The Lithium triplets and a bag of pyrite

This is, I fear, going to be a fairly whiny post. You can stop now, if you want. I don't mind. I'm writing this mostly for myself.

I'm sitting here eating what may possibly be the last chinese dinner I eat ever in my life (sweet and sour pork, chow mein and beijing beef, in case you were wondering). As I slowly masticate, I wonder about, I guess, the meaning of life, writing, dieting, and medication... we'll start with the last and go backwards.

A friend confided in me today that he thinks I am insane. I'm afraid he may be right. I stare now at three very small white pills, lined up on a box from a pen I got recently (Red Pelikano Jr, which is in my pocket with Passion Red ink in it - good for grading). They sit there, taunting me, each with the tiny numbered faces talking to me, telling me that I'm just too insane to love. The Lithium triplets, ladies and gentleman, whisper to me in their small, salty voices (I hate the taste of these pills), in the voices of my father, my sister...and sometimes my mother... and they tell me that I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough. That I have to depend on them, or I will be nothing. I hate these pills. I want to crush them beneath the heel of my birkenstocks, which, I might point out, aren't really all that made for crushing. My only recourse is to swallow them with my Beijing Beef, and hope that they drown in the stomach acid. It makes me feel a little better.

Dieting next, right? (as I munch on my high sodium and high calorie chinese food, the repast of a dying stomach).

I decided to start the sign up process for weight loss surgery. To say I'm frightened is an understatement. My whole.. everything.. is frightened. There are a few reasons I'm afraid. First, is the extra skin. I realize this is incredibly vain of me, but I want to be beautiful. This goes back to the whole "not loved" thing. I want to be so beautiful that men will stop to look at me... that men will notice me and maybe even wonder who I am. I am invisible as I am, or worse, the subject of ridicule and derision. Because I look like this, people sneer and don't even bother to get to know my mind... and not more than once, when they have gotten to know my mind first, through some internet experience, perhaps, once they do see me, who I really am... they back off, or back away and tell me they want to slow down.... or I never hear from them again. So, when I worry that I may look like a sharpei after the surgery because my skin's elasticity has been affected, this is a major fear of mine.

I guess the other concerns would be minor to that, though major to some. Not being able to eat the foods I like, gaining back the weight despite the surgery, having to buy all new clothes, the risk of infection or possible death (a .02% chance). However weighing all of those options against a longer life span, and maybe the ability to move freely again without very serious pain... even my vanity loses out. I have to do something. My willpower won't let me. Maybe surgery will.

Writing... I'm getting to a place where I'm at the "what's the point" of writing. I'm not very good at it. I definitely know I could be better, but when I sit down to write, typing or otherwise, nothing spectacular comes out. Funnily enough, when I pick up a fountain pen, the first thing I scrawl isn't a poem, or a bit of prose, but my signature - every time I put pen to paper. I love my fountain pens, they are gorgeous, and fun to play with, but.. well.. a wise man once told me that the pen in my hand is merely a fetish. I believe that it can cause magic because of of what it is. I believe a nice fountain pen can make a better writer, but.. it can't. Nothing really can. I write how I write. I can edit, which I hate doing, as I don't feel that it's creation. I have been negative about my writing for over a year now, tying it into a heartbreak that should have never occurred in the first place. I tied my writing life into that relationship and because of that, once the relationship ended, my writing became stunted. It wasn't his fault; it was mine for tying it to anybody else in the first place.

If I want to be a writer, I have to write for myself, and not worry about whether or not it's crap at first, but be happy that I am at least writing something. If my writing group tells me it's crap.. I just won't think about publishing it and put it in the "nice try" pile. When you're mining for gold in a river full of iron pyrite, you're bound, once in a while, to find a nugget of something good there. (and I've seen a lot of iron pyrite published too!)

So.. life will sort itself out. I'm done whining now. The Lithium triplets are safely tucked away for the evening... and I have about 5000 words to write to catch up to my fellow Nanoers.

ToryLynn