1. Work clothes. I MIGHT still have some—kept just in case I have a random occasion where tie dyed yoga pants and Ts aren’t even vaguely appropriate. I know...what the fuck? To my mind, tie dye is always appropriate. Amiright or amiright?
2. My need for approval. No, that’s not completely true. I want those I love to love and respect me in return. Is that the same as needing approval? I don’t necessarily think so. Maybe I just don’t need approval from random folks?
3. Goals that others wanted me to achieve. Actually, I shitcanned the very last of those back in my early 20s. Living up to my own expectations is and has been enough of a full time+ gig.
4. Ambition. This isn’t something I’ve ever really had. I would have loved to have had a big-time gallery showing and selling my work. In my dreams, the director would be in regular contact, asking me when I’d have enough canvases for my next show. I’d sell more than enough paintings to pay all my bills.
The problems?
- Art marketing is/was a stressful full time (or close to it) gig. I needed a regular job that not only paid the rent but provided a decent health plan. Working a 40+ hour job, painting and getting some damn sleep didn’t leave time and energy for much self-promotion.
- Given the rarity of NF2, I needed to stick with my docs at MGH (home of the most in depth Neurofibromatosis type 2 research and the best NF2 surgeons). Leaving Boston for grad school or other art promotion opportunities was inadvisable.
There was no way to know, at the age of 23 (after my first bean op) that I’d not need more surgery for 17 years. If I could have known there was time, maybe I would have moved to Berlin and joined an art squat.
The vagaries and unknowable nature of fucking NF2 constrained my time and mobility.
5. Alcohol (though I do
have the rare shot of Jameson’s and the odd sip of Prosecco) and heavy
foods are out (no lasagna, cream based soups, fried foods to name a
few). My system rebels horribly.
6. Self doubt. I have more self-confidence now than I did at 20 but that’s not saying much. What are some of the ingredients that went into building me up (buttercup)?
- Going after and snagging a job I really wanted (teaching, creating coursework and drafting capable instructors {for the subjects I wasn’t able to teach}, within the large print company where I worked for close to 30 years).
- Solo traveling around Europe, the UK, Ireland, including:
* Having a clerk, in a small, crowded grocery in Krakow, rage at me in Polish was certainly a challenge to my shaky people skills. (n.b., I don’t speak Polish and had apparently wandered into a forbidden area of the store. Oopsie!)
* Successfully maneuvering through multiple, unexpected travel switcheroonies in Northern Italy during a sudden snowstorm.
* Shooting the breeze (is that an expression that’s still used or even widely understood?) with strange strangers in a park in Galway.
- Finding a new job at a new company when freshly deafened. Mind you, the position I was hired for didn’t pan out and I left but that’s another story. I went on, still a relatively new deafie, to find another, MUCH better gig after that.
7. I don’t chase after friends/friendships anymore. If someone wants to socialize, they can get in touch. I’m easy to find. Having said that, given my fucked up health, I’m not as interested or able to be as social as I once was. Also, I think that my deafness can be intimidating or too much of a communications hassle for some of my old chums and acquaintances. I'm, pretty much, okay with this. I know that I’m not as much fun now. Socializing with me takes work and patience. Also, seeing/watching my decline can be unnerving.
What, over the course of life, have you gotten rid of?
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