This photo sums up my life RIGHT now. I have so much time on my hands, I don't know what to do with it. This waiting around for something to happen is so frustrating, because usually things would happen to me and I had to pick and choose what I would spend my time on. Now it is spilling out my ears and I barely can swim through it to do something productive.
Last summer I had a similar experience, except worse. I went home for the summer to live with my parents, and I loved that. I also had secured an excellently paying summer job. Things were going to be great.
For the entire month of May, I pretty much wasted my time away. I spend every evening home from work doing silly things on the computer (like watching 5 seasons of a favorite cartoon show from my childhood. I know.) instead of spending time with my parents and grandfather, or being outside, or reading, writing, organizing, cleaning, serving, shopping, anything. I really did nothing worthwhile for all the month of May. But I wasn't going to back to Provo until the 15th of August, so I had some time to shape up, right?
The first week of June I had a weird tickle in my throat. That tickle turned into a 3-month, mysterious, hacking-to-the-point-of-vomiting cough with absolutely no symptoms. There was one moment in the month of June or July, I can't remember, where I really was quite sick and I slept in the room down the hall from my parents (my bedroom is in the basement) so my mom could come to my aid as I needed it. And I needed it.
I went to the doctor to get some blood tests and x-rays to see what was wrong with me. That was actually pretty cool, mostly because since I was still 19 I could go to the new Children's Hospital. But there was nothing that showed up anywhere wrong. I did learn I have kyphosis, a weakness in between two vertebrae in my upper back/neck that will lead to a humpback when I'm old if I don't do therapy now. So I'm working on that.
I had no plausible reason for being so ill. And I felt completely fine, when I wasn't coughing. But I had to be careful not to induce any of that coughing, and I couldn't sleep because I was always coughing.
My summer, MY summer drifted away while I was sleeping in a bed or being late to work because I was ill. All the friends, fun, bonfires, games, time I could have spent doing something memorable or productive fell to spending time getting better. And man did I regret the month of May.
Don't let time slip through your hands at any moment, because you really can never get it back. It is such a classic, timeless lesson (irony? yes.) but it is so true. I wish I had that month of May back. But all I'll get is the lesson I learned.
This is probably why I have a general aversion to watching TV or movies on a regular basis. I feel more relaxed when I am with friends, family, or reading a book; TV and movies are hardly at the quality to be inspirational or uplifting, so I prefer to have them use my precious time as little as possible. I am a weakling for all things internet, so that is this summer's focus. Less time online = more time greatly spent.
And speaking of time, I've got so little left to get ready for the day. ciao.
Word of the Day: iatrogenic \ahy-a-truh-JEN-ik\, adjective; A malady induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures.
(just in case you are wondering, I always get the word of the day after I finish my post, so the fact that the words always coincide with some aspect of my post is starting to creep me out.)
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