Surgery and a Birthday

Geez… October. I haven’t updated in over 9 months. So many things have happened, yet so much remains the same. I’m still sitting in my chair (a newer one now), with my computer, enjoying the quiet of my apartment. Bagheera still insists on sitting next to the computer making it difficult to type. Italics still perches himself somewhere and manages to look like an albino Aslan. My husband is still in Afghanistan. I am still in Houston. And I still don’t know who the hell I am or what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing with my life.
But, there are things that have happened… so, let’s catch up, shall we?
Surgery
At the end of October, I had the LapBand procedure. It’s a band placed around the top of the stomach that can be filled with liquid to suit your specific needs. The band restricts the amount of food you are able to eat in one sitting.
I hate the band. I love the limitations, I do, but there are so many little quirks that irk me. For instance, if you eat too quickly, the food just comes right back up. I wouldn’t call it vomiting, since it is effortless and doesn’t cause me to piss myself. It just decides ‘oops, too fast… reject’. And things (mainly pills) can get stuck sideways in the band. Unless you have it, you absolutely cannot imagine how uncomfortable this is… it isn’t painful… just INCREDIBLY uncomfortable. Imagine being in handcuffs for hours. You can still move about and do things, but the fact that you’re in handcuffs and that it makes life more difficult will never escape your attention.
There are a lot of things you are not supposed to do when you have the band. Yeah, I’ve broken every single rule. I can’t help it. Give me a rule, I’ll find a way to break it. It’s who I am. It’s what I’m good at. And I rather enjoy it. So, I drink carbonated liquids, eat pasta and bread, and don’t eat ‘regularly’. I wonder what I’d have done if they hadn’t said this things were forbidden?
Turning 26
Right after my surgery, I turned 26. Fucking hell. We had a party at my mom’s. Faye came down. MC came up. My step-dad’s whole family came. It was a shin-dig. And since Dom brought her baby, Jacob, the focus wasn’t all on me. Win-win.
I don’t have a hell of a lot to say about my birthday. The gifts and well wishes were nice. I had a good party. Yada yada… but 26. Fuck. Am I really that old? Not that it’s old… but shit.
I remember very clearly being 18. I was dating this real dickhead, R, who was a 32 year old drunk felon on parol. I guess I needed to rebel… and the sex was good. Anyway, I was at the bar with him one afternoon during my algebra class, and I remember him flirting overtly with the lankly girl near the pinball machine. Good and buzzed, as she went to the bathroom, I asked him what the hell she had… I mean, she looked just like me, except she was a little taller and thinner. She’s 26, he told me. She’s more… you know… mature. And in my 18 year old maturity, I told him to fuck off, that I was plenty mature, that I was born 30, and that he was the immature one in this relationship. I remember thinking about that girl – who didn’t give R the time of day – and wondering what was so ‘different’ about being 26? How much more mature could a few years really make you? This memory really stuck with me.
So, here I am… 26. What a difference a few years have made. I’m no longer hanging out in the bars. I have a husband… not a string of one night stands. I can’t remember the last time I was really drunk, much less the last time I drank Tequila directly from the bottle. And I now understand why that lanky girl with no makeup and curly hair wanted nothing to do with R.
 
Well, that takes me through November. I’ll work on another entry to update further… A lot of shit has happened. Much the same, yet completely different. But… at least I got this far.