The Interview Anecdote

Don’t let your cheek twitch. Yes, yes, I know it wants to, but don’t let it.

This is exciting! You might be setting foot on the campus of your future for the first time! In fact, the campus doesn’t look all that pretty… and the guys here look kind of weird, not handsome like you imagined… but that’s okay, this is still cool. This is still exciting!

Room 112, that’s where the magic will happen. If only we could find it. Around and around and around… I swear I’ve been down this corridor. Front desk, we meet again. Didn’t you hear? They changed the rooms. 112 doesn’t exist, it’s a typo.

Down the hall, hall down the, the hall down. Here we are!

Why thank you, I am welcome.

Is it just me or is this chair built weirdly? How do I exude leisure and confidence while in a chair that awkwardly leans backwards? I don’t know.

Maybe I should have realized that I would need to speak, need to tell them why I’m interested in joining this lovely and competitive school, but I didn’t. At least someone spoke before me.

The man was nice and he seemed to like my answer. Good job! You’re doing so well!

I will let you tell me a little bit about the course.

It’s fancy, yes, that’s why I’m here.

It’s revered, yes, that’s why I’m here.

It’s creative, interesting, professional, yes, yes, yes, that’s why I’m here.

It’s night courses.

Don’t let your cheek twitch. Don’t let the nice man see your face fall. Don’t let yourself acknowledge the disappointment coursing through your insufficient veins. Don’t let this inefficacy affect you. Don’t let your body’s inefficiency be a character in this conversation.

Don’t let your cheek twitch. And whatever you do, goddamit, don’t you dare cry. Tears are beneath your pain right now.

What? Oh, no, I don’t have any questions. Actually, just one: do you offer any daytime courses?

Oh.

Have you heard of any places that do?

Oh.

No, thank you, it was great meeting you.

You wish me health.

I wish me health too.

Cause wouldn’t health just be a great thing? Wouldn’t it just solve this all right here, right now? Wouldn’t it save me this pain, quite literally? Wouldn’t it spare me this turmoil of watching my independence quiver into a mere dream, of watching everything that excites me be cut down and vaporized, barred from me because I just can’t freaking do it?

It would. But it won’t. Because health is nothing but a rumor around here. My body believes it to be a fantasy, in fact. You should never hope to chase a fantasy, it tells me. Because this body of mine, it hates me. I’m looking down on it now, in fact, using it to type these words, but it’s using me, too. Using me to make me miserable. What it gains? I’m not sure.

I won’t be going there next year. I won’t be going anywhere. I will remain exactly where I am, writing about being sick and totally sick of it, treading water, paddling backwards and discovering that all my hopes are in the muddy puddle I keep treading in over, and over, and over.

Game over. Wave your dreams goodbye as they pass you in the car you could drive if you had anywhere to go.

The people around say: “It’s okay, there will be other courses. Something with daytime hours, something you can do.” The people in me say: “Believe them. Please, please, believe them! If you don’t, what will we do?”

I say: “Give me a chance to live my life for once. Give me my choices back. Give me freedom. Give me an interview I can be happy about.”

But whatever you do, in this life, don’t let your cheek twitch.

Ella.

Song Quote:

I have tried but I don’t fit into this box I’m living with. –The Box, Damien Rice

Advertisement

Teardrops on the Stairs

I left a path of teardrops on the stairs today. I think I’m going crazy. I walked in a circle, sat in a circle, turned in a circle.

I cried today. I cried because I needed to scream. In the rare few hours with the house to myself I wandered around and trailed tears behind me. I cried on the floor. I cried on a chair. Tears and tears and tears and tears.

Today I let myself feel the self-pity and fall apart. I let myself cry and cry and cry.

My body is rocking. Rocking back and forth as my brain tries to cope with the pain it’s sending, so distraught over causing its own demise. I blame you, brain.

I cried because I’m angry. I’ve lost so much in my life because of this and I feel my future slipping through my fingers. The decisions, the important and meaningful decisions, are being made not by me but by my illness, whose existence I’ve been bearing upon myself, by myself, for the last four years.

I wish I could end this on some uplifting note of how I carry myself gracefully and nobly through the pain, but I cannot. Today I bowed beneath the pain, I broke. The task is to build myself up again, but I can’t locate the part in me that knows how to do that. Maybe it broke.

Today I left a trail of tears on the stairs, and I can’t find a tissue to clean it up. I fear someone else will slip as I have.

Ella.

Song Quote:

You’ve been crying out for forever, but forever’s come and gone. -When You Break, Bear’s Den

The Anecdotes – An Introduction

“The Anecdotes” is a series of fairly mundane life occurrences documented by Ella. They are a result of a busy schedule that has led to an upsetting lull in posting. Ella hopes The Anecdotes will amuse you as they amuse her and that you will join her in recognizing the reality of every situation she is in. She will now stop talking in third person because she’s pretty sure she’s insane.

The Anecdotes will be posted sporadically and irresponsibly, but that is their beauty. Like life, they are unexpected and occasionally charming. Though a break from the regular writing style on here, they are nonetheless as sufficient and as satisfying as the usual. And way more causal.

Share the love.

Ella

(Do not fret and do not frown, both regular posts and Anecdotal posts will contain the trademark song quotes. I would never let you down like that.)

Song Quote:

We like you, this is a game already won, the time has come, stop trying. -Stop Trying, Sia

 

Are you excited to read Anecdotes?! Let me know in the comments below!

My True Identity

 

Where I call home.

 

The time has come for me to tell you all the truth. You deserve to know who I really am. My name is Isabella Petracca.

I haven’t been fully honest. I’ve kept something huge from you: I had a brother. It’s awful; I automatically say “had” when it’s really “have”. He’s not dead or anything. It’s just that my family doesn’t talk about him anymore. Not since…

Not since he was convicted for meddling in drugs. This was a couple years ago now, when he was in his early twenties and living away from home. I’ve always looked up to him, he was my role model ever since I was a baby. He was my big brother, and I thought he walked on the stars and the moon was his personal spotlight. When he was picked up by the police my family cut off all contact with him, and I was too scared to try and contact him on my own and go against my family. Now we just ignore his existence. I’ve been ashamed of what he did, and I’ve spent all this time feeling guilty, as though I played a part in his downfall. I know it’s preposterous, but that’s how I felt.

There’s a reason I’m telling you about this now. Because I don’t feel like that anymore. I was visiting family in the States (I live in Greece, in my dad’s hometown, and my mom is American) and I went with my grandparents to distribute food for the needy. My main worry was that I would get tired in the middle, and have a horrible headache and suffer because of the noise of the city. But then, I was handing sandwiches to homeless people, and they were joking and laughing and making everyone around us crack up. I realized something: if these homeless people are not ashamed of their lives and they are not embarrassed to tell people the truth about what they have gone through, there is absolutely no reason I should be ashamed of something my brother has done.

I can tell the world about my brother now, and walk with my head held high and the truth ringing in all of our ears. I have a brother. Maybe he doesn’t walk on the stars or have a close-knit relationship with the moon, but that doesn’t mean he’s not my family. The time has come for a change.

Thank you for listening to the naked truth of my life.

Yours truly,

Ella (short for Isabella)

 

Song quote:

All of your flaws and all my flaws, they may have been exhumed, you’ll see that we need them to be who we are, without them we’d be doomed. –Flaws, Bastille

P.s. Now click on this:

The Truth

 

(Yay for 40th post!)

 

IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

20.4.14: Hi everyone, I just wanted to make sure that it’s perfectly clear that this post was an April Fools Day joke! I am not Greek, I do not live in Greece, my name is not Isabella Petracca, I have never had a brother, I didn’t go with my grandparents to feed homeless people (though that’s a nice thing to do)… It’s all made up! I came up with it with a bunch of friends as a joke, but I figured that as it’s been so long since April Fools that it wouldn’t occur to anyone that it’s a prank. It is!

Well, have a nice day!

Apparently, I am simple.

What I felt like doing the second I got out of his office…

I went back to the homeopath, the one that “I’m Not That Simple”  is about. Joyful, right? Well.

First thing he says to me is “Ella. You look better.” I got this feeling inside that I was about to have the most wonderful experience of my entire life. Really. I’m being serious.

No I’m not. First, he did the same thing that annoyed me last time (which I could say about a hundred things, so I’ll be specific). He read out every symptom I have, and asked me if I still have each one.

Me: We can just skip this, I feel exactly the same.

Dr: Exactly the same?

Me: Yes.

Dr: But you look better.

Me: I tanned.

Dr: You have more color in your face.

Me: Because I tanned.

Dr: So you still have the head aches?

Me: Yes.

Dr: And they still start in the morning?

Off we go again, repeating it all. I’m really not going to rant about this too much, I did that last time. The one major thing that bothered me (again) was that he was still trying to peg my Fibromyalgia on one specific event.

Dr: Ella, what do you think happened that gave you Fibromyalgia?

Me: I don’t know.

Dr: (pulls a snotty face) you can give a better answer than that, Ella. (Annoying usage of my name.)

Me: I don’t know. It happened. Life happens.

Dr: What do you mean by that?

Me: What do you mean what do I mean? Stuff happens, in life. Fibromyalgia happened.

Dr: So there wasn’t anything specific?

Me: No. We went over this last time.

Dr: Well Ella, I can’t remember everything.

Clearly. I was starting to get very upset at this point, because I know they have to ask, and often Fibro is caused by accidents or traumatic incidents, but we had already been over it. We had already told him it wasn’t like that, and that it wasn’t a psychological trigger. It literally just happened. I started getting this pain, then a year later, that pain, a few months later, another, and within another few months I was a wreck, and we were scrambling for appointments at the children’s hospital to get me diagnosed. It happened. It’s happening.

Do you want to hear the best part?

Dr: Oh, now Ella’s angry. She’s got that fire in her eyes. You definitely seem better than last time.

Me: Yeah, last time I was kind of having a bad day (slightly sarcastic, you can imagine).

Dr: A very bad day.

Me: Yeah. Thanks.

That’s it, I’m done now. It sucked. He put me on a new “remedy” (didn’t explain this one either), and just to make it more fun, I have to take it twice a day rather the one, like last time. I eat like a bird, people. I need food, every 20 minutes. With this remedy, I have to not eat anything for half an hour, take it, then wait another half hour before eating. The problem is, I forget to take it until I get hungry, and then I think, shit. The medicine. So I take it, but that extra half hour is torture because I’m already really hungry.

But, it seems I will just have to deal.

I get major points for not losing my temper.

Your truly,

Ella

Song Quote:

A white blank page and a swelling rage… So tell me now, where was my fault? -White Blank Page, Mumford and Sons

P.s. What do you guys think about me adding a page (next to Home and About) about Fibromyalgia? The technicalities, I mean, what it is (to the best of my ability), what my personal experience is, sources for more info? Let me know.

 

Update (07.24.13): I’m off an vacation in a few days, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to post again or when I can sit down and work on the info page (I probably won’t have access to wifi for a while). Sit tight, I will return with a lot to tell, and the info page will make its way here. Thank you all again!