Backlog: To the wind, the sand, the green grass and the sea...

It's been a while since I've posted a blog that I wrote during my high school days, but this seems thoroughly appropriate, and it's one of the few posts that I still actually like. About 20 months ago, I stopped being an insane child and decided to listen to doctors. I stopped doing outdoor sports, and worked on exercises given to me by my multiple physios instead. I began the long and horrible process of having 4 joint reconstructions, spent countless weeks on crutches or in a sling and slowly, but surely, slumped into a state of depression. It's not something I've told many people, I don't really like to talk about it, but in the past few months something has changed and I'm aware that depression is not something to be ashamed of. I didn't let myself stay there, I fought it every step of the way, and a few weeks ago I suddenly started to become myself again. There'd been stages where I'd been better, but better was never quite me. The feeling of hopelessness that it was only ever going to be just 'better' made it worse and worse, all I wanted was to get out and be myself - the crazy insane child who was constantly out and being active and doing the things that I loved because I knew my joints were fucked anyway. Now I've decided to go back to that and it's like my personality has come back, I feel like myself again and even though my emotions still hang on a tenuous balance, I feel lighter, like my life is my own again.


With this being said, I've decided to re-blog this (with some slight amendments). It gives me hope. It puts a cheeky smile back on my face, but more importantly, it has made me me again, instead of a person who hardly recognises themself.


So to the wind, the sand, the green grass and the sea...


...it's just you and me baby, you and me.

People often wonder why I don't follow doctors orders and go surfing or kayaking or running, and while I do say that it's because of the natural adrenalin that flows through my veins, it's also because I live in a world and a society where there is so, so much pressure to do well and become something or someone, and for me, the way to escape this is by doing crazy, physically challenging things where it doesn't matter if I'm a success or a failure. It's my personal way of escaping my family who expects so much of me, the pressure I place on myself to do well at uni, my friends who I love so much but just sometimes get a bit annoying and everything else that is playing havoc with my emotions and with my brain. It's my escape because when I'm out there, in the ocean or the sand or running on the green grass, there's no one expecting me to do something amazing. When I go for a surf, I know that even if the only waves that carry me are the ones that are pummelling me beneath their rough surface, that no one will be angry or disappointed when I trudge once again on the sadly solid ground. When I'm running around the oval inhabited by ants and birds and beetles and shrubs, I'm free from the expectations of everyone and everything, and I can simply enjoy the cool wind sweeping against my face and the floating sensation that follows.

But there's more than just that. When I go for a surf, I'm amazed that there is a single body of water with hundreds of thousands of living things swimming around inside of it, and that there's somehow still room for so many oblong bumps to rise out of the water and carry me and my surfboard (whether above or below) for a few meters before I either get my head up to suck in the oxygen or before I jump back into the blue expanse triumphantly. When I've finished my run and have collapsed onto the ant-filled grass I can be amazed that such tiny creatures exist so perfectly. That is, I can be amazed until one of them bites my back and leaves me with a sore, itchy red lump. Either way, every time I go surfing or running, I'm allowed to just be me. To be a version of me who has forgotten about the world and instead to be filled with liberating freedom and wonder.

So, when people ask me why I don't follow doctors orders and go for a surf or a run, I tell them that it's because of the wind, the sand, the green grass and the sea.

It's just me and them baby. Them and me.

Home Grown

Check out James Brown's funky dance moves :D

Look Mum! Two hands!

I am unofficially* free of my sling!! Woohoo :D 

To celebrate, I made my lunch all by myself! Makes me feel like a little kid finding something so small so exciting, but it's been the little things that have made being in the sling-of-doom not so nice - needing help everytime I wanted something to eat, not being able to go for a swim at the beach and needing people to tie shoe laces for me... Thus it will make the little things that I can do that will make getting rid of the sling so grand!

For example, making myself lunch and using homegrown, handpicked tomatoes while I'm at it :D Even though I'm not at all responsible for these tomatoes, it's still kinda joyful going outside and rummaging around to find a few little yellow fruits that haven't been entirely devoured by bugs. Perhaps when my arm's back to full working order I'll try to get something growing in the garden outside my room, afterall, last time I tried that I did end up with a loquat tree...

Om nom nom :D

The loquat tree I grew from a seed...

*The joys of medical politics means I'm not officially out of my sling - I have to wait for my ortho surgeon to give me the go ahead on that one :P

Happiness and The Smiths - One week down.

I'm writing this blog because of something I read in Smith Journal, so I was going to post a song by the Smiths, but ended up with a scene from 500 Days of Summer, one of my all-time favourite movies, featuring Hall & Oates and the mighty attractive Joseph Gordon-Levitt. But I figure that works (somehow) because 500 Days of Summer is what got me into The Smiths in the first place... :P

One week post-surgery and things are going well...except I decided to stop taking pain meds because they were giving me headaches of epic proportions and so now my brain is returning, and I am getting antsy. I'm so bored!

And then I read this thing in Smith Journal, which is a pretty rad magazine that you should totally get a hold of, and it helped a little. The next 5-7 weeks of hell-in-a-sling means no more dislocating shoulders, which will be well-worth it and I'm sure will help with this dudes* notion of happiness which I really like, so I just have to focus on that.

"HAPPINESS
This is an uncomfortable word, too full of associations of cheerfulness and mindlessness. I prefer fulfillment. The goal is to have a fulfilled life, which may have enduring periods of great difficulty, but in the name of something worthwhile**. Also, it feels vital to conceive of happiness as something one might, at best, sample in 10-minute bursts. To imagine a decade of happiness seems insane - happiness is a rich food that we can't stomach for very long. We're creatures of anxiety and apprehension. That's how we survived."

And besides, there's a stress ball attached to my sling and who doesn't like stress balls?

*Alain de Botton, who is apparently an author and philosopher.
**My friends and family are making this far less difficult though - thanks everyone :)

A domani

I have been a terribly terrible blogger of late because of all that has been going on, exams, for instance, and unfortunately, this is a little note to let you all know that it's only going to get worse.

Tomorrow, the dreaded day will have arrived and I'll be having my 4th joint reconstruction. It's the left shoulders turn to face up to the living hell that will ensue, but at least after that I think there aren't many more things they can operate on :P Either way, I shall be in a sling for the next 8 weeks and given my hatred of one-handed typing I doubt I'll be spending much time writing up blogs.

In the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying freedom from exams (or almost freedom) and I shall see you on the other side :)

Over and out.
Rhi :)

You should all do some fun stuff like this...

...and spend a lot of time at this place to make up for my inabilities :P

*Just in case anyone with knowledge of Italian reads this, I know 'a domani' is Italian for 'see you tomorrow', and that it's not really that correct, but I don't particularly care.

Dislocato Girl

No. 1: Shark bite - Right knee :P

So, on Tuesday I woke up with a swollen face and a dislocated jaw, and my joints wouldn't stop hurting. I went to uni, tried to ignore it, and then realised around 3pm that I couldn't actually feel my left hand. Apparently, my 'good' shoulder had subluxed or dislocated, and thus we welcome back Disclocato Girl.

No. 2: Screws in, screws out (please!)

It means I'll be in a sling for a little while, and usually my emotions would be completely out of whack, but this time, I seem to be doing ok. The people that I've been around have been absolutely amazing.

No. 3: Gun shot wound.

So a big thank you to everyone who has been there for me in the past week. The last few times I've found out I'm going to need more surgery, I've been an utter mess, but this time I've managed to get through relatively unscathed. Without getting soppy, you've all helped me see past the shitty side of this. I know what's coming, which doesn't help in the slightest, but I also know I'll get through it. I'll watch the whole of Grey's Anatomy again, sneak off to the beach when no one's watching and float around in the water, eat a damn lot of ice cream, and more importantly, I know that this time there'll be people I can call at 2am in the morning when the horrible post-surgery insomnia begins.

Soon-to-be No. 4
Chilling with my sling and showing off some of my scars :P