I miss my Gundams.

It’s… been a rough, eventful couple of weeks.

Qualicum was bittersweet, in the best possible way, I would suppose. The second the car stopped, we ran into the person I wanted to see the least of anyone in the world. Apparently he was coming up because it was his girlfriend’s birthday. I was just annoyed with the timing.

Otherwise it was wonderful. It was interesting to see how different some of my friends looked, and it was incredibly refreshing to have the nerdy debates again… It was wonderful. We didn’t talk about anything incredibly vast, just the same nonsense we usually do. Video games, anime, whether Goku could defeat Cloud in a fight or not. We told story after story about the days of high school, and all the shit we got into.

And it makes me miss it.

I don’t do enough immature, risky things down here. I generally don’t get into trouble with citizens like I used to, and when I do, it isn’t fun. I miss adventuring. Not incredible expeditions of a Legend of Zelda feel, but random acts. Getting a call at 11 in the morning saying “We’re running around Nanaimo, come catch the bus.” If we didn’t make it, no big deal. If we did, we went around and did dumb things. You’d be surprised how much enjoyment you get from a two dollar water gun, or a couple logs and a junkyard.

My leg was bad then, and it got worse when I went up. I bought a cane, and it’s actually rather classy. I stopped using it today, because I finally healed enough not to need to limp (though I am a little still), but it was necessary for the time being. My body, however, isn’t holding its own, and I think that means I need to make some serious lifestyle changes.

I saw the shrink today about that too. We analyzed the stress I’m receiving from my illness and interactions. I never felt that people understood, but at least they tried. It’s when people don’t bother to attempt to understand what’s happening to me that I become stressed out. I get caught between thinking if I wanted to, I could do it, and knowing that it would only worsen my condition. In that regard, I never know my limits.

When I talked to her about this, she asked about my career history. She asked why I’m seeking so much grunt work. I didn’t really have an answer. I like to keep moving; keep busy, but that’s hardly an excuse, I think. I think this means that Nursing is out of the question. I need to prepare myself for a career that can still be maintained even if my body goes under. Something that requires more mind, less movement.

The situation at work for me has grown tense, and my anxiety’s been hard to cope with. They put me back on cyclosporine at my own request to avoid prednisone again, but cyclosporine and the welbutrin don’t mix. I dropped the welbutrin quickly. I wasn’t supposed to. I went into work with full signs of withdrawal, and am still combating it to some degree, though significantly less. I couldn’t cool down, and I was panicked. I still can’t think straight. It’s been a trying period.

Going back on the cyclosporine also puts my kidneys back at risks. I’ve been getting blood work and other tests all week long to monitor the creatinine in my kidneys so that they don’t shutdown. If they do, I’ll need immediate dialysis. If this happens and I’m lucky, my kidneys will reboot. If I’m not, they’ll be permanently shutdown. If I don’t take the cyclosporine though, I either attempt prednisone and bloat up and lose all control of rationality and proper thinking, or I go without and let my body destroy itself all over. My leg may be on the mend, but the damage has been done.

So I’ve not been thinking right. I don’t know what I should blame, or if I should place the blame on anything. Was it the withdrawal? The lack of proper sleep? Was it not having medication to control my anxiety? Was I just thoughtless? Regardless, I got in a lot of trouble at work, and it has been bothering me. I’ve been bumped down to one shift a week, which, though that carries immense positive results, it still irks me. If this is my only source of income, then it won’t be enough to sustain me lest it change. But after this, my thoughts of wanting to quit has come back. I mean, it’s a dollar store, and I was enjoying the job because of the people and the environment. If the people and the environment are starting to feel venomous, what benefit of is it to me to stick around if there are other ventures to exploit?

The benefits to working one day a week are phenomenal though, and I do need to focus on this to avoid negative thinking. I actually felt kind of good about it. 6 days off sounds very nice. I feel like my hand has been forced as well, which I needed. I haven’t been writing, but when my Grandparents came to pick me up, I started again. Now if I’m finding physical work to be too much, it’s become inspiration to seek new career paths that I can continue should my body cease to work. It feels like I’ve been pushed to get to work, and to get published.

My sister and I also played around with the idea of an eBay business a while ago. I was doing it playfully. Yesterday when I found my schedule, I felt like that became a seductive choice as well. In fact, it may be the best short-term income I can do. Problem is finding a product though. I want to be more original than following my friend’s lead in selling shark jaws, but I’m also trapped for ideas. My therapist promoted this idea immensely saying ‘the easiest way to make money is to think outside the box’. She said if my body can’t compete with others, then I can exceed them in creativity. Now it’s just a matter of finding a readily available resource to make money on. Quite intriguing really.

Yesterday I felt guilty that I was disappointing people. After I talked to the therapist, I stopped caring. In fact, I feel selfish about it because I feel fuckin’ great that I don’t have to worry about it right now. I don’t think I can be more apathetic to the job, but after feeling like it was my morally indignant responsibility to improve the store, it’s highly welcomed. Maybe I just need new meds.

The last few days though, they’ve been wonderful in retrospect. I bought the DLC’s for Fallout 3 and started a new file. Bloody hell it’s fun, but the DLCs didn’t work immediately, so I made some poor talent choices. I’m not sure if it’s worth making ANOTHER new character for or not, considering I’ve invested another 40 hours into this one, but it’s been a blast, and I’ve only touched Operation: Anchorage, which, I must say, I was a little disappointed in. I’m all for Arctic combat, but I don’t play Fallout for the combat or the gore. I play it for the environment. If you’re not worrying about some Super Mutant with a fire hydrant trying to swat you, or trying not to make your piss glow from hanging around nuclear waste, it kind of winds up becoming another half-assed shooter, which, Bethesda doesn’t exactly have fluid-friendly controls for. However, at the risk of sounding like an obsessive gamer, the Gauss rifle and Chinese Stealth Armour has convinced me that the DLC was worth it. Every time that I crouch, I go invisible, and every time I fire the rifle, I get the satisfying little “ping” as it rips someone’s skull off and sends the body five yards flying. Magnificent. Worth every penny.

I guess this forced vacation’s kind of cool after all.