Sometimes It Takes a Grand Mal Seizure: Recollections of Getting Free

Man in a couple days it'll be two years since a unfortunate and scary health issue dramatically changed my life. After the doctor told me I needed to have a six month leave of absence to see if the seizures would be a recurring problem it immediately relieved me of a job I was grateful for, but was awful for me personally, especially for a full time college student and dad. It was one of those jobs, like a lot of people out there, I'm sure, where I was good at it, but was one that was killing me emotionally. Emotions never seemed a good enough reason to quit my (mostly) full time job, especially since it paid for my nice and spacious downtown apartment. And having a full time job, and full time school, I never really got around to looking for a new job...even though I constantly told myself I would.

I felt very trapped, and was, in fact, planning on transferring to the Vancouver Red Lion when I transferred to WSU-V. Providing a home for my family and for the nice things I could occasionally buy felt like enough to slog on through the misery. Forgive the dramatics but...it feels accurate. It's a pretty common story I figured, and eventually I also figured (HOPEFULLY) college and grad school would solve the issue.

Thank god that didn't happen. Before the end of that January I had pretty much unofficially decided I could not go back to Red Lion. I had been laid off from the Lion back in '09 and I thought that was the sign to leave THEN, before I wound up back at their door six months later after I ran out of unemployment. Here I was, getting a second out, and I figured it was a sign to move on. So I officially stayed on at Red Lion, burning out my sick time, until it finally ran dry in March. And then I quit. It took pretty much from January until late March to finally decide to take up a standing offer from Sarah's mom to move into the spare rooms she had at her house.

It's difficult to swallow pride. It took Sarah far less time to accept the idea of leaving our wonderful apartment (that I hardly miss as much as I would have thought), and taking up a residence that would allow for a part time job, than it did me. Eventually, I realized, even though pride was a powerful emotion, my pride at the time was just forcing me to stay in a miserable position. Even though I do miss having our own uninterrupted space occasionally, honestly it hardly happens. My life is busy but so, so much more flexible. I have time for friendships, for date nights, for family nights, for special trips with Ava, for reading, for near daily creative time. My actual job allows me breaks for holidays, for classes, for my internship, for my brand spanking new second position of writing articles for Sodo Mojo (at least...I'm pretty sure it will...haha). There is now hardly any 3 a.m. studying. Usually I could get it done on mornings when I'm off or before bedtime on days I've had work/school. Sometimes it takes something awful and scary (i,e. seizure), to realize the misery you are in is in fact, not worth it. Hopefully it doesn't take that for you. Sometimes people don't get a wake up call at all. I'm so grateful I did, Thanks, universe.

It's wonderful. If pride is keeping you somewhere you don't REALLY wanna be... LET GO. Sounds easy, will in fact be super hard, but will feel WONDERFUL.

In Which I Attempt to Make a Point about Abrupt Endings But Really Wind Up Reminiscing a Whole Lot. Which Kind of Leads Back to the Point.

I was thinking about how abrupt things change. I think of my life in terms of eras. Young childhood...up to about eleven or twelve is kind of one big era. Then comes the teens, the end of high school really felt like the end of the teens for me. And it just goes to show how we define time really doesn't make much of a difference. I know people who are well into their twenties and their lives aren't that much different than they were at seventeen. My life is quite a bit different that it was at seventeen. And I don't say that with a sense of pride. Its just a fact. (Although the people that have made my life quite a bit different are pretty cool... so maybe a little pride)

After the "teens", which really felt like they ended after high school, the eras become more niche. At some point after I'm a twenty something (if I make it out of the roaring twenties alive) I suppose I might be able to condense my life into "my twenties." I kind of hope not, though. I hope I can remember it more the way it was.

First I met Sarah. I started dating her in mid-July of 2005 and we had a magical summer. I mean that sounds cheesy as shit, but it was. We had absolutely no commitments (except for Sarah's curfew), and I had two thousand dollars. I didn't get a job until nearly November of that year. I had no desire for, and no way to pay for college, so I elected to "enter the workforce." That summer really lasted until about October...that's when things started to feel less magical and more like a loser-y teen with marriage ideals and no job. So from July-October was "the summer." We got engaged in January of 2006, so things really jump to "the engagement." Then we in '07 we became newlyweds. The honeymoon had to be creative but we had a lot of help and it was a great time. A little house on the beach, just Sarah and I with a couple grand in wedding money, and having a good time watching 'Disturbia' and 'A Goofy Movie' in the little house. Sleeping in the living room because the bedroom creeped the shit out of us.

Then there was the era of our first apartment, which was as beautiful and awesome as it was cheap. We got that in the fall of '09. We stayed there till shortly after Ava was born. We moved into the second apartment in the early months of 2011. The second apartment was really "Ava's first home." That's where a lot of memories were made (and posted on Facebook). Ava's first steps. First time Ava rolled over was when we were watching 'Aloha, Scooby Doo' on my brand-spanking new blu-ray in our living room. Lots of movie and Little Caesar's pizza nights with Sarah after Ava was in bed. The simple joys of eating awesomely bad food and binge watching 'How I Met Your Mother' after a highly stressful day of cooking at the 'Lion' and homework.

Then came my two Grand Mal seizures in January of 2013. And that brings me to my original point. The seizure came out of nowhere, I had NEVER had one before, or had any issues before. And suddenly my doctor told me I couldn't work at my job for six months. It was the time period to test and see if I would likely have more seizures or if it was an anomaly kind of thing. And so suddenly my job--which I'd held and loathed but was still appreciative to have at all--was gone. And...it was great. I had been missing SO much with my swing shift hours, in combination with college that it felt just like a season to mend, and to get well. To get in tune with the people in my life. I never went back to the job and wound up getting a new one (with much more flexible and generally life friendly hours) in about August of '13...same time as I started at WSU-V, newly armed with my AA from LCC. And that starts the era I'm currently in...the WSU era I guess. An era of humility (giving up our hard earned apartment in exchange for more time for living life and focusing on school and bettering our lives).

The original point was abrupt endings. Didn't really get there. But, the point was, our lives aren't really measured in years or decades or whatever. Things are really in eras. And you never know how quickly the era will end. I woke one day and my head went screwy and that gave me a way out of my dead-end job. It really just showed me the way that was already there but that I was too proud to see. This era will end at some point (hopefully with a decent paying job that my college degree got me) but who knows when. But its a really good one, with second chances and everything. So I'm not in a hurry.