My Journal

December 17th, 2018

Today was a particularly bad day. Not for any real reason. I didn't do much today, I woke up at 11 and I stayed in bed until well after noon had passed. I ordered cheese-sticks, boneless chicken wings, and this weird cinnamon roll thing from Papa John's. I proceeded to get up and dressed in comfy pants and a comfy shirt and nothing was particularly bad. I watched Grey's Anatomy and played Minecraft, half-heartedly flipping back to my Psychology textbook, reading passages to study for the final I had today.  The textbook is Psychology 5th Edition by Cicarelli White and the class is Psychology 200. I don't know how this whole journaling thing works, but I guess if I'm looking back on this in 20 years I'd like to know that I was in Psychology 200 of my freshman year of college while I was spiraling into depression. 

After I finished my Psychology exam, I called my mother and we decided to meet for dinner at Applebees to celebrate me finishing my first semester. She was on her way back from the airport in Richmond. For the past week, she was in Illinois because her brother, my uncle, is dying of cancer. Small cell carcinoma, originally in the lungs, but with mets in the brain, spine, bone marrow, and bladder over the course of less than a year. It's incurable cancer, but he's been through 3 rounds of chemo and 1 round of radiation and it worked the first time before it spread. Nobody is blind to the fact that no matter how many rounds of chemo or how many cancer cells are removed, he is going to die, most likely of cancer, but possibly to any number of viruses or diseases, he could contract because he's immunocompromised.  He smoked for 40 years and is going to die because of it.  He's 53 years old. Maybe 52. I can't quite remember. I should remember, he's my uncle, but I don't remember.

I've been angry ever since we found out he had cancer. He's hurting everyone who loves him, my grandmother, my mother, and every other person who loves him because he started smoking in his teens. I don't want to be angry, but I am and that makes me feel guilty. Smoking is disgusting and the industry is predatory and there is about a million people to be mad at. Sucking chemicals into your body on a regular basis to fill the addiction. I resent it. 

Anyways, back to my mother. We met for dinner at Applebees and she wasn't feeling very well. She left me at the table, asked me to box up her food and I sat there for a while waiting for the waitress to come by and pick up the money and bring me boxes. I chatted with some online friends, the ones from my Office facebook group. After I went home I talked to Morgan. She is a nice woman from the group, has a baby who was born prematurely. She went Live on facebook right after I got home and answered all my question about how her baby is fed, what kind of formula she is on, et cetera. She is tube fed and she showed me the machine and told me about all the issues she had. It was very interesting and I appreciated the opportunity. That was probably the best part of my day. I guess I may have chosen the correct career path, even though I haven't even started it yet. I'd like to be a pediatric surgeon. Saving lives every day.  That's what I want. 

I keep thinking about the reckless good I want to do. Doing good without thinking about whether or not I'm going to be appreciated or if whomever actually needs all that help. Reckless good. Every day. 

Anyways, after I watched Morgan's live video and she answered all my questions I went back to doing what I did earlier in the day. Watching Grey's Anatomy and playing Minecraft. Then I got all depressed because anytime I ever have time to think I get depressed. Hopeless. Feeling worthless and like a failure. I miss George. Every single day I miss him. I almost erased that from this journal entry, because I don't want to admit that to myself or the world. He's a good man and I'm not a whole person. He deserves better than me. A whole person.  

I was feeling so depressed and so worthless I did the thing that I like to do. 30 seconds. I give myself 30 seconds to break down. I messaged Jesse and I asked him if he could handle my shit. I asked him if he had the emotional capacity for my shit. He said yes, but I vomited all my problems out and I think it was too much. Then 30 seconds later, I stopped. Usually, I give myself the 30 seconds in my car and I break down in tears, but I let Jesse in and I think that was probably a mistake, but he's all I have right now. He's practically the only person I can talk to and be even mildly real with. I don't know. I'm glad I have him to talk to, because he's my "no judgment friend", but I'm not the kind of person who opens up and I think I overstepped the line of our friendship. 

I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this journal every day. I think maybe this will be good for me, but I don't know. I just hope that one day, if I become a brilliant pediatric surgeon who saves children's lives, that someone will get to see how I made it. That someone will see how I struggled hard and I pushed hard and I made mistakes and I made really wrong run on sentences in my journal. I'm going to sign off of this journal for the night. It's almost 5am on the 18th and I have to pick up a friend at the airport today and before that I have to go to the DMV. 

I'll try to write more tomorrow. 

Yours truly, Broken, Unwhole, Aspiring Pediatric Surgeon

Brook R