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“Girl, are you a magazine? ‘Cause you got a new issue every damned day!”

“ My life is up in the air as usual, and it’s scary. I went to a new rheumatologist and she said she thinks I was misdiagnosed, so she wants to start from scratch. All new blood work, and a slough of other tests. I know that this should be good news, I know it should, but how do you wrap your head around that when for the last few years you were getting used to and accepting the idea that you were going to die on the next 10-12 years? I said, “Well shit, there goes my retirement plan.”  We wont know for a few weeks, it’ll take some time to get all the tests back, so I guess I’ll have time to get used to the idea of living past the age of 50 again if it’s true. Ive seen 3 rheumatologists before her...wait, no, 4. And 3 all came to the same conclusion, MCTD. What makes her think differently? I guess we’ll find out.  I find the idea of living long enough to get old scarier than the idea of dying sooner than later. What’s wrong with me?

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Ana Novaes on Instagram / Society6

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via weheartit

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Anatomy Master Class: Step-by-step instructional videos on drawing the human figure, classical proportions, skeletal and muscle anatomy, drawing realistic portraits and much more.

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Drawing Academy: An online Drawing Course and Art Community where you can learn how to draw in the comfort of your home and benefit from the support of Academy tutors and fellow students.

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via weheartit

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The good news is that I dont really feel self conscious anymore. The bad news is I dont really feel anything at all anymore. 

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How to be me?

You could say my mum dying literally broke my heart. It started with chest pains from the stress, in the month leading up to her death, and then they got worse after she passed. To say everything leading up to her passing was fucked up is an understatement, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it lead to disautonomia (p.o.t.s.).  I know Ive suffered from depression for a long time, but I always thought it was situational depression. The situation has changed but the depression hasn’t, and though it’s different, the new situation is still depressing, so I’ve decided it’s time to go in and get help.  I lay in bed most days, and yeah, a lot of it is from the illness, but I know physically I have improved quite a bit too. A lot of days I just cant seem to will myself to do anything. I used to be compelled to paint, to sculpt, to write, or even just to clean, but I can’t anymore. I just feel like there’s an emptiness where my desire used to be. It’s like I’m just the ghost of me.  I hope that for once, there is something that can help me. That this too isn’t incurable or untreatable, like the p.o.t.s., the MCTD, and everything else is. I don’t know how much time I have, but I know I don’t want to spend what’s left of it laying in bed. It’s not a life worth living. 

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Took me a second.

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Art by Ruby Sometimes. Gouache on paper. 

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The hardest part of having MCTD and p.o.t.s. is having to let go of people because you know you'll just hold them back. You still want all the things other people have, but can't, so you watch other people's happiness and try to be happy for them.

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At the hospital they tell us to talk to her, because hearing is the last sense to go, then made us choose a funeral home from a list, right over her, while she is still alive and we pray she is unaware of this awful conversation and not hearing people standing over her preparing for her death. I went to the funeral home yesterday to make arrangements and everything about it seemed false and wrong to me. Sitting there with price lists and itemizations of every part of the process from transportion to refrigeration, while surrounded by camoflage painted urns for hunters and tiny vessels that look like alphabet blocks for children that have passed.Youre asked pages of questions for the county recorders census, handed a bill and told that you will get a phone call when the tiny box that was once your mum is ready to pick up. After, I felt dizzy and my chest hurt so D took me to urgent care where the doctor said I need to lay in bed for the weekend and do nothing until I can get into my pcp, or go to the hospital. The thought of going to the hospital was more than I could bear, so Im here, in bed, thinking of all the calls I have to make to her friends, and finding a home for her pets and sorting all the details of her life. It sounds dumb, but you kind of feel like a shark, that if you stop moving for even a minute, you'll die.  

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Defining

Someone asked a general question, “How do you define yourself?”  A few years ago I would have said I’m a writer or I’m an artist, but now I don’t know.  A lot of days I feel like a 40 year old failure. I havent written anything or painted anything worthwhile in ages. I have no career to speak of, just debts and uncertainty and a 10 year expiration date. So how do I define myself? A broken doll on the island of misfit toys.  This week has put me through the wringer, it’s put everyone through the wringer I think. Monsoons have brought existential storms riding on their backs. When the rain falls hard, a lot of people fear and hide, that’s not my instinct though; I stand in the downpour with arms out stretched and wait for the world to be washed clean and me with it. Soggy and wet and full of hope that the storm water will help me grow.   Not to say that I’m not scared, because to be honest I’m scared shitless, but hiding isn’t an option. While other people have choices, I don’t. I’m the canary in the mine, I go first, while others can stand by and cautiously wait and see.  By all the benchmarks of society, I’m a failure at life. Career, kids, white picket fences, I have none of these. I have people who I love and who love me. I have people I would do anything for, and do. Is that enough? If there is a metric by which we are graded after death, and I have to stand and be judged, how will I rank? A drain on society? A leaf on the wind, flitting from moment to moment? How would you define me?

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I Used to Paint Angels

When I was a kid I used to see angels. Not religious beings full of judgement and disdain for all my imperfections,  but glowing visions, like a thousand points of light all reaching out a hand to help me through the dense forest of this life.  When I was older, a teenager, I began to paint angels,  and each brush stroke swept aside the adolescent angst I felt with each  push and shove, each name I was called, each bruise and scrape.  Somewhere between the then and the now, my paintbrush lost its wings.  My angels forgot how to fly, and the me I used to be forgot how to believe in angels.  No, the angels left to me are from the pages of books, angels of judgement and disdain.  I miss my childhood angels.    -Ruby