Just Another Girl

I Am Her

I am the girl in my picture. Smiling and having just eaten. She loves poetry and loves her friends more.

I am not my condition.

Before ya'll continue reading, I need you to understand that. I am a person who just happens to be a little messy. I am not the mess who just so happens to share the Earth with you.

Still there? Let us begin.

Yes, I do have a 'condition'. But just like any, it has its perks:

1. nobody knows what the Higgins it actually is

2. it has no name. My doctors have dubbed it a permanent side effect and left me to rot

3. I can't drink coffee. Oh well. I don't miss bean water

4. these aren't really perks

And then of course, the cons:

1. there is no cure

So yes, I've been having fun for the past few years. I wish I could tell you what my condition is, but as we have already discussed, it has no name. Sometimes I call it by different names just to confuse my friends. It goes by my caffeine allergy, episodes, ticking, retarded muscles, and then of course a permanent side effect.

I've been using this website to rant for a while now. I used to have this other book that actually did pretty well. I called it, The Theory. I still have yet to figure out why I named it that. It was about my misadventures as a member of the LGBT community and a Christian at the same time.

Yes, I am still both.

Alas, it came time to delete The Theory. I promise I'll explain that to you too. Later.

But my ranting seemed to do pretty well here. Apparently teenagers like listening to other people's problems rather than dealing with their own. I should know.

Unfortunately, doesn't seem to have a cure either. We'll always be searching for escape in a world that we were never a part of to begin with. We are all just pawns; I'm sure you've heard that phrase before. But a pawn is not a part of the board itself. And they can be replaced with other pieces from different sets and one could still play just the same. We are not of this world. We are just in it.

I think that's what kept me going. The simple truth that one day I can be replaced with something better. It isn't a somber thought; I've done well for my time here thus far. But there is solace in knowing that one day, when I say my farewells and that bittersweet night comes, I can be replaced and the world will keep spinning.

But in keeping with the metaphor, when a game piece is lost - the board is never the same. While the game can still be played with a single glass piece, it will look out of place among wooden pawns.

That being said, there will never be another Ray like me.

I like to write about myself, I'm not sure if you've noticed. I suppose that is my way of trying to make the world understand something I haven't quite been able to comprehend yet: myself.

I am quite the complicated being, but that's a chapter for another day. I've gone way off track. I was just supposed to talk to ya'll about my permanent side effect.

Ya'll are probably a bit confused with as to what this thing is. Just as I am confused with as to why I use 'ya'll' so much. I don't live in the south. I've never even been there, aside from Florida when I was tiny.

Anyway, I've had this little problem since 2017. Sometimes I think it's getting better. Those are my better, more physically active times. I was actually thinking about joining cross country. I would be fast if not for my retarded muscles. Then it gets worse.

And what exactly does 'worse' entail? Well, I can take you to about two years ago, when my family was on our annual vacation to Washington DC for the Nauriz. (Nauriz is a Kazakh celebration of the New Year, which happens in the spring. We always visit because there aren't enough Kazakhs where I live). I was sitting at a table with my little brother because we didn't know any of the other Kazakhs and our mother was busy collecting phone numbers.

That whole day, I was not physically strong enough to hold my arm up. I used my right hand to hold my left because I wasn't about to let it dangle like a limp noodle.

That was also the first time I ever cried about my health. I never really had reason to before. But as I struggled to uncap my soda bottle, I had to ask my brother for help, who uncapped it for me with ease and proceeded to make fun of me.

Which I didn't blame him for, by the way. He was like eight, and any normal teenager should be able to unscrew a soda bottle.

But it wasn't the opening of the bottle that rattled me. It was holding it. I struggled to bring the bottle to my lips. My hands shook far too much, so I had to slide the bottle to the very edge of the table and tip it over so that the soda would spill into my mouth.

I was very ready to cry. Not only did I have to ask a child for help, I still struggled afterward.

It was on that same vacation thatwe had gone to a natural history museum. Smithsonian, I believe. I remember having to hold my arm up with the other and being downright sour about it the whole time. We were in the gift shop. I was admiring trees made of silver wire and amethyst. I looked down at my arm.

"Hey mom?"

"I'm not buying anything here,"

"No there's something up with my arm, it looks weird,"

And it did. My mother turned around and gasped and groped at my hand, though I was trying not to make a big deal out of it. I was more worried about making a scene than the actual health of my hand. We drove immediately back to New Jersey to see my pediatrician. Who, of course, was no help. She looked at my swollen, red hand and told me straight-up that there was nothing she could do.

Nothing whatsoever.

But that was a while ago. I have more recent instances, like the time I thought I was drinking decaf iced coffee and ended up in muscle spasms for four straight hours. I remember laying in bed for the first half hour in dread, shaking and knowing the spasms were gonna come. The spasms are hard to explain. My friends say it feels weird when they're touching me and it happens. Like I'm vibrating.

And it hurts. Last time I had an episode, I was hurting so much tears pricked. The spasms themselves are painful and they always leave me very sore afterward. My most recent episode was two days ago and my legs still hurt.

Then there were the times when my leg or my arm just randomly goes numb. This doesn't happen so often, thank goodness. How embarrassing would it be if I was trying to flex my running skill and my leg just gives out mid-race?

The only thing I truly mind about the whole thing is the fact that it may never get better. No one knows anything about it so no one knows how long this will last and whether or not it is progressive. It has been two years and it's only gotten worse since then. I don't know what the next step is. My heart and lungs already don't function the way they're supposed to. What if they gave out altogether?

The impending doom doesn't scare me half as much as it should. Sure, a death like that would be painful, but that's the only part that scares me. I'm a pawn, remember? My friends will learn to live without me. My family will be forced to adapt to not having me around. Besides, I know where I'm going when the time comes. And I don't mind spending eternity up there at all.

I don't mind telling ya'll how I ended up like this, along with all of the other stories that make me who I am today. I can't wait to make new ones. But that's a chapter for another day.