Home, or is it?

This is the second time I came home from a bike ride across the United States. This time is much better actually. I have a home, a dog, a car, a resume. Last time, my brother and I had to rent a car since the car he gifted me, broke down in the middle of the desert. I’d say i’m in an actual great place.

I was laid off by my employer, I ended a long relationship and decided to be a single person. Beginning a search to find out who I am. I am 34 and almost 2 years with a different heart. I’ve spent the last couple of years, listening and following the prognosis to a T. This is the third time, I’ve built myself back to “normal”. This one is actually the most normal I’ve ever felt as an adult.

As a healthy adult, I need to be able to make the best decisions, in the best interest and perspective as ME. Not seeking or receiving input whatsoever from anyone other than who I chose to ask. I’ve worked really hard to return home, or normal.

I am not really normal. Not many people would be excited to be unemployed and recently going full time into creating the career and life, I have been fighting and working for my entire life, to call mine.

Abnormal Recap

You’ve already have had your fair share of “Final 2018” posts. This will not be like the others. I will not be using any of the “best of 2018” apps or posts. Mainly because most of those posts are photos of me post LVAD or in the hospital waiting for my heart transplant. The highlights through my eyes or through my lens has been the incredible path of photography. I picked up my first “serious camera”, spent a good amount of taking shitty photos, editing and finally in a place of confidence. Here’s the photos I feel are my best of 2018:

Fully Lonely

It has been a LONG time since I have felt alone. I think it was when I first moved to Long Island, I was about 13 years old. I didn't know anyone. Whenever I wasn't hanging out with my younger brother, I was in my room writing. I think it could've been considered a "phase", I was going through.

A common phrase I have used and witnessed, is "You just don't understand!". I feel I've said it when I feel I was trying to communicate to either my family, friends, ex-girlfriends, ex-friends, etc, and they just weren't seeing my point of view. It was also my attempt to make myself the center of attention, doing what I could for people to either feel bad for me, or to come up or down to my level and try to "understand", for whatever I was trying to communicate.

I have spent much time over the years in my thoughts. For one, trying to process and understand why I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of eighteen years old. As well as experiencing the brutal side effects of chemotherapy, bone marrow biopsies, spinal taps, constant uncertainty and constant pain.

I feel I've become much more mature and much better with communication. Whether it was in the form of writing it down or speaking it out. In July, when I experienced the heart attack and the eventual open heart surgery to implant the LVAD, I didn't complain. I understood when they told me, the heart attack was caused by the two and half years of chemotherapy. It was a matter of when not if. 

So when they told me about having to become listed for a heart transplant, I understood. This was all a part of the plan.

Now that I am over three months since my heart transplant,  I barely understand the sacrifice for the donor as well as their family. To have received the letter from James' family, and to know James was in the Navy, this Memorial Day has been quite difficult.

Honestly, Memorial Day was mostly a three day weekend for me. It's now a day when there was more than one sacrifice by James. 1. Serving his country. 2. His unfortunate/untimely death, has allowed me to live.

I don't know how to put into words. I have deep, deep feelings about James' sacrifice. It's a painful gratefulness, it's a painful appreciation, and an extremely painful love. I find it extremely difficult to accept how much pain his family is in. His mom, his dad, his siblings, his fellow soldiers, his friends. 

I have accepted, that I am fully lonely in my feelings and thoughts of where I am in life, and I am at peace with that realization. 92 days later, I have significantly improved in every way. Mainly because of the incredibly health heart that I received from James. I have lived a long time of my 33 years, unknowingly unhealthy and unknowingly, slowly dying. The rest of my body has fully accepted the organ and I have never felt as alive and healthy as I do right now.

It's pretty sad to read that.