83 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
83 lines
3.8 KiB
HTML
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---
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date: 2019-12-21
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weight: 2
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fit: true
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---
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<pre class="verse">It is surprisingly hard to think something real
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when every indication, every word, all you feel
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tells you that that must not be the case.
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There's no easy way to make yourself face
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that which your emotions continually deny,
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no matter how true you know it to be.
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                 But why
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must all these contradictions claim events
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that mean the most to us? What prevents
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them from taking the unimportant? The small?
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Is the import just to big? Can we not fit all
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of the thing in our heads? Are we too weak?
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Is the life-changing too vast to explore, to seek
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out every corner?
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<blockquote>Have you considered that your constant seeking
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may be the problem? That your anxieties leaking
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all over may be what's preventing you
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from recognizing what's actually true:
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you can do things for yourself. It's allowed.</blockquote>
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It also doesn't help that there were so many delays.
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The scheduler losing my application, and me counting days
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after those who consulted after me got their dates;
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The mishap of the letters, and me rushing past gates
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and their keepers; countless thoughts of countless regrets —
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regrets which hadn't yet happened — as mom frets
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that maybe I will wind up hating my new body.
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And why not? Why not fret? Surgery! How gaudy.
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I fight with myself enough over how this surgery
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is plastic, how I'm just doing something sugary
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to somehow make myself somewhat more appealing.
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How trite. How selfish. How lame. How revealing
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of my bottomless shallowness.
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<blockquote>Your saving grace being, as always, dysphoria:
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more than any cough or cold, more than your chorea,
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it provided you with a problem. Something fixable.
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It gave you a tangible solution to something integral
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that plagued you.</blockquote>
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That I had something I could concrete at which to point
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that would be fixed by this act, I could thus annoint
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it as somehow more worthy, something worth doing.
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If I could go through some process of ungluing,
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excise this thing from myself I might become whole
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in some way never before imagined.
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                Ah, but the toll.
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There must always some arbitrary price to pay ---
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Self-actualization must never be free --- and hey,
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Everything in society must come with a reason.
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To come up with letters, proof, for that season
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of change must serve some sort of divine end.
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To wait eighteen long months, to refuse to bend
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to others' whims...
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<blockquote>You got your letters, you got your date, you did it.
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You did your labor, you did your time. They let you fidget
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and twist in the wind. Hell, they did it to you twice.
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Your letters only good for one year, you had to ask nice
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for a second set.</blockquote>
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Yes.
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   To preempt your 'why', I followed my own advice:
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If I feel the same when I'm depressed as I do when I feel nice,
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It's a thing worth doing. Eighteen months is time enough
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to let at least two depressive cycles call my own bluff.
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When they did not, when I panicked at having to reapply
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and still pulled through in time, well, no need to justify
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my actions any further. That's when it all became real.
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That's when I was in. That's when I could tell just by feel
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that I was ready for this change. I wasn't <em>ready</em> ready,
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but I was ready enough to come off as rock steady
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when I called the surgeon's office. I was visibly confident,
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even at the pre-operative appointments, totally cognizant
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that I didn't deserve this.
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<blockquote>Whether or not you deserve this is not up for debate.
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Not because you do or don't so much as because the hand fate
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dealt you. You had the job, you had the insurance, the means.
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You made the call. You took the step. You passed the screens.
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<strong>You</strong> did this.</blockquote>
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</pre>
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