I have decided to ease off on the rigid self-control a tad.

So you know what? Sometimes I am going to be snarky. I am going to be sarcastic. I might even be downright obnoxious from time to time.

But mostly, i will simply be more me. Warts and all.

It’s an important first step towards becoming a real, fully fledged, actually present adult male human being. I have been so intensely suppressed at a fundamental level for so long that it’s taken me a long time to even realize it was happening, and now i am finally ready to do something about it.

So the world gets what the world gets. I am not giving myself unlimited license to be an asshole and i am certainly not abandoning all attempts at self-control.

Trust me, the world doesn’t want that. I’m a fucked up dude.

It just means that I will no longer be achieving self control by harshly suppressing nearly everything inside me. Every impulse, every instinct, every inspiration, and anything else that might lead to action – I’ve been suppressing it all.

Why? Control. i am terrified by the very idea of being out of control – specifically, making decisions and taking action based on anything less than well thought out reason.

And that’s no way to live. Human beings are supposed to be guided by both reason and emotion and trying to live life like it’s a game of chess is crushingly limiting.

Sometimes you have to act on impulse. Go with your emotions. Do things without carefully considering them beforehand. Try things and see what happens.

Walk the path without knowing where it leads. Only one way to find out!

I know that i have the potential to be a far less anxious and worried person. To be a more relaxed, take things as they come, happy go lucky version of myself for whom life is an adventure and every new morning makes the world anew.

Indeed, I think that’s the kind of person i would have been if I had not been raped when I was only 4 years old.

But to get there, I will have to ease off the brake and learn to actually drive this vehicle of mine with the emergency brake OFF.

And there is bound to be some…. bumps. Things I will do that I will wish i hadn’t done. Things I will say that would have been better left unsaid.

And that’s fine. There are worse things in life than regret. I’d rather do something wrong and learn from it than stay suppressed and die inside.

Get out there and get hurt. It’s the only way to learn that there are worse things in life than pain and that dealing with pain without giving in is one of the most important life skills you can have.

Pretty sure that’s what all our asshole gym teachers were trying to teach us but were far far too inarticulate to explain to us.

So anyhow, stay tuned to this space for my exciting adventures in trying to loosen up without becoming a short tempered prick.

There will be a health update in the other half.

More after the break.

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The health update

Went to the retina specialist this morning.

9:10 am. Yeah, thanks a frigging lot.

Had trouble finding the place because I had completely forgotten that my bank is on the bottom floor of an office tower, so Julian and I ended up driving around looking for a storefront in the various strip malls near 3 Road and Ackroyd, looking for 5900 Three Road in vain.

Turns out, that’s my bank. Then I had more stress because I couldn’t find the place on the building directory.

That turned out to be because despite the fact that the stationery the fax for my referral came on saying Vancouver Retina Associates, I was actually looking for West Coast Retina Center, or something like that.

Plus it was in the middle of the list and therefore right in front of me, and as patient readers know, I have trouble seeing things that are right in front of me,.

So I made it to the clinic, and from then on it was typical stuff. Lots of tests, most of which I had already done at Iris.

But I suppose you can’t bill MSP for using someone else’s retinal photography.

More annoying was having to fill out the same information on half a dozen forms. Name, address, phone number, CareCard number, and so on.

It’s frustrating because it’s like someone asking you the same questions over and over and not listening to your answer.

I already told you all this!

So after all the tests and their attendant mild indignities inflicted on my poor eyeballs, I finally got to see the doctor himself.

And he did some more tests.

But eventually, we were done. And he showed me some pictures of my retinas (retinae?) and told me there were two problems.

One, my left eye had cataracts up the wazoo. He showed me the pictures of my retinae and one, the right, was clear and bright, and the other, my poor left, was red mist.

So clearly, that one needs fixing.

Which leads to problem two, which is that Leftie is also rather swollen from my diabetes, and they can’t operate on it when it’s like that. Could make things worse.

Luckily, there is a super effective treatment for that.

Unluckily, it involves sticking a needle into my eyeball.

So I have that to look forward to.

Luckily, the waitlist for cataract surgery is seven months long and I won’t need the needle to the eyeball until a couple months before that, so I at least have a lot of time to get used to the eye.

Still, i am going to ask Doctor Costin for a scrip for something to calm my nerves for the day of the eyeball piercing.

Something strong. Something powerful. Something they would inject into an out of control patient in a psych ward.

And of course, at the end of the appointment, I was given the usual flood of information i have absolutely no chance of remembering..

I dunno what they think they are accomplishing when they do that, but it ain’t happening. I mean, I’m a pretty bright guy and i can’t take it all in.

Somewhere in that infodump was the date of my appointment for some form of measurement that is only done at this one hospital in Vancouver.

I think it was January 27th. Hopefully it was on one of the piece of paper also foisted upon me at that time.

At this point, I’m tempted to just say fuck it and stay half blind. It’s really hard for me to handle overwhelming situations like this, especially when they involve somehow remembering an appointment that is more than a month away.

Why did things have to get so effing complicated?

And think, that’s just one of my serious health issues! I also have the nightmare on my scalp to deal with plus my massive hernia!

And who knows what will go next.

It would be so much easier to just die already.

But I will soldier on.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.