Monthly Archives: January 2012
Lost Friendships Part 2
I have to be honest; it’s been a struggle trying to figure out exactly what to say with this post. Not because the second woman isn’t important because she is, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about her. It’s more so difficult because I simply don’t know where to start, but I suppose the best place to start is the beginning.
I met lovely woman number two online on a website called Gaia Online. If you’re a roleplayer, you’ll more than likely know of the place, but if not I’d suggest checking it out because it can be an interesting hangout. Either way, I was indeed a roleplayer and was looking for a final member for my group roleplay and then I came across woman number two who I will refer to as “O” for her middle name. She was a very talented writer, a terrific roelplayer and best of all, she played male roles! I had to have her and after a bit of communication, I got her! She played the part perfectly and as we roleplayed together; we also got closer as friends. We branched off from the single group roleplay and expanded to numerous one-on-one roleplays. We moved from Gaia to another roleplaying website and from there we decided to create our own.
We were a great team, not only as admins and roleplay partners, but as friends. She was ALWAYS there for me no matter what. We exchanged phone numbers and text one another all the time. We even sent one another morning text messages wishing the other to have a great day. She was my rock–especially around my wedding when the shit started hitting the fan with R. O told me that if she lived closer to me that she would have taken R’s place in the wedding, that she would be there for me and I knew that she would have been. She did what she could from where she was and I will always be eternally grateful to her for that. O was wonderful and I couldn’t say enough kind things about her because she was one of the greatest friends had ever had.
So, what changed? I went on my honeymoon and still continued to text her on a daily basis despite that. She was having marriage troubles and I wanted to be there for her like she was there for me. While I was away something else started to happen too, something I couldn’t stop. We had brought on a new moderator on our forum and she slowly started to become closer with him. They started calling one another on, from my understanding, a daily basis. When I got back from my honeymoon, things just seemed different than they were before. She seemed more distant and the more distant she seemingly became, the more clingy and desperate I became. Now, if she was actually growing farther away from me, I’m not sure, but that’s how it had felt. I wanted to hold onto my friend so desperately; I guess I started to change without realizing I was doing it. Continue reading →
Posted on January 28, 2012
Lost Friendships Part 1
Today I find myself thinking about two particular friends that I feel and know that I have lost–two women who have played an important role in my life whether they realize it or not. In the past I don’t think I realized how important they both were to me. I find that I’m feeling very sad today, almost as in mourning over these two people and I cannot shake the feeling no matter how hard I try. You see, each of these women I considered to be my best friends and to me to be my best friend is to pretty much be family. Each I would drop absolutely anything for if they needed me to and part of me thinks that I still would despite what has happened and what is happening. I wanted to take some time to talk about each of these individuals and how they have affected my life in different ways. I guess part of my hope is that if I write it out I’ll be able to let these emotions go and truly move on. For some reason I doubt I’ll ever be able to truly move on because they’ll both always be in my heart and somewhere deep down I’ll always care about them, but I need to get it out.
Posted on January 22, 2012
SpamBots on the Loose!
This morning I woke up to see that I had 33 possible spam messages waiting in my queue to be viewed. Guess what, all 33 of them were in fact spam messages. It was really only a matter of time before the SpamBots showed up to my blog. I’m actually surprised it took this long. Either way, thanks to WordPress’s awesome security measures, I was able to avoid any damage being done to my blog, which makes me extremely happy! If you posted a real comment and I mistook it for spam, I’m really sorry! It becomes difficult to tell real from fake, so I may have accidently deleted your post. If that was the case, please feel free to post it again and I’ll happily let it through.
Either way, just wanted to share that random bit of information. I hope to get an on-topic post up soon. I’ve been very busy getting myself prepared for the semester to start, so I’ve been a bit preoccupied, which I’m sure a lot of you can understand. Thank you for reading and please continue to do so!
Posted on January 21, 2012
The Apocalypse is Coming
*Warning: This post may contain spoilers.
I recently watched the movie 2012 starring John Cusack with my family. At first I hadn’t thought about writing about it, but after a recent comment on another one of my blog posts, I decided that it was actually the perfect movie to write about. What’s better than talking about the approaching apocalypse and how it brings a family together?
For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it is in fact about the apocalypse that is supposed to coming in December of 2012. The movie follows a variety of different people–from Geologists to Monks to the President of the United States and other international diplomats–but primarily concentrates on John Cusack’s character, Jackson Curtis, a (relatively) successful writer who also drives limos as a side job while trying to get more of his books published. Jackson was divorced from his wife, Kate–who took their children when she moved out–when it he begins to ignore her and their children for his writing career, or so it is implied.
Their story starts when Jackson is due to pick up his children, Noah and Lilly, for his parental visit. He decides to take them to Yellow Stone National Park where they find areas of the park to be blocked off by fences reading “Do Not Enter.” Of course when someone in a movie sees fences or other blockades that specifically say not to enter, the characters have to enter.
Once beyond the fences, the Curtis family finds that a lake that was once full of water and life has dried up. On further inspection, it seems as if the space where the lake was is giving off hot steam, which only makes Jackson more curious as to what is going on. Caught by government officials (they had to be around somewhere), Jackson is told that the government is there to find out what has happened to the lake, but from the look on his face, Jackson does not fully accept this answer. Continue reading →
Posted on January 16, 2012
Having a Support System
I’ll be honest with you, readers; this was not the topic I planned on discussing in my post. I had three topics picked out for my next three blogs, but when I sat down to write my post using those topics, nothing came to me. Instead, I found myself thinking about bariatric surgery–more specifically the gastric banding surgery. I’m sure you’re wondering, “Why would you ever be thinking about that?” Well, for those of who you don’t know, I had gastric banding done on December 20th, 2011 and I am very happy that I did. If you are unsure of what this procedure is, it is a weight loss surgery (WLS) in which a band (in my case, the Lap-Band®*) is placed around the upper part of your stomach in order to create a smaller pouch to decrease the amount of food you can take in at a time, thus aiding you in losing weight. It’s all about portion control, which is what I desperately needed.
Now you may be wondering, “What does this have to do with your blog?” Well, a lot actually because support from family and friends is what will help you with your journey to a new you. When one has gastric banding, or any WLS for that matter, it requires a lot from people that they may not realize. Most insurance company require a three to six month period in which one may be placed on a supervised diet, may have to see a nutritionist, have psychological evaluation, and may even have to attend classes and support group meetings. Also, in some cases, patients’ doctors may place them on a high protein or liquid diet prior to surgery. If you think about it, that is A LOT to do just to get ready for the approval process and the surgery, but considering that this is a life changing process, it makes sense that you’d have to do all of this prior. There are some other details behind becoming approved for the surgery, but I won’t go through all of that because it varies and I’m probably not the best person to give all the details. If you plan to have WLS surgery or if you’re thinking about getting WLS surgery, make sure to do your research!
Aside from all of the above things you may or may not have to do (all doctors and insurance companies are different) there’s no getting out of how much emotion you will have to put into the process. You have to be passionate and motivated when taking this journey; you can’t half-ass it otherwise you may fail and then end up wondering why you aren’t having success. The band is a TOOL that you have to work with like any other tool and the time, energy and emotion that is put into the process can be emotionally crippling. I’m not going to lie to those who have been thinking about getting the banding or any other WLS, it is a really difficult process. The difficulties of this journey are what have inspired me to write this blog post.
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been struggling with losing weight; I’ve been stuck at the same weight, which is slowly taking its toll on me. My doctor required me to do a two week diet prior to my surgery and I chose to do the all liquid diet (crazy, I know) in which I lost thirteen pounds. After the swelling and bloating caused by the surgery went down, I lost another four or so pounds, but after that, it stopped. At first it didn’t bother me at all, I concentrated on the way my clothes were fitting and how I was feeling in general. It suddenly hit me yesterday that the scale wasn’t moving and it bothered me a lot. I had been doing so well and all of a sudden things had just come to a standstill. It was horrible and I must admit that I’m still somewhat down about it all; however, I have a great support system that has been helping me get through my funk. Continue reading →
Posted on January 11, 2012
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