Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out

by Pandora Poikilos

  It is for people, who regardless of time, effort, money and off-days left in their work calendar have driven me or sat with me time after time in a hospital telling me everything will turn out fine instead of insinuating that I have been such a nuisance to them. Be it holding my hand, spoon feeding me or putting my clothes on, to do it this many times knowing I would probably never have the chance to do the same for them is an amazing feat, to say the least.

  It is for the person who has opened her home and her heart to me, despite her own significant losses and reminded me that you need something to hold on to, even if your faith is the size of a mustard seed. And in the moments for when I lose focus, this is the same person who reminds me to read, Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”.

  It is for the person, who despite knowing my many cracks, flaws and broken pieces can still tell me that I am loved for who I am and that together we are just like Peas and Carrots. Also, just as our fingers, when clasped together leave no space, that is how close we will be always.

  Mostly, it is for the people who have believed in me even when I have stopped believing in myself, telling me to pick up a pen and write and never forget to keep doing it. It is for the person who irrelevant of country, time zone or phone charge has always found a way to keep in touch, even if it is for just two minutes. Because, really, that is all the time you need to say “I love you” or even “I am thinking of you”. And so, here are the many reasons why I love the people who I love.

  I Love You Because ...

  -You never pushed me down when I was already down

  -You make me laugh

  -You listen to me

  -You have never tried to change me

  -You are the first person I think of in the morning

  -You understand me

  -You accept me just as I am

  -You are the last voice I hear before I sleep

  -You may not agree with what I write, but you still read it anyway

  -You taught me how to remember the names of the seven dwarfs ... Dopey, Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful & Doc.

  -You end all your text messages with I Love You

  -You have never complained when I said “I needed to talk” even if it’s been at 3:00 a.m.

  -You were honest enough to say you hate my make-up

  -You have always been there to pick me up at the airport

  -You have sat beside my hospital bed and not had a wink of sleep

  -You taught me to love craft and to keep doing it

  -You gave me my passion for books

  -You have eaten my cake, even when it came out all cracked

  -You are the person I can call when I’m in pain

  -You do not say I told you so, even when you have told me and I have screwed up

  -You always come stay, to be near, even if you cannot solve the problem

  -You have never once said I woke you up (which I probably did) when I woke up with nightmares and needed to calm down

  -I can tell you anything and I know you will not look at me differently

  -You have never said I do not have time for you

  -You respect my personal space

  -I can trust you

  -You do not jump to conclusions

  -You do not choose bits of me that you like, you take it all

  -You are you. There is no one else who can fit those shoes

  -You make me feel safe

  -I can close my eyes, knowing you will be around when I wake up

  -You know about the best gift box in the world

  -You love me in ways I am not sure I deserve

  -You are my eyes when my spelling’s gone to the dogs

  -Sometimes, we really need to change the subject and sometimes we don’t and we’re still figuring out together, which is which

  -You just called me pedantic and it made me laugh

  Dad, I can keep going on but I will keep updating it and send you a whole fresh list of things I love about the people who love me. I know I had you smiling at some points if not all. I have to go to sleep now, Dad. Good night and I love you very much.

  THE ASSUMING JOURNALIST

  Hey Dad. Did you know that it is really easy to become a journalist these days? Forget the degree, forget all that money you need to spend and even forget all those boring lectures on ethics that you need to hear. Apparently, now, all you have to do is send a picture of anything, it can even be your puppy sleeping with her little paws in the air, slap it with a quirky remark and voila, you are a journalist. Oh yes, that is the latest new buzz going around, ‘citizen journalism’. It is where an individual who is in no way qualified to be a journalist is able to ‘report’ on an incident or event, irrelevant of the authenticity of information. Some people also refer to this new reporting method as freedom of speech. Before I start sounding all dictatorial and needing to check for stones breaking my window panes, what actually sets apart a journalist from a writer? Any fool can write, we start learning it at the age of three and some of us actually end up making a living doing it.

  But the role of a journalist is to inform, objectively, not to offer someone else’s decision on a platter. No, wait. Let me rephrase that. It is supposed to be objective. It is supposedly not ruled by emotion. But over the years, that mindset has dramatically changed. Most people take it upon themselves to express any injustice that crosses their paths or what they think has crossed someone else’s path. That is fine. But when that expression is solely led by emotions, minus any shape or form of objectivity, now that is slander strolling in the door and journalism out the window. Some major news stations make this a habit and from a business perspective, it makes complete sense. Emotions sell better. There is far more money to be made through random unverified stories and juicy rumours than reporting actual ‘news’. Some days, watching news can be likened to watching an episode of Gossip Girls.

  Somehow, I would like to think that whatever is said and done, journalism will always carry with it a sense of objectivity. I keep telling myself that the low levels some people have reduced journalism to is merely a passing cloud as the world adjusts itself between traditional print media and the ever-changing demands of social media. It is good that people are able to voice out their sentiments. But in this constant buzz of freedom of speech, where does objectivity fit in? Do we allow other people to think we are that stupid and are incapable of being made aware of both sides of the story before we make our own decisions? Are we that arrogant in thinking journalism carries no purpose? It is now reduced to merely a collection of thoughts one person has shared with another and then publicly shared, irrelevant of the original purpose. I think this is where an act of citizen journalism fails, falling flat on its face.

  Very few citizen journalists are able to offer emotion free news filled with objectivity. They insist on sharing their opinions and then will not sit easy until their words have demanded followers and have grasped the most dramatic action. For instance, a citizen journalist makes a report that a much older man picks up a five year old child, takes him out for ice cream and then takes him home. This goes on for about three days. The man is new in town. The house is barely furnished. This man is not the boy’s father. The boy’s parents are nowhere to be seen. And so, the reports come flowing in, citizen journalism at its best. So-called investigations are carried out. A lot of digging here, a little bit of poking there and a full profile on the man who is unemployed is gathered. He must be raping the boy, committing a sordid crime and he must be stopped, punished at all costs. Great. Except that the man is the boy’s uncle.

  The parents are moving in a little later. Their work schedule got messed up and they needed to send the boy to school so he would not be left behind. They sent uncle and son ahead of them so they could finalize their work and the rest of the move. His uncle was recently retrenched from the firm he had been working in for five years. Tragi
c isn’t it? The facts can differ so greatly from what citizen journalism is so carelessly able to draw out. Who cares enough about the boy’s uncle to offer a retraction to what has been said? No one. He has to put up with all the dirty looks but no one cares? He should have worn a sign around his neck explaining the real situation. People seem to embrace this new way of reporting. It is much easier and so much less work than going through the processes of making your own decisions. If someone “reports it”, then so be it. Why think on your own? We are silly sheep who are just not capable of our own thoughts. Ironically, I think, that is probably what Adolf Hitler was counting on as he went around changing the world with his ideas.

  I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM

  We have accustomed ourselves into believing the notion that if someone has a problem with addiction, they are no longer worthy and will not amount to anything in life. Moving forward, they will become juicy bits of gossip that must be shared around the local pub and beyond, because of their failure. I think this is one of the biggest lies we are either brought up to accept or are socially conditioned to believe. This is just me and I could be wrong, minus all those fancy diplomas, I am but a mere writer, trying to make ends meet, but I think people with addictive tendencies do not need judgement and they certainly do not need to be the gossip topic of the day. What they do need is help and a lot of it. Each of us handles what life brings in a different way. However much plans are made for how life should turn out, it will end up being the least of what is expected. Hmmm, I should know, right Dad?

  Ask any addict to take you back to the point when their occasional habit evolved to substance abuse and they will tell you, it was after some tragic incident they just could not overcome. A significant loss they experienced, the sensation of losing control of their own life, a mistake that was never meant to be made and was never forgiven ... there are many instances that can make a person snap. Initially, the addiction was something they needed, to numb them from jaded reality. They had this little world of their own to slip into, where everything was the way they wanted. And then over time, it no longer mattered what people said. If they said you were useless, then you were. Why prove them any different? Better to go with the current than to fight it, isn’t it? Just accept whatever was being said about you and move on. Why bother with the effort to change when no one was going to notice anyway?

  We take a lot of pride in telling ourselves that we are approachable people, family or friends are able to tell us anything. When they do, we jump to conclusions, insisting on our need to point fingers, after all someone else must take the blame for what has been said, it just cannot be us and our benevolent pride. And so, from this incident of trying to share the problem and having it spat back in the face, the addict learns what will become ultimately their most coveted tag line, “I do not have a problem”. Saying anything to the contrary means they stand a stronger chance of being the social outcast that they already were, before they tried to share their problem. I am not siding with addiction, Dad. I know you get what I am trying to say. I know that addiction hurts a lot of people, not just the addict, and often spirals some individuals towards a much preventable death.

  Yes, addiction is a very bad thing but then again so is judgement. We judge and we judge and we judge, as if we had some authority and the final say of who goes to heaven or hell. You assume that a person has become an alcoholic overnight or that they get hooked on cocaine in a matter of a one week. Wrong. On many different occasions, addiction happens over years. Something we missed. Something we chose to ignore. An incident we would much rather sweep under the carpet than talk about. Time we could have spent but convinced ourselves there was always another day.

  Another thing we are very good at is concocting theories about the should-have-beens and the way people are supposed to be treated. When someone approaches us and says, “I have a problem”, we take pride in using our authority to make them feel as small as a dot of pollen, almost invisible to the world.

  We give them example after example of people who have succeeded, telling them nobody understands how these other people can succeed while they, are still such failures. We tell them we have lost hope in their capabilities. We tell them change is in order and this change must come from them and only them, no one else can make the change for them. Yes, it is the addict’s duty to take responsibility for their actions. They cannot protect their weaknesses under a shield of blame for someone else’s torrid sense of helping someone in need. But keep pushing the addict down and down they will go. Because of our pride and our lack of compassion we do not see the privilege we have been given by this person, having the courage to voice out their situation to us, nor do we look at how they can be helped. And so years and years later, sitting down and pondering how it came to bottles and bottles of vodka, there just isn’t any use. If anything, your time has come and it has gone.

  CAN YOU CARRY ME?

  September 20, 2010

  Hey Dad. It has been more than one hundred days since I have had my surgery. For all the moments I tell myself “seize the day” and “life is normal”, I am given a few more small reminders that say, “Easy now, it is not so normal and not so much seizing.” Bruce and I have become accustomed to calling my not-so-crowning glory, Stubbly, and are now used to the days when Stubbly rules all. For instance, some days when getting out of bed is the biggest chore, or when I feel so rotten that I need to keep telling myself all this is just a passing cloud, that I will be laughing at this ten years from now, Bruce is there.

  If you are up to it, you are up to it. This is probably the best advice ever given, by my neurosurgeon. Well, for someone operating on my brain, it is good to know he has a wise line or two to impart. Before the surgery, I had a long list of “when can I do this” and “when will it be okay to do that”, ranging from getting back to my computer, reading, exercising, laundry and so on. With continual stress being put on not carrying heavy things and being careful of not stretching my right arm, as that is where the shunt tube runs down, he said for everything else, “if you are up to it, you are up to it. You are the only one who knows”. That is so true. I think some days people who know me must think I am utterly mad or just plain lazy to be lying down as much I do, but try having a head wound that is healing, gives you a vibrating feeling when cold and offers you so much pain you cannot bear to stand. So yes, now my rule is very simple. I start out my day with a set of things I want and need to do. But I also tell myself, if Stubbly gets in the way and I cannot finish this list, the world will not end because of me.

  The world really will not end because of me. A very close friend told me once, “Do not give yourself so much credit. You are not that famous and you are not that well known”. Of course this was when my frienemies were taking absolute pleasure in circulating wicked untrue rumours about me and he came to the rescue of my very bruised heart and ego. But it is true. Abraham Lincoln died and the world moved on. Gandhi died and the world moved on. Princess Diana died and the world moved on. We all unquestionably do some great things and still we all make grave mistakes. We are not perfect. I am no exception to this rule. Yes, maybe and hopefully, I will one day become a well-known writer or be on some fantastic best-seller list, a girl can wish, can’t she, Dad? But I can only do what I can, the best I can before I too must move on. And yes, the world will also move on. Life is like that.

  It just needs to be accepted. Like everyone else, I also had materialistic dreams, a well-known, well-traversed journalist or a high flying entrepreneur who would have her own children, live a comfortable lifestyle and have enough for luxuries to look the part. Instead, my head is a cue ball, I have a carefully planned expenditure formula that the slightest overspending might trigger a tsunami effect and I have a tube running from my brain to my stomach. But I have the ability to make my thoughts known through my writing, I have the opportunity to source out more writing jobs and more importantly, I have love. People who understand me, people who don’t push me in the ways they wa
nt to go. People who accept and rarely expect. Do I have everything I want? Not at all. Do I have everything I need? Without a doubt. I know things will not be easy. There will be more days when I am not sure what is happening with my body. Having my own child will also mean more monitoring by my neuro than my gynecologist. But if I do not accept these unique differences in my life and make the best out of them, what else is there to do?

  People will say what they want to say. I read this line somewhere, “Funny thing about people, they will believe that God is dead and Elvis is alive”. Yes, somehow and I know I am no professional but some people get their wires crossed. They will believe something so silly for the sake of satisfying their comfort zones than to open their minds just a wee bit more and question what has just been said. When I was first diagnosed with PTC and the word got out (as it always conveniently will) people used to ask me “when are you going to die”. These days when people I meet still ask me this very question, my answer stays the same, “we are all going to die”. It is like writing a sentence - the language, the alphabet, length and meaning might be different but it will have to end in a full stop at some point. People will have a million ways of looking at things, when they have not gone through it. You cannot please everyone. Really. Love the ones who love you, move on with everyone else.