. 
                     

 You can’t fight without a reason, right?”

 

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

*Start… Select* Becoming fantasy?

Alright…

So it’s been a while since my last post.  The Becoming Fantasy Project was put on hold. I won’t lie… I had pretty much abandoned it. The reasoning behind that is complicated in a sense… and I’ll explain it all right now, because I’m resuming it.  Well… in a sense.  I need to do a re-evaluation of the project to see what new goals are and what the desired outcome is to be… but that will come in time.  Now… the rest.

So what was it that made me, in essence, say, “This game is stupid. I’m not playing it anymore.”?

It’s all you.  Yep, that’s right, the readers.

Kidding.  I jest. Trying to start with a joke because realizations and the like are often rather heavy.

When the going got rough and I was faced with the truth of the project (namely being that now I work in a very “conservative” hotel), I realized that there was so much I just wasn’t going to be able to do… and those little things, made me look at bigger things that I wasn’t going to be able to do… and then something that Gabe had said toward the beginning started making a lot more sense.  I don’t know if it was starting to make sense because things were getting difficult, or if they were making sense because they actually made sense and I had just been in typical Air mode. Now… for those of you who don’t know me that well, those who do would most likely tell you that when I get into Air Mode, it’s probably just best to stand back until either 1) the winds calm and dissipate making it as though absolutely nothing happened, or 2) I end up hurting myself, at which point they just sort of make that face that seems to say, ‘well, I tried to tell you this was a bad decision, but… [you have a "listening problem"]‘.

So… that thing that made sense? Something along the lines of:

“But I like you now.”

He went on to say more.  The idea of which was basically just that this was a big change.

And he was right.  It WAS a big change… I wanted a change, but was this what I wanted?  A change, but at what cost?  And how much of myself would I have to compromise to achieve it?  I started to think about what the original outline of the project entailed… “Studying the characteristics of leading characters and adopting and implementing those qualities into myself”… not bad. That’s pretty much life.  We adapt, we grow, we change.  We find traits we admire and try to incorporate them, that’s not a problem… but… then in Disc 3, the goal is to Become someone… else… entirely.  And… therein lies a dilemma. It’s a dilemma because it’s basically changing everything about me to be someone else… changing by forcing, rather than adapting.

See the problem?  I have an icon that’s of Ariel (the little mermaid, whatever don’t judge me *_~) leaning against the pillar on the docks crying, and the words are, “I changed to be with you.”

I guess I was starting to see the project as being basically that.

Anyway. That’s the explanation of where I’ve been.  The next post… which will be made shortly, will explain another realization and another explanation of said realization.  Stay tuned *_~

 Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

The Dream returns.

Alrighty…

So I’m pretty much just one big ‘suck at life’ fest. I don’t know why, so don’t ask me… but I do know this… 

Ok, so I don’t even know that, but it’s really pretty irrelevant.

Gather around, children, I’ll tell you a tale:

Once upon a promise, there was a little boy who Dreamed of something more than everything he’d ever known. Now this boy, this little prince, if you will, surrounded himself by fantasy and fancy every chance he got until it became his world. He believed that if he just imagined hard enough, everything would be as it’d always been inside his head. So he spent his days, weaving world upon world where none save himself could see them. Up was down, black was white, and life was wonderful. Until it wasn’t.  For you see, the thing about living in a Dream… is that one day, you must wake up. It was then, in that very moment that the lightning streaked across the clear blue sky, that the world righted itself. For the first time up was up and down was… down. Black was dark and it consumed the life that had been so wonderful. The prince had spent his life, however, believing in the magic that the whole world seemed to forget. He had become the essence of color in a world of darkness.  But even the brightest color can be drowned in the endless void of nothing… his color began to fade and his light grew dim. The magic left him, and it wasn’t long until he was just as everyone else was… he was just as empty and absent of life and…

Everything shattered, casting shards of the remnants of a fleeting  memory about his features as he bolted upright in bed. As his chest heaved he brought his palm to his forehead, pushing his hair back, “Water? Sweat! Sweat… not glass… not… glass…?” The hushed whisper escaped his lips as he stared at the moisture on his hand… his mind was blank… the images that had been so clear moments before replaced by nothing, just as every morning before… He could hear a soft melody rising on the wind, and thus started another day just like every other…

Ok, so no I have no idea what that was!  What did we think?  Anything? Hmmm…  So where were we… ah yes, the project.  I’ve been righting my mindset and I’ve joined a gym!  You know what that means?  Yeah, that means I’ve spent my days sitting on the couch looking at the gray keyfob doing nothing. NO!!  I’ve actually been going! 

I know, right?  So… I just started a few days ago. As of last week, I weighed in at 178. That’s better than it was, though not by much… but you’ve got to wobble before you stand.

Now… I’ve got myself a new job. Still in a hotel, but a much better one that isn’t threatening to suck my soul out through every orifice!  That’s a big step.  To top it all off, Alyson and I are co-workers again.

So, I weigh in on Monday, let’s hope knowing that I’m working toward something now.

Soon I’ll do damage control.  Salvage what I can and discard what I must.

The project resumes. I still dislike sewing =_=.

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

A couple links that may be to your liking

*sighs heavily*

I swear, I’ve got to be internet retarded or something… I just spent about 20 minutes just trying to figure out how to add two links to my sidebar… yeah… two.  Not one, one might make sense if I were just distracted or… something… but yeah. Two.  After successfully adding the first link, it actually took me LONGER to add the second one because I couldn’t figure out how. 

Anyway…  So the two links!

Mr. Travis Lambert left me a comment… *mumbles incoherently* days ago and I’ve been reading his novel The Esper, and I have to say it’s definitely an intriguing journey for fans of the game.  Now, granted… I still have quite a ways to go, but from what I’ve read, it’s definitely worth reading ^_^.

As I’m currently listening to “Beyond the Shards”, I think it also appropriate that I mention the outstanding musical stylings of Kate Covington, which have become a sort of obsession for me since I discovered them.  If you like music, then check her out, because I tell you she’s incredible!

Now, Alyson said that I probably don’t need to ask these people for their permission to link them… so… I didn’t… but if, on the off chance, she’s wrong… please consider this post me formally asking permission to link you *_~.  Of course, the links can be found in the sidebar.  Please use them, as it really did take me longer than it should have to do ^_^.

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

Soi and a new party member

Woohoo!!  I’m posting, and it’s about time too! 

There has actually been a lot going on lately, some actually related to the project! I know, right?  Surprising news.  So… I’m probably going to end up doing it all in one post, even though it’s not likely to be very short that way…

First off:  The weekly weigh in (that actually happened on Monday… I know it’s Wednesday but I ju.. HEY! WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE?! *runs away*).  I’m not going to do it the way I typically do a weekly weigh in with all the colors and whatnot, just because it’s not spectacular (oh, but it actually is!).  I’m still at 180 lbs as of Monday.  Which is actually spectacular because I lost 5.7 lbs since the previous weigh in.  So I’m going down, and I’m being more active and really concentrating on exercising (all low impact right now, though I’m going to start doing real exercise  soon). I’m looking at things in a more positive light than I have in quite a while. 

Yes, it’s true.  I realized quite a few things with the help of the ever wonderful Kristian (thanks be to you for being amazing!).  I have begun down the path of what Ms. Glenda would call a Total Life Makeover, which… in essence… is exactly what it is ^_^*.  Which… I probably should’ve been thinking about the project in that light to begin with… it might have been more productive thus far.

So… in short… I’ve entered into the duel called “Soi” (“Self”).  I’m taking back who I was.

Now for some news that’s been a long time coming…

Leslie has joined the party! She’s going to be helping me keep track of various things as well as look into possible events and such what.  Think of her as the Events Coordinator, if you will ^_^.   

That was actually surprisingly short… guess I didn’t have as much to talk about as I thought *_~.

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

Let’s tackle The List!

Ok… so I just pulled myself out of bed about… 40 minutes ago or so… getting ready to get into the shower to work the stiffness and pain out of my muscles…

Today looks to be an absolutely beautiful day out there!  And I am flippin’ determined to tackle something on The List. I don’t know what though… I’ll have to look it over.  I’d really like it to be a relatively outside sort of thing, seeing as how it is amazing out there.  It’s really a shame that the hammock was such a failure as this is one of those days I’d like nothing more to just swing in the hammock and read or play my PSP or something… should really post the contents of The List… just so we all know what I’m working with here… but not right now.

Tried to weigh in yesterday… but I couldn’t get the Wii to work… Michael might have unplugged it or something and I just didn’t feel like going through all the trying to make it work thing, so I didn’t. 

Ok, time to get myself mobile!

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

Heh… Proof of Blog Wars presents itself…

This post serves one purpose and one purpose only… ok… so maybe it serves two purposes *_~.

Just a quick little thing to any of my readers who might have tried to check out Dead Dress (Alyson’s blog) and found nothing.  You see… it was just her trying to be clever and get the upper hand in the Blog Wars by changing the location of her blog without telling me.  Yeah… I know it doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what happened.  One would think she’d want any publicity that she could get, but what can I say, she’s an Earth sign… I don’t pretend to understand her ways.

So anyway, her attempt clearly failed, as I’m much smarter than she anticipated and I quickly discovered that my link no longer worked and asked her about it.

In short, I’m far more clever than she could ever imagine and…

The link to Dead Dress in the previous post has been fixed and can now be utilized.

That’s all.

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010

The Hammock… Sew what?

So much to post about, so little time!! 

Light!

Hmmm… do you like that?  I might like that… The Light… hmmm…. we’ll see, yes, we’ll see.

At any rate… I’ve been fielding questions about the hammock tweet from yesterday all day, “WHAT THE DEVIL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, NINJA MAN!?!” 

So, I can pretty much scratch “Sewing” off The List.  No no, don’t try to persuade me… I’ve sort of made up my mind…  For those of you who don’t know, I had recently undertaken the task of making myself a hammock.  It’s, “it” being a hammock, been something I’ve wanted for a while now… to just be able to swing peacefully in the sunlight in a hammock while reading, or resting or… whatever.  The point is that since the creation of The List, I’ve been planning to sew myself a hammock. Ok… so the hammock was to be made from some wonderful old bedsheets that no longer fit my bed because they shrunk. The sewing process, though not terrible, was decidedly not something I’d want to do regularly… as I found myself sitting there thinking, “Ok… if I mess up this stitch, it doesn’t really matter, I just want this stupid hammock DONE!”.  The hammock took two days, with me actually making nice stitches to try to make it look nice!  I even bought some clothesline to use to hang it, making identical loops for either side by braiding three strips of rope together, it was INGENIOUS!  The fact that it was light weight clothesline with a weight limit of 10 lbs is really pretty flippin’ irrelevant, if you ask me.  I mean… I TOOK IT INTO CONSIDERATION! Why do you think I used three strips and braided it? Two different sides  with three pieces of rope = 60 lbs, right?  And then that’s only a difference of *mutters and gurgles out sounds* lbs! Tsk! My logic is infallible…. whatever, don’t judge me. Alright… so… completed hammock actually looked pretty flippin’ awesome despite the fact that it looked exactly like two bedsheets that had been sewn together (which… consequently… is exactly what it was).  I got it all hung up between the two trees that belong to my mom and my dad (really!  They each planted one years and years ago when they moved in and they’ve grown with all of the kids into adulthood, yada yada yada sentimental blah blah blah) using two more pieces of rope, doubled up (which, if you’re following my infallible logic, is another 40 lbs, bringing the total weight allowance up to 100 lbs.)  And it looked… like a strip of fabric with awesome braided rope loops tied to two trees… But I made the stupid thing, and dammit I was going to lay in it! So after a few failed attempts, with both Michael and my mother there to laugh at me as I failed, I finally managed to get into the hammock. This is where Michael marveled at the fact that the rope was holding me with no problem because I’m pretty much a rocket scientist disguised as an average person.  Ah, sweet success.  I quickly texted Alyson, who was on her way over to pick up some of my old shirts to tailor for me, to get there as soon as possible, because I was in my hammock.  Well… the fabric of the sheet ripped and even though I was only about a foot off the ground, my head was the first thing that hit and it was plenty to send the world spinning for a spell as I recovered.  This is where I immediately thought of my readers and Tweeted about the failed hammock.  To sum up: The hammock project was a HUGE miscalculation, and sewing just isn’t my cup of tea *_~.  Pictures of the experience will come shortly, if I can ever get Michael to e-mail what he took to me so I can post… weakest link, I’m telling you…

Today I went to the mall with Michael so he could shop.  I bought some shades because they looked good on me.  We both saw the hurricane strength wind tunnel at the same time, but I was the only one willing to dish out the $2.00 for a new experience.  So after one quick swipe of the card and a hasty tweet, I was in the tubie thing to experience 78 mph “hurricane force” winds.  It was awesome!  Just not quite as awesome as I’d expected… Michael took video… wonder if I can post video… I guess I”ll have to figure it out if he ever sends it… please don’t hold your breath, I don’t want any unintentional deaths on my hands here…

So that’s that.  Two events in two days.  Now it’s off to bed, I popped half a muscle relaxer early today so I can get plenty of rest for Pride tomorrow.

Oh! Almost forgot… be sure to check out Dead Dress. It’s a blog about all the amazing stuff that Alyson is doing with sewing and… sewing.   BLOG WARS ARE ON!! *_~

Becoming Fantasy © Stephen Marra 2010