Let’s lighten things up a bit and discuss some of the funnier unfortunate occurrences, I’ll try to keep this a brief chapter.
I was fortunate in finding out the cause for the weight gain relatively quickly and the additional eleven pounds dropped soon after being taken off it.
I’m always looking at that bright side, I tell ya! No, seriously, I do… and much to my friends’ detriment. I tell them they’re being the stormy before version of a Jimmy Dean breakfast. They just need to eat one, and then they’ll be the sunny after version… right as literal rain!
My aunt is a registered nurse and closely follows all my medical records via an online portal. She likes to say I’m the reason manufacturers have to put labels warning of side effects on products.
Which, I mean — is fair. Not only do I experience the common side effects, but I also experience the rarest of the rare ones, in addition to experiencing this wonderful phenomenon called the Paradoxical Effect.
If you know — you only unfortunately know.
I once had a reaction that only happened to point zero one to one percent of people who take that medicine have that type of reaction. I had an in-office procedure done three separate times because that treatment, specifically, works for all but five percent of those who get it, mine came back all three times. I finally had to undergo a more invasive procedure to fix the problem.
To put it simply –I am not ambidextrous in any capacity, and I am extremely right-handed when it comes to handwriting. However, I do everything else with the left side of my body. In cheer, I started all my tumbling out with my left foot and could not do it with my right. When I attempted to learn guitar, I initially tried holding it left-handed, etcetera. It’s something called cross-dominance. Just something else that applies to my uniqueness.
Do you want to hear some unfortunate things that would only happen to me? There was a time I was outside for the Fourth of July, not wearing any glasses. I don’t know if y’all know this or not, but June Bugs… their legs are sticky for some reason. I honestly don’t care why the legs are sticky, all I know is having one fly into your eye and latch on to the skin protecting your eye socket as a whole — is not ideal. I’d rather spend the night with the sound of cicadas and crickets than be within an inch of just one June Bug.
Sorry, June Bugs. Nothing personal. It kinda is, though.
Neither is trapping a huge moth in your bathroom so you can let it go outside — no sooner than you release it, a bird swooped down from a nearby tree and gulped it up.
Not exactly what I meant when I wanted it to fly free.
I remember walking into my high school one day before school — something felt different.
The atmosphere inside the entrance of the building, however, felt off.
I don’t know what it was, I couldn’t place the feeling… just that something didn’t feel right.
Does anyone else get like that?
Everything seemed perfectly in place… normal, so to speak. At my school, students had to have direct permission from a staff member, or they were not allowed to roam the halls. I bypassed the cafeteria and snuck into the hall to get something from my locker — to this day, I cannot remember what on earth I needed so badly to break a rule. I was always a strict rule follower.
As I approached my locker, it felt more… out of reach… than usual. I could still access it, though, so I went to input the combination.
Didn’t work.
So, I tried again.
Still didn’t work.
At this point, I was stressed not because I couldn’t get my lock to open, but because now I have to go to the administrative office to get the code they keep copies of.
I will admit, at times I felt I would get a free pass because the majority of school employees knew my mom. But honestly, I noticed when you don’t cause trouble for people — you catch more flies with honey. You can catch more flies with bullshit than anything, but that’s beside the point.
I was a good kid growing up. Even if I wasn’t afraid of what would happen when my dad got home, I was still a good kid.
What I’m trying to say is — I got a simple, metaphorical slap on the wrist and they sent me back to my locker to try the code again.
By this time, the bell had rung, and my fellow students began flooding the halls trying to get what they needed as fast as possible so they could have time to get a quick chat in with their friends in the hallway or finish their makeup that they were just scrambling to complete.
I was also scrambling to make it to class on time. That was another common theme that occurred on the regular in these dreams.
It kind of poetically figures. I’ve always been drawn to vintage or skeleton-like keys. I can pinpoint exactly when and where my love for them began. I grew up when video stores were still big… a VHS tape I rented every time we’d go to the video store, one I previously mentioned, was Return to Oz. I watched that relentlessly growing up, and there was always one scene I remember vividly, was the scene of… um… a boutique of heads. I’ll leave it at that. But yes, after being obsessed with this scene of a favorite movie growing up, I’ve always loved keys like that. So, of course, it figures I’d have chronic dreams that coincide with that.
