This Time Next Year

Ugh, it's almost time to fly home again and I still don't feel my absolute best.

Ever since I arrived back home, my strange and possibly heart-related condition only worsened. I can't tell if it got pretty bad due to the fact that I got a cold here (no wonder, it's like -17 outside every day) or that I am allergic to my parents' very lovable cat and need to use my inhaler frequently, hence the added palpable pressure in my chest area. But I just don't know any more.

The main thing that I thought would cure my condition is that I decided to stop drinking, like, almost completely... and here's the full story of why.

About two months ago, before any of my issues had started, I had one pretty big weekend partying. And when I say big, I mean epic.

It started with that Friday night, when my boyfriend and I attended a wine tasting at a very fancy members-only restaurant (I won a contest of some sort). The wine was fantastic and each bottle's retail price was over $1,000. And let me tell you, I took full advantage of the fact that the wine was free flow and kept motioning to the waiter to refill my wine glass the entire night until it was time to leave.

Later on, the boyfriend and I came back to my house, ready to call it a night (and we should have had), but when we walked into the house, we encountered my housemates about ready to go out to a club for a night of dancing. Being in the already tipsy state that I was in, I just couldn't refuse and decided to join them. Needless to say, a lot more drinking and mixing of different types of alcohol ensued.

Okay, fine, one big night could do no damage, right? But that was my night out numero uno.

The next day, feeling like absolute crap, I knew I had to do it once again that night as my very good friend was in town for the weekend and I had already promised to go out with him and his group of friends.

They were celebrating someone's birthday and they kept the champagne flowing non-stop. Working in oil and gas, I am postulating, basically gives you unlimited amount of money to spend on alcohol, so the guys must have bought at least 8 bottles of champagne at various clubs and lounges we went to. That on top of the already free flowing shots of jager, beer buckets and other random alcoholic drinks. Of course, that meant that I could drink for free all night and you don't want to know me when I drink for free, cause I just don't stop.

I, somehow, got a cab and got myself home that night. Woke up the next day feeling like shit again and, as the day went by, I began to realize that that was no ordinary hangover. I had never felt that particular way before and, eventually, towards about 7 o'clock that night I was curled up in a pain-induced ball in a bathtub, which is precisely where my boyfriend and my housemates found me and called an ambulance.

Well, you'd think everything would go back to normal after that, right? No such luck.

Two weeks later, I was feeling pretty proud of myself for taking it easy on the alcohol and not drinking for 14 days, so I had allowed myself to have about 5 beers at my housemate's going away party.

And guess what? The next day I woke up feeling like shit, hands shaking, head spinning. I had some Diazepam (Valium) left from the hospital visit two weeks prior, so I took that. Worked like magic.

I had began to realize that alcohol, even though maybe not the main cause of my condition, definitely exacerbated my painful hangovers. Just picture you normal hangover... no, picture one of those dreaded two-day, I-feel-like-absolute-shit hangovers and multiply that by 10. That is how I felt and it really felt like death was breathing in my ear.

So there was really no choice for me any more. I had to cut out my good ol' buddy Alcohol out of my life completely. I am not going to lie and tell you that I felt amazing once I did that. I almost instantly missed the silly nights, and the exhilarating highs and the rash decisions and hijinks that led to some epic stories of ending up at someone's pool party at 3 AM or partying with some randoms at a club that I didn't even remember the name of. I mean, when I drank, it was fun. It was never dramatic and I never made terrible decisions. I just liked being silly and carefree and young.

But I also realized that cutting out alcohol from my life was not the end of the world. Going out and remaining sober may not be a recipe for a crazy, random night out, but you know what, it's okay. I'd realized that I can still have fun and alcohol is not really that much of a social lubricant, when you are determined to have fun anyway.

The problem is that the health issues have not subsided. Almost every day I feel some sort of tightness in my chest and sometimes I need to sit down or retreat to my room to take a deep breath because I feel like I am going to pass out from the extreme light headedness.

Even though I had quit drinking, the consequences seem to have already had taken a toll on my body.

I felt better this week and decided to have three glasses of champagne for NYE. Next day, I felt death breathing in my ear the moment I woke up. I took Diazepam again and it helped for about 8 hours before I started feeling crappy again. I am down to one Diazepam now and need to go back for a refill when I return to Singapore. I have also set up an appointment with a cardiologist to get to the underlying issues that I will have to battle in this brand new year.

I feel better today but for how long? I don't know. I am scared that the condition will become an every day occurrence for me and that I will no longer be able to do things that I love doing, like socializing, going to the gym and being active. And who wants a bed-ridden friend/employee/girlfriend?

But I am not giving up on me yet. This means that I can't have any more alcohol, like ever (?!) and, as sad as this makes me feel, I know that I can't be stupid about this any more and see how many drinks I can have before my body screams at me, "No more, damn it!!"

I am not giving up. I need to get back to where I was just over two months ago. I need to be my happy and healthy self again and I need to learn my lesson. I have to make it my biggest goal and resolution in 2014. To be kind to myself and to treat my body with utmost care.

This time next year, I want to look back at this post and be proud that I was able to overcome everything that I am battling right now. I want to be able to tell my success story, even if to no one else but myself.

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Fade

When I drove to St. Louis last weekend to see Mr. J for, perhaps, the last time, a lot of thoughts ran through my head. As I drove through the downtown of Louisville, I cursed myself for even attempting this long distance drive. And then while I drove through the seemingly endless corn fields of Indiana and my butt cheeks became more and more fused with one another, I wondered why I was even trying to make it work. But then as I entered Missouri and finally saw the graceful bend of the famous arch hovering over the St. Louis skyline, I found myself excited and giddy at a mere thought of seeing and hanging out with Mr. J again.

The weekend was, well, just the way I wanted it to go. We went out, stayed in, watched movies, cuddled, spooned and I felt myself perhaps even falling deeper for him than I thought I could ever fall. Which made my drive home all the more devastating, because goodbyes were never my forte.

It's not that there was a goodbye per se. We made a lot of vague promises to each other to attempt to hang out and remain friends. I even said something along the lines of visiting him again before my fall quarter of my final year at graduate school picked back up again. But I think we kind of knew something we did not want to admit. The end - it was like a pink elephant in the air that neither of us wanted to acknowledge.

The drive home was made all that much harder by the sudden failure of my air conditioner and the stifflingly hot summer air loomed above and around me the way my thoughts about my future with Mr. J spread their poison through my brain cells.

Now a week later, it's not getting easier just yet. I was going to stop by a liquor store on my way home from work today to pick up a bottle of wine but decided against it. It is never good to drink with a heavy heart, and my heart's been weighing me down ever since I hugged Mr. J goodbye.

And he's doing well, he's making friends in law school already. And I will be fine too. I just wanted this to last for a little bit longer. And I could have diluted myself into thinking that I could continue a phone/text relationship with the man I love, but the best thing to do is to let go right now. Emotionally, I can't handle hoping that I can, realistically, be with Mr. J. Whether a year from now, or three years from now - we are pursuing very separate career paths. I can't view the outcome of our profession-driven decisions with rose colored glasses on.

But for a brief moment, though, when he kissed me on the forehead right before I drove away to my temporary home in Louisville, I wished I could put it all, all of it, on hold and stop the time just to be with him. Even if for just an hour longer.

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My Life. In Ruins.

I'll keep it brief as I am not much of a whiner. (Yeah, right.)

I am in the middle of a shitstorm that started this morning when the content manager for a web site I publish articles for informed me that I was guilty of plagiarism in at least two of my works. My entire writing portfolio is under a strict review and my fate will be decided within the next week. The best possible scenario I can hope for is that I will be allowed to continue my writing and continue collecting revenue from my already-published articles. The worst case scenario is something I do not even want to think about and that is, I will no longer be allowed to write for the web site and all of my articles written over the last two and a half years will be deleted.

The problem is - I did plagiarize, though I didn't see it as plagiarism when I wrote the texts. I frantically checked all of my articles ( about 200 of them) in a plagiarism finder type of software, upon hearing the alarming news. I found at least eight articles where I spotted plagiarized phrases. The content manager informed me that, as he looks through all of my articles thoroughly, he will be able to forgive me if there are only a few instances of plagiarism. And I am afraid that while 90% of my work is completely original content, those eight articles might just be the straws the break the camel's back.

I'm sorry I, unknowingly, plagiarized. I really am. I really feel like if I am no longer allowed to write, a part of my identity will be taken away from me. I have been as passionate about writing and I am about architecture and lately, I have been writing daily because I just have that fire inside of me that urges me to write and write and write. I don't want that part of me to be taken away. I despise my situation because I am the only one who contributed to my own demise.

Keep your fingers crossed for me and I promise to never ever plagiarize again!

On a personal note, my love life is heading down the toilet as well, though with interesting consequences of which I will speak later, when my mind isn't so preoccupied.

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