Slowing down and dreaming of kitties

Love SF Public Transit

        Today is the first day I’ve felt a good amount of creative energy.  It felt good being productive, getting things done, thinking about future projects, thinking about my stream and what I can do to improve, and reconnect with friends.  I felt more like myself and not consumed with resting, pushing myself to walk and recovery.  I mean there was that too, but it wasn’t my whole day which was nice.  I feel like my mental state is finally recovering.  I think most people don’t realize after a major surgery, it’s not just a physical recovery.  I felt like my brain, my emotions, my mental state and a couple things we don’t yet have words for were also hit by a truck and thrown to splatter on a brick wall.  It has taken months for me to scrape it off and try to repiece them together into something recognizable for me.  Many times I’d look in the mirror and not recognize the light behind my eyes.  Some may find it scary and it probably was, but I couldn’t really even access that fear (it was somewhere splattered on that wall) so it didn’t really matter at the time.  All that mattered was to bear it all and keep going.

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Dreamy B Day Pic

Ok, so I wrote that on March 15th, Saturday.  It’s now the 20th, Thursday.  The week has been a bit crazy, but at least it’s going fast.  Monday was a crazy 4 hour infusion that knocked me out all day.  Tuesday was another long day and Wednesday was yet another appointment, but at least I got to chill later.  Today was another chill day and also . . . I have a week left until I can go home!  I’m so excited.  I can taste home now; it’s so close.  My schedule is full next week, but I’ll happily do it because I know I’ll be in my bed with my cats soon.  It’s what I’ve been dreaming about since December.  I cannot wait.

My and my mom's shadows atop
the hill at Mission Dolores

   Physically, I’ve been recovering very well!  My doctors say I’m doing great; I also feel so much better than I did two weeks ago, a month ago, two months ago.  I’m much stronger and able to walk much longer.  I’m told I won’t be 100% until 8 months - 1 year after transplant, so no rush, but it is heartening to feel myself getting better.  

Mom had a fun day  😀

I was able to go out a bit after my birthday.  Visited the Hayes District and went to the California Academy of Sciences Night Life.  This was all very fun and also a lot of walking.  Lately though, I haven’t been going out as much, but still try to.  It’s been very rainy and windy here and not ideal weather.  I’ve been doing exercises around the Airbnb which helps and walking laps around equivalent to a half mile or so.  Lately, I've been super obsessed with the anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. I started watching this while in the hospital in December before my transplant and it resonated with me in a deep way. It's about an elven mage who lives a very very long life and doesn't understand human relationship because 10 years to a human is like a day for an elf. She soon regrets losing people who she learns later are dear to her and is on a quest to rediscover the love and connection of these relationships. Her life can be seen cleaved into two parts, which is why I resonate with it. At the time, I was seeing my old life end and a new one emerging on the horizon. The anime made me feel seen in a way and I'm already on my second watch through lol (I watched the dubbed first and now am watching the subbed). I'm also obsessed with the music. Love love love. High recommend. I’ ve also been playing games (of course), trying out Two Point Museum, heavily modded Stardew Valley, Disco Elysium (this fucking game, thanks Bianca), and the Ale & Tale Tavern update.  These have all been very fun and it’s so nice I can game on my laptop.  My laptop tho can’t handle high res games.  I really want to get into Monster Hunter Wilds, but that will have to wait until I’m at home and very settled.

Aquarium at the Academy

Everyone is asking when my return to Twitch is.  Believe me, I’m itching to get back, but I really don’t know.  I’m imagining mid April or something around there.  I’m hoping at least.  I do want to plan an event or something.  I’m also rethinking my stream schedule.  I have to wake up very early to keep my strict schedule of medication.  Gone are my days of waking up at noon or after (RIP); I will miss that.  So that means I can’t stream into the degen hours as I have before.  I’m wondering if it makes sense to stream early like noon, but I still have work later in the day so it’s tricky.  The only thing that still makes sense is to stream after work, but then that means my streams are shorter because I would have to end earlier to sleep.  Ugh.  Let a guuuurl just game.  Is that too much to ask?

Wassup Bird

One thing this experience has taught me was to slow down.  I think we always tell ourselves that, but I think our anxieties take over and we fall back into the habit of autopilot and just keep going while passing things that are so important.  When I was in the hospital, I had no choice but to slow down everything including my thoughts.  I think it’s ok to not have all the answers and to say I don’t know way more than we are comfortable with.  There’s so little we have power over and things come when they come.  The path to a desired destination is very seldom a straight line; if things get too stressful, it’s best to just to enjoy what is in front of us because we never know how long they will still be there.  Even though I hate being away from home, I’m very grateful for the time I’m spending with my mother and Space here in the Airbnb, and in so many ways.  I definitely couldn’t have done this without them and in retrospect, this has all validated a lot of life choices I made for myself in the past that I had once thought were poor choices, but were in fact perfect for what I needed, especially now.  I guess I do make good decisions.

The footprint of Monarch, one
of the last California Grizzly
Bears that went extinct 😔

Even though my health is getting better, I don't think I can go back to work. I still have some unforeseen medical bills and life expenses to pay from my transplant.  We are still fundraising on GoFundMe (link below as well).  If you’re able, consider donating.  Even $5 helps out a ton at this point.  We have raised $8,940 so far and our goal is $15,000.  We are so close to $9,000!  Also please consider sharing the link to your friends, work, community. And feel free to share my blog!  I would appreciate it so much.  Anything you can do is so helpful.  And a BIG shout out to the Dream Team who organized this all: Happy, Banh, Allo, Julia, Suh, Bro and anyone else involved.  Thank you so much.  I don’t know what I did to deserve your unconditional love, but I’m beyond grateful.  I can only hope to pay this forward.

Till next time!

And thank you, reader, for reading my blog.  I hope you’ve also been practicing slowing down your lives and giving yourself some reading time.  It makes me happy to know people are reading my words and hearing my sometimes unstructured thoughts.  Feel free to reach out by text or dm.  I love to hear from you.  Till next time . . . hopefully the next time I’ll be writing from home . . .

💙Please donate what you can and share the link to your community 💙

     GoFundMe - Heart/Lung Transplant Fund

    🎵 Current Spotify Playlist 🎵

    Destroy Everything You Touch

    A mix of electronica, including one of the first electronica-like artists from the 70's Rondo Veneziano, anime/video game music including my current anime obsession Frieren Beyond Journey's End, some dark pop and regular pop and retro Japanese artists.