Entries by tag: non-fiction
“I don’t wanna do this.” I repeat this phrase to myself over and over again, as the warm water from the show cascades over my body.
I stare blankly at the wall and wish I could just go back to bed. It’s too early for this. I’m already not a morning person, but these treatments make me even less eager to get out of bed.
Eventually I pull myself from the warm shower and crawl back into bed for some temporary comfort, wrapping myself in my blankets but careful not to lay back down or close my eyes. I scroll through Facebook while I warm up enough to get out of bed for the second time. I eat a quick breakfast, usually just an apple, before throwing on some leggings and a long t-shirt. I almost forget to grab a scarf or hat to cover my nearly hairless head, but a quick glimpse in the mirror reminds me. I don’t want people knowing I’m sick. I just want to blend in with everyone else.
I just want to feel normal.
When I was diagnosed with cancer, I told myself that I wouldn’t become one of those people who only talked about my illness. In fact, I told people I didn’t want to talk about it at all. My life isn’t just cancer, and I want it to be a blip - some minor annoyance that happened in the background of my life - not something that would define me.
( Read more...Collapse )CW: Fertility and cancer.
When I was younger, I made the mistake of having the same therapist as my partner.
As I sat in her office, a pillow in my lap and tears in my eyes, I confessed to her that I was thinking of leaving my boyfriend.
“Why? Aren’t things going well for the two of you?”
“Well yes,” I said. “Very well. I have never been so happy.”
“Then why are you thinking of ending things?”
I struggled to say the words, because I knew what she was going to say.
She was going to agree with me, I just knew it. Anyone with half a brain would agree that I needed to end things sooner rather than later.
“I want to have children,” I blurted out.
( Read more...Collapse )"I'm sorry."
My husband looked over at me from his seat in the back of the ambulance.
"Why are you sorry?" he asked me.
"Because I know this will be a waste of time. It's probably nothing."
"Well, that would be good news, wouldn't it? We want it to be nothing."
"I suppose so."
Back in the United States, I would never dream of going to the emergency room because I'm uninsured, and it would financially destroy me.
Even though I know it's different here, I still fall into the same mindset. What if I'm just being a hypochondriac? Yes, I had two different doctors tell me to go to the emergency room, that this was serious. But usually, I ignore that advice, and so far, I've turned out fine.
But what if this time, they're right?
What if I wouldn't be fine?
When we got to the hospital, the French receptionist seemed to be angry. She was yelling and throwing her hands around, but I couldn't make out a word she said. In my mind, I knew what she was upset about though — it's because I'm American and I don't have access to the French healthcare system yet. I felt terrible as I sat there, not knowing what she was going on and on about, but assuming it was about me and my lack of health insurance here in France.
And I sat there feeling like I had done something wrong. Because in my country, healthcare isn't a right — it's a privilege I don't have.
( Read more...Collapse )I think my husband has taken for granted that I don't speak French fluently. Yes, I took four years in high school, and I keep studying. I can read a good bit of French, but speaking and listening are a lot harder for me, mostly because I've been taught with an American accent. Pronunciation is hard, and I'm still getting used to their accents.
My husband's parents don't speak English at all, so when we visit them, they mostly speak French. I remember being so proud of myself when we first met — I understood a phrase his mother had said.
She had said, "Il aime le chat." Which means, "He loves the cat."
Yeah, yeah, anyone who uses Duolingo for even an hour can understand that. But it was still the first phrase I ever understood outside of the traditional greetings, so it meant a lot to me. And until recently, it was the only phrase I ever picked up on from their conversations.
( Read more...Collapse )My fiancé doesn’t fit the French stereotype. In fact, until I started coming around, he never bought baguettes. Like, how is that possible? You have some of the best bread in the world at your disposal - there are literally boulangeries every few steps. They’re like Starbucks for bread. And you never have one at home? How is this even possible? Are you even French if you don't have a baguette with every meal?
People even break their own rules when it comes to bread. For instance, it's frowned upon to eat on the run. They think meals should be eaten while sitting at a table, enjoying the food. Except when it comes to their precious baguettes. People break off bits of the baguette, munching as they walk home from work. People give kids hunks of the hard, French bread as they run around the park. No butter needed. Just a chunk of bread.
But not my fiancé.
Not until I came around, that is. Because apparently, in some ways, I'm more Frenchified than he is.
It started with me venturing to the stores on my own, just an excuse to get out and about. I'd pick up a baguette to go with our dinner since it felt like the French thing to do. I'm really struggling with finding meals for me to eat there. A lot of the brands I'm familiar with back in the United States don't exist there, and it's been a frustrating process for me. I'm used to eating certain things, almost always the same types of things, every day. And now I need to find new things to eat.
( Read more...Collapse )I always warn people that life is an adventure with me, and that’s because I choose to make it that way. The quirks? The bad stuff? The joys? The pleasures? All that junk makes this life mine. The experiences are my experiences. The stories are my stories (unless Kevin wrote them for me, of course).
In the last few seasons of Idol, I’ve had my ups and my downs like most everybody. It’s mostly been good, all around. I would say without a doubt that Idol has changed my life and given me the courage to do things I’ d never have imagined otherwise. I left a semi-abusive relationship. I moved to California. I met my boyfriend during Season 6… And I know we all make you sick with that story time and time again.
But the one constant from season to season has been change. Every season, I come out transformed into someone totally different by the end of things. I’ve grown not only as a writer, but as a person.
In Season 6, I started out totally terrified that I’d go out in the first week. So instead of taking that risk, I used my bye and avoided the week altogether. That way, I could at least say I survived two weeks of LJ Idol. After I “survived” that first week, I threw together my first entry and hoped I wouldn’t be the first of my new Idol friends to be voted out.
In Week 5, I was eliminated. Well I would have been if it wasn’t a non-elimination poll that is. I wrote a deep, philosophical meta piece about what the topic meant to me… after I’d Googled it. I started off the entry with fair warning about my sarcastic sense of humor and then tried to be heavily sarcastic and funny. Call it stage fright maybe but I failed miserably at it while forgetting how to use simple things like punctuation and apparently trying to set a world record for the most parentheses crammed into a single entry.
I started the game that first season with a mission in mind. I would never write anything but happy, light posts. And if people didn’t like that? Well then maybe I wasn’t right for Idol. I also swore I’d never write nor read any of the fiction because I only cared about the nonfiction, personal narratives. Honestly, I came in with a strict sense of what I would write and I maybe had enough material for the first 4 weeks, which explains my elimination in Week 5.
Yeah... That didn’t last for long. I made it a couple months before I dipped my feet into the fiction waters. It was also the week I ended up on my first rec list. I remember exactly how it made me feel to see my name up there alongside some other really fantastic writers. That’s a moment I will never forget and this is why as a vet, I really tried writing rec lists early on. It means a lot to be included, to know that out of so many others, someone thought you stood out from the crowd.
I doubt she remembers she did it, but I remember her for it. Even if she’s not around much these days.
But back to my point here. Before Idol, the last time I’d written anything was back in a high school creative writing class. I loved shocking my classmates and teachers by writing strange and off the wall stories… pieces about kids coming to school with guns, others about aborted fetuses popping up everywhere (see? I’ve always had a sick, strange and dark mind). It was fun for me. A lot of fun.
Eventually though, I stopped writing. I suppose I felt like I’d simply grown out of it and allowed myself to move away from it
Idol brought me back to it. What started out as something to do to avoid sleeping the day away brought back a passion I had forgotten about long ago.
Coming into Season 7, I was excited and determined to move away from the light and fluffy pieces that made up most of my previous season’s body of work. I dove headfirst into the waters of fiction writing. I discovered a love for fairy tales, and that’s what I stuck to when it came to fiction. And now, in Season 8, I write almost nothing but fiction. I steer clear of nonfiction and unless I’m mocking myself profusely about something stupid I’ve done, I rarely write anything light and sacchariney anymore. It happens from time to time, but my style has grown and evolved into my own. I write dark fiction, mostly sci-fi, sometimes horror and I still dabble in dark fairy tales from time to time. I’m learning, experimenting and growing.
This is all still somewhat new to me and I don’t claim to be perfect, the most polished or the most likely to hit the best seller list; I just claim to be proud of what I have written.
These stories are my own. Many portray my life in fictionalized form. I normally don’t realize this as I’m writing them, it just comes out as I write. It’s only later when I look back that I can see my real emotions seeping through, see my experiences being played out in a metaphor and disguised in a way that no one can really tell it’s me.
I can look back at the pieces I’ve written and pick out exactly how I was feeling or what I was going through at the time I wrote it. My final piece of Season 7, a piece which I have a novel built around now, started out with me feeling vulnerable and like I couldn’t do anything right. Kimber was me just set in an entirely different world that I created to escape from the one I was in at the time.
Looking back at the story of the Magic Shoes, a story that began as a dream, I can see that it’s my story and my feelings of being overshadowed, insignificant and pushed to the side set in a tale of fear and horror. These are all feelings I carry, things I later discussed with my counselor about life in general and things I am working on now. Of course this one came from a dream I had, so it makes sense that parts of me came out within it. Parts of me that I hadn’t known existed as I wrote it.
To say these stories are not my own is taking something away from my work and totally demeaning to me. All those hours I’ve spent writing and tweaking, and tweaking some more and yes, tweaking some more to make sure it’s as perfect as I can make it apparently means nothing to some. I can think of nothing more offensive than to question the authenticity of my work and my integrity. Apparently though, some folks don’t think trying to tarnish somebody’s reputation is anything to get worked up about.
But I am plenty worked up, believe me.
I spend hours upon hours, neglecting sleep in favor of writing and making sure what I put out there is good. I send my pieces to as many beta readers as I can in the amount of time I’m given. I edit until I can’t edit anymore. I’m proud of my work and my effort and am sickened to think that anybody believes I didn’t even do it.
But I know that this is just another bump in the road to the future. All of this is simply part of the journey to get where I am today and where I want to go tomorrow. We all have our trials and it’s how we deal with them that counts. To question that I can’t grow, that I can’t change and adapt or seek out help to learn how to get better on my own is simply wrong and I think, is more your shortcoming than mine. I am an individual that’s constantly on a journey in my life and I never settle for being anything but the best I can be. I work for it. And I work hard for it. To have my effort downplayed or even questioned doesn’t tear me down like some want it to, it builds me up, it makes me angry and gives me fuel to surge forward, to be even better.
Maybe at one time writing wasn’t something I took seriously. But after three seasons of Idol, from nearly being voted out in Week 5 way back when to making it into the Top 3 today, I can honestly say I see things a bit differently. I take my writing very seriously and though it’s a process full of highs and lows, I will never stop learning and growing.
Idol has given me more than just my love of writing back. It’s helped me stretch my wings as a person. I’m no longer content to quietly accept what is handed to me or be somebody’s willing doormat. I’m no longer afraid to speak up and to speak out. I’m nobody’s punching bag and I refuse to be somebody’s victim. I’m an adventurer in this life and I mean to find the treasures in this world and in myself.
As I continue to grow and evolve, it’s helping me find my courage, my confidence and more importantly, it’s helping me to find my true voice… something I will never give up or allow to be taken from me again.
The rest of this journey is of my own choosing. I plan to do things on my terms and my terms only from this day forward. Whatever happens happens. Some don't think I deserve to be here and some have said as much. But I am here and I make no apologies for it because I worked just as hard as anybody else to get to this point. And if I go out this week, I’m going out with my head held high because I know I’m stronger than when I started. Stronger than I ever thought I could be. I no longer feel like I’m a participant in something I have no control over.
I’m no longer the victim and I have Season 8 of LJ Idol to thank for that.
"I fixed it once,” He referenced how he took my old broken keyboard and reattached the keys so it could play again, “Maybe I can do it again?”
So much hope in his eyes, I wanted to say yes... But broken keys and melted plastic were two entirely different things. I shook my head, "I promise we will try to get you another one.”
I wasn’t sure how we would, but I knew that we needed to. My brother loved playing music. I’d never seen a young boy pick up music so easily, and he was all self-taught too.
And now, his prized possession destroyed and we were too broke to be able to buy a new one, not with losing our home and all.
He took one last look at it before tossing it in the giant trash pile with a sigh. He walked away, scared that his life might never come back together again.
My niece ran up to me, bridesmaid dress from my wedding in hand and tears falling from her eyes, "A dry cleaner can clean this, right?”
Her room hadn’t been hit by the fire, but smoke and water had damaged most of her things. Her clothes were all ruined, everything she owned drenched. And the dress that was supposed to be her prom dress that year...destroyed.
Again, I made a promise, "We will get you a dress, I promise. This one can’t be cleaned... It’s ruined.”
She nodded and just like my brother, put the dress in the pile of trash, but instead of tossing it down, she laid it gently and had a hard time walking away.
They were just kids and they’d lost everything within a matter of minutes. Their home, their stuff, and most of all, the memories that went along with all of it.
Gone.
I placed an ad on Craigslist, talking about the fire and asking for donated items. Clothes, housing items, gift cards... And toward the end, I mentioned a keyboard and talked about my brother, thinking maybe something would work out.
A woman from a town two hours away called me that evening.
She had clothing and a few household items she had collected from her neighbors. She said she also had something else. A few years ago, she’d brought her a son a brand new keyboard because he liked to play music. He’d never opened it and he’d moved on to college, leaving it behind.
She wanted to know if my brother would use it?
YES! I nearly yelled into the phone. Only a day after the disaster and things were already starting to look up!
It was even better than the one he had before. Brand new and a more expensive brand; it even came with a stand which would come in handy later on.
Years later, we would be in a public museum with a piano in the center of the room. My brother, now 16, would walk up as people sneered at the kid with shorts down to his knees.
But then he sat down and started playing Fur Elise flawlessly and perfect, not missing a beat. Soon, a crowd gathered around to watch. My brother was oblivious to everyone around him, focusing on the music as he finished the final note. He stood up and rejoined his friends, the crowd dispersing but whispering amongst themselves about how good he was.
For a moment, my brother was the absolute center of attention. It’s a moment in time I don’t think either of us will ever forget.
Thanks to the kindness of a stranger, he was able to get a piece of his childhood back.
(The above video is of my brother playing his keyboard over at a friend's house. He's just goofing off really, not even playing seriously, and you can still see how good he is for someone who's completely self taught. You can hear my nephew in the background asking about going to a motel, it's because they had no water or electric at that time.)
Samantha had all but given up on going to prom, not wanting to put a burden on her mother after the fire. She’s a very sensitive and empathetic person, so she swore she had no desire to go.
But then her special education teacher asked her if she could take her dress shopping. Mrs. Monroe would pay for the dress herself, and she didn’t want to stay local. She wanted to take Samantha into the city, to a fancier dress store.
My mom and sister had put money aside to buy the shoes and accessories, but when Samantha came home that evening, she had everything. The shoes, the earrings, the coverup... $300 worth of stuff. She had tried to talk the teacher out of buying all of it, saying she didn’t need it... That just the dress would be fine...
But Mrs. Monroe wouldn’t have any of that.
Samantha was absolutely stunning at her prom, and she has special memories from that day that she wouldn’t have had without the help of a special teacher who went above and beyond the call of duty.
(The above photo is of Samantha in a princess style pink dress with jewels affixed to the top. She's standing with her mom and grandma before the prom. )
Flat screen TVs? Cell Phones? Cable? People like to joke about how the poor all live better than they do, but growing up I didn’t dream about gaming systems or cell phones... No, I dreamt about having a house with heat. Or not going without water when our pipes burst. I wanted a home without holes in the floor or ceiling. Getting in and out the back door meant balancing on boards since the floor gave in from water damage. I wanted sturdy floors and a roof that didn’t cave in, not a mansion or anything fancy.
I just wanted a home for my family. What we had was all my mom and step-dad could afford and it was home. Many would be terrified of walking through it, but to us, it was all we had.
Once it was gone, my family had nowhere to go.
My sister lived on the same property in a garage converted into a one-bedroom house. Samantha had lived with my mom simply because they had no room for her and her two younger siblings there. When they all moved in together? All seven of my family members made it virtually impossible to move without stepping on someone. My mom, step-dad, William and Samantha shared the bedroom while my sister and her other two kids slept on a fold-out couch in the living room.
At one point, there looked to be no other options for years to come. Until the woman from earlier, the one who gave William his keyboard, called me to brainstorm ideas.
"I don’t like how they live so cramped like that!”
I tried telling her they had no other choice. My sister is mentally disabled and my mom must be nearby to help her with daily life. It’s unlikely they could afford another house elsewhere, there really appeared to be no hope.
The woman wouldn’t hear anything of it though and decided she would buy them a temporary solution, an RV. She wanted to buy a larger trailer, but it wouldn’t fit on the property. So she found a two bedroom RV and paid $4,000 for it.
She told us we never had to pay her back, it was a gift. Of course, we found a way to pay her back, that was just asking too much from a stranger.
The kindness of that woman has given my family a home once more. Yes, it’s small. My brother’s bedroom is so tiny, only one person can stand in there at a time and his bed is built into the wall. But he has a door and he has a roof over his head.
For my mother who lost everything in the fire, this is all she has. She’s building her life around it. Due to space, she can’t display her pictures on the walls like before. I bought her a digital photo frame for Christmas and loaded it up with all of our family photos. She’s always been one to cherish photos and memories above all else. It’s little things like that which have helped turned a little RV into something more.
Thanks to the kindness of strangers and people from the community, they’ve started piecing their lives back together again.
Four years later and they still live there. It’s home.
(Whew! I made it! My fifth and final piece for this round of Hell Week in
therealljidol. As always, thanks for reading and for all your support. It's been a very busy week and I'm proud of getting all my entries in on time!)Profile
pixiebelle- Kristen
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