Status Update: Struggling

Hello again, dear readers. Apologies for the long silence, due to new and severe headaches related to my initial truck accident/concussion. As a result of said head pains, I had to allow my brain to rest and wasn't supposed to read or write, use my laptop, watch TV, or physically exert myself in any way. Sounds like it'd be relaxing but it's actually not, especially when you're forced to just lie there, with only your thoughts to keep you company.

A lot has happened with me over the past ten days--

1. J's aunt and I moved my stuff into an apartment downtown.

2. Went back to the ranch for a few days.

3. Started suffering head pains after the move and J's mom took me to the nearest emergency room in North Platte, NE, some 80 miles away. The ER did a CT scan, saw no evidence of bleeding or swelling, injected me with Toradol to help with the pain, and sent me off with some Vicodin.

3. Headed back to Denver with more of my furniture and J's mom and sister helped me move it into my apartment.

4. Discovered that my second floor apartment was a lot noisier than I anticipated but was able to get building management to let me move to a third floor unit on a different side of the building.

5. Spent most of Thursday moving my stuff between apartments.

6. Started getting even worse headaches and spent most of Friday and Saturday lying down, sleeping, popping Advil, and trying not to freak out. Ended up taking the Vicodin because the pain was so bad. Didn't leave the apartment for two days. Felt like a total zombie.

And then today? Today, I lost it. I was on the phone with ST for 30 minutes and after we hung up, I broke down and started full-on sobbing. I guess the full force of my emotions finally hit me, after having been pent up for so long. Not that I'd been bottling them up intentionally, but I'm used to talking to ST and my other friends (and J) on a daily basis, and I haven't really been able to do so over the past few months.

Life has been, in a word, overwhelming. I guess I never really stopped to think about it. I never actually "dealt" with the truck accident--I just figured I was fine. But that, in conjunction with moving to a new city where I know like two people, moving downtown, moving apartments, missing my friends/roommates, not being able to get around as easily, living alone for the first time, being extremely sick for the past few days and dealing with it by myself (and wondering how I'd get to the emergency room if need be), not to mention missing J terribly...it's a lot to handle.

"It's not *so* bad," you might say. Or J might say, actually, when he's trying to make me feel better. "You do know several people in Denver and they can help you," he'd point out. True, but I can't rely on them for everything. I hate to impose on people (it's an Asian thing), I don't want to have to ask them for help constantly, I don't want them to think of me as needy, I'm frustrated that I can't handle everything on my own. If anything, I like being able to do nice things for other people. I'm used to being independent and mobile, and Denver--relative to NYC, Boston, and DC--hasn't been the easiest place for it.

When I moved to DC in 2009, I didn't know anyone. I didn't have a job. I found my roommates ST and SM on Craig's List (after a failed first attempt at rooming with someone who turned out to be a hoarder--yeah, it's a lot like the TV show). I did have a period of adjustment, but it never once occurred to me then that I might not find a job or that things might not work out. It might have been, in part, the heady atmosphere and the contagious optimism brought by a new administration, but I had no fear of failure. I made friends easily and everywhere I went, people tried to be helpful as I worked my way toward the Hill. Maybe I was just extremely naïve, but life was an adventure and an exciting one at that.

But now? Now, I don't know. I was so excited to move to Denver at first, but somewhere along the way, self-doubt reared its ugly head, and I've started questioning my decisions. Did I make a mistake moving here? Did I really think I could just up and leave DC and find a new job like that? What was I thinking, leaving behind my friends and starting over somewhere unfamiliar (and not public transportation friendly) by myself? Maybe it's because I'm older that I worry more, that I fear the possibility of failure, that I concern myself more with the "what if's." Maybe it's because I now worry about someone other than myself--and about the ramifications of my past mistakes on our future--that life seems less an adventure and more like an adversary. Maybe I just need my husband back so that we can enjoy the adventure together.

And so, feeling overwhelmed and alone, I broke down and cried. A phone call to my close friend JAC set me right. Funny, because he had been thinking, "I should call [sw]" at the exact moment that I picked up the phone. JAC has "the gift"--last Saturday, he somehow knew from across the country, even before I had left for the emergency room, that something was wrong and left me a voicemail (which I never received because I don't get cell phone reception at the ranch). Anyway, JAC has the uncanny ability to analyze my emotions and divine their root causes, cheer me up with amusing personal anecdotes, and make wise recommendations on how to make things better. All in one breath. And he did. A subsequent phone conversation with my friend and former law school roommate RR also did a great deal to lift my spirits. Amazing what a few words can do.

The upshot of all of this? It's been a rough week and a tumultuous few months. I'm so grateful for my friends and my parents (who also came through for me--my mother was surprisingly maternal, but that's a story for another time). As my friends pointed out, this too shall pass. I'll get through it, I'll live to tell the tale, and I'll be a better person for it.