Time

Things don't always turn out the way you imagine. This is not how I imagined leaving the twenties behind. However, most of the twenties was quite good. It seems like only yesterday that we were 25, and Heather and I were sharing a beautiful Zen-like apartment at Oak Creek. That was a fun year, full of parties and meeting people, and everyone was a young twenty-something single. 25 to 30 goes by in a flash. Seems faster than a single year in college. At 25, you still feel like you have all the time in the world and 30 seems quite far away. Only when you're 29, you realize you're almost 30. If time is always speeding up like this, well... before we know it, gosh...

Half a year of my life has gone to sickness. A half a year for which I had many plans. Learning Chinese, and imagining getting a job in China while still young. (But now imagining, what would I do half a world away by myself in a strange zooming city.) Learning Java and other software engineering skills, and progressing my career. Hanging out at the new San Mateo Library with a cafe, across from Heather's apartment, being intellectual, and trying to meet other like-minded intellectual singles, guys especially. Dancing, tai chi, running, becoming more physically fit. Learning to cook, and become a girl, ie. learn how to dress myself. What else...

Now I have to figure out how to work with what I have. I have a few hours per day of being semi-functional and up. It takes me months to sort through my mail and figure out my bills, I can't seem to figure out how to clean my room and organize things, I can't seem to figure out technical things I used to do in my job even when I'm able to sit up and be awake, I get lost in the doctors' office, and everything seems foggy. But the communication portion of my brain seems to be working well enough. (Which also makes it difficult for other people to understand how I'm retarded and non-functional in other ways since I can converse, read, and write fine... although I did have problems with that too some time ago.) What would I do with communications for a living, the last skill I imagined using for a job?

But first, I just need to be functional. Feeling like I just need someone to take care of me. What's it like to be so fatigued that even when you're lying in bed, the fatigue is painful? And even if I were starving, I would have major difficulty getting up or out to get food to eat. And after food, you realize you need things like toilet paper.... And after all of this, I realize how important it is to have social welfare services for those in need.

My mom got me to get my hair cut at a salon/spa today. Having someone work through my hair and kind of give the scalp and neck a mini-massage made me feel a bit better. Wouldn't it be nice to be a Hillsborough wife and go to a spa every week?

Well, I guess people older than you are will always say that you're young.

If I were well, I'd probably be at Friday Night Waltz tonight, waltzing at midnight to welcome 30. But I'll have to dance in my mind. Here's one of my favorite waltzes:

Time, by Chantal Kreviazuk

Time, where did you go?
Why did you leave me here alone?
Wait, don't go so fast
I'm missing the moments as they pass
Now I've looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer
So wait for me this time
I'm down I'm down on my knees I'm begging for all your sympathy
But you (I'm just an illusion) you don't seem to care (I wish that I could)
You humble people everywhere (I don't mean to hurt you)
Now I've looked in the mirror and the worlds getting clearer
I'll take what you give me. Please know that I'm learning
So wait for me this time
I should've know better
I shouldn't have wasted those days
And afternoons and mornings
I threw them all away
Now this is my time
I'm going to make this moment mine.
(I shouldn't have wasted those days)
I'll take what you give me. Please know that I'm learning
I've looked in the mirror
My world's getting clearer
So wait for me this time