soopastryheart

I finished a book the other day, and after that last page, I couldn’t help but notice how noticeably different the book looked than when it first reached my hands.

I like buying my books slightly used. I don’t like them highlighted or written on, but thanks to places like half.com, I can buy them “like new” or “very good”, and in just the condition I like them best. I like knowing that another set of eyes have read (or attempted to) the words I’m about to absorb, that another person chose this book out of countless others for one reason or another.

The thing is though, a book’s condition rapidly deteriorates once in my possession. In my first year at college, when I naively bought my books from the UW Bookstore brand spanking new (and at full price), I realized very quickly that my 220-dollar chemistry book was no less informative than a used 150 dollar one. I would write in the margins, highlight passage after passage with different-colored fluorescent markers, and spill various caffeinated beverages on its glossy pages. After a particularly frustrating and stressful night (coinciding with midterms, surprisingly enough), they would get hurled across the room, bruising the wall, and leaving the pages hanging on for dear life along the seams.

This book I just finished is no different. The pages are curled upward, and the front cover refuses to lay parallel to the rest of the body. The corners of pages are creased in various sizes of triangles, and if I shake the book, I know that a rain of popsicle sticks, ticket stubs, and a Costco card will come pouring out (I’m an opportunistic bookmarker, using whatever is within reaching distance). Some of these pages may be speckled with smeared chocolate flakes, or dimpled by occasional teardrops, all providing evidence that those pages were indeed read. They were laughed and coughed over with a mouthful of PJ&J, cried over in silence, fawned over with deep respect and admiration, frowned and occasionally gagged over. My books will provide proof that they have lived and suffered with me.

Anyway, before I throw this latest one onto the pile stacked against the wall, I decide to search for other works by the author. I open Amazon and there, taking center stage smack dab in the middle of the home page is an ad for Kindle, apparently the #1 Bestselling Product On Amazon. I’ve heard of this, but know very little, so I click the accommodating link. It’s a sharp-looking thing, isn’t it? It’s clean, looks relatively simple to use, and can hold up to 1,500 books. Holy crap, imagine all the money I could have saved on shipping.

I’m reading over the details, and find myself being more and more lured into this thing. It’s masterfully flirting with me, and like a girl buzzed off wine at the bar, I’m responding, finding it more attractive with the slightest wink and nudge.

And just when I think that I’m about to sneak the Kindle my number on a paper napkin, a voice (Morgan Freeman’s?) reminds me of all the good times with my paper backs and hard covers, and I suddenly feel cheap and guilty. Sure, the Kindle is sexy in the modern, new world way, and I’m all for anything that promotes reading, but can it offer me all the other non-literary services an actual book can offer? Can I throw it at a boyfriend’s head during a heated argument? If I curl up with a Kindle in bed, how high are the chances that I roll over it with my big, fat head and crack its pretty little face? If I tip my water bottle on the pages of a book, I can lay it flat for a day or two until it dries curled and rumpled, but will a Kindle be as forgiving? And what about that universal, connected feeling I get from having a slightly used book delivered to me?

I have no doubt that a gadget like the Kindle is the future; a future where libraries are obsolete and Barnes and Noble will merely become Starbucks cafeterias. And I am not entirely eliminating the possibility of having one of my own some day (I just envisioned my entire Don Delillo collection shaking and wetting their pants). But for now, I will risk paper cuts and questionable stains if it means I can hear the whistling of pages turning. Sometimes when I’m writing, I purposefully stack a pile of my favorites around me like a fort, because I am convinced that they are sending me inspirational vibes. How will Kindle offer me that?

My dad doesn’t know how to turn on a computer. We’ve programmed his cell phone with an address book and speed dial, but he doesn’t use them. He gets impatient when customer service via email doesn’t respond fast enough (anything longer than the time it takes for water to boil). He has no idea what texting is and still buys CDs. He prefers face-to-face meetings to conferences over the phone, and voice message machines to inboxes. And while the world “archaic” comes to mind when describing my dad, there’s something undeniably simple in his old-school approach.

Nowadays, you have maintain and advance with technology if you want to keep your head above the water. Anything less than cable internet will become intolerable. If it’s not an iPhone or a BlackBerry, it’s not a cell phone. If you don’t have a Facebook, you don’t exist. And if you don’t know what eBay or Craigslist is, well, you can go ahead and kill yourself now.

I remember a few years ago when a friend of a friend told me that a friend of a friend got dumped by her boyfriend of three years through an email. We discussed how disgusting, tactless, and just plain unbelievable it was. Just a few years ago, answering your phone at the dinner table would have been equivalent to burping, farting, and picking your teeth (at the same time). Now, it’s normal to be hired and fired through the send button. And why go through the perils of dating when your soul mate is just three clicks away? Why get to know your coworkers over a few awkward drinks when an online photo album let’s you do it…pants-free, no less?

How could we possibly have anything to talk about when through your Twitter, I already know how often your dog goes to the bathroom and that you’re allergic to pine nuts and idiots? If I can find everything from song lyrics to man-and-porcupine porn on the internet, why can’t I locate a single store in the mall that actually has change in its register? And in a time where I can order groceries, customize a wife, and diagnose myself of a rare kidney disorder online, why can’t USPS locate my fucking boxes? (Sorry, I really just can’t let that one go).

Annoying friends used to mean they were mooching off your lunch or arguing over what movie to see. Now it’s updating statuses too frequently and not replying to email/ texts within an hour or two. Thanks to my friend list, I can’t hide the fact that I’m friends with your worst enemy, or delete and ignore an ex without looking immature and bitter. It’s easy to stalk your friend’s hot friends without feeling guilty or creepy, because hey, he’s the one who posted all those photos from his Vegas trip. You’re angry because I didn’t call you about the party? Well maybe you should have checked your wall or inbox. Still mad? Well fine, go ahead and post that picture of me eating that hot dog, I’m just going to subscribe you to every erectile dysfunction newsletter out there.

Now, suddenly I’m not only aware, but also overtly cautious about which albums I do make public, and how much I curse in my Tweets. I can’t just say, “ah, hell with it” anymore without sounding ignorant and careless to future interviewers.

But there have been so much about our technology-based world that I’ve really benefited from (besides Ashton Kutcher’s whereabouts). I’m thankful I can craft and manipulate emails to make myself sound somewhat intelligible, where impromptu voice mails can make me sound like a donkey suddenly feeling the effects of a tranquilizer dart. I can ignore petulant phone calls and blame the service provider, and the de-tag button has become one of my closest allies. And if I can avoid the entire customer service center at Wal-Mart for as long as I live, I will wear a “I Love the Internetz” bumper sticker on my ass.

I love that I can order my JBrands at 30% off online, but I don’t mind going to Nordstroms or Barneys where the sales assistant can bring me the next size over in a matter of minutes. Sometimes I like asking for a recommendation from the Blockbuster employee with the hair that looks like it hasn’t seen a shampoo bottle in weeks. Some of the best conversations of post-modernism I’ve ever had weren’t in that god-forsaken English class, but with total strangers in the used book store on the Ave. The most memorable moments can’t be bottled in random, one-sentenced insider jokes along my Facebook wall, but probably captured in the album titled “Dude, Where’s My Respirator?” If I tried really, really, really hard, I’m sure I could compose something along the lines of a sentimental email, or send you plenty of “You’ll Get ‘Em Next Time” flowers or “There’s Better (and Bigger!) Fish in the Sea” boxes of Godivas, but sometimes, nothing can top a tight-squeezed hug and a fifth of tequila.

What I’m trying to say is that, there are plenty of things out there that are meant to improve our lives, but not everything needs to be. Sure, a Kindle is efficient when I need to carry seventeen books with me on vacation, but I still like getting a “very good-used” book in the mail and finding the previous owner’s receipt for anal beads squished in the pages. I want to be able to control what I say in an email to a future employer, but I want my real-life conversations with my real-life friends to be uncensored (for the most part). I want to be able to see facial expressions, not emoticons. I want to be able to interpret the tone of your voice, and throw a book accordingly.

A text message can’t give me that.

8. Fake modesty doesn’t make you humble, or considerate. It makes you an asshole.

7. 14-hours a day in a car for a week while you travel cross country can make you have psychopathic thoughts, delusional conversations, and some serious soul-crippling realizations. You also learn that belting out the soundtrack to Hairspray (off-key no less) loses its novelty within the first song, and that if you really listen to the rap songs of your youth, you’d be appalled by the actual lyrics. You discover that middle America offers a whole lot of nothing, and that there are just as many billboards for porn warehouses as there are cow fields. You can also come dangerously close to killing your passengers, no matter how much you love them, especially around the 13^thhour.

6. Sam Worthington. You had me at hybrid cyborg.

5. Just cause it’s there doesn’t mean you have to eat it. I’m looking at you, can of frosting.

4. And you, leftover Halloween candy.

3. It’s easy to worry about being a good friend, especially in a moment of heartbreak and need. You choose your words carefully, and question everything that does manage to leave your mouth. You can wish you were more eloquent, or more effective in alleviating the pain. But when there’s little that can be done or said, the best you can do is make sure you’re there when they need you.

2. Why is James Franco on General Hospital?

1. A small probability is better than zero probability. Life is short.

I was talking to a friend the other day, who told me something that truly surprised me. He didn’t confess he was getting a sex-change operation or that he secretly married a 50 year-old mother of 6 (two things that would have shocked me less). He simply told me that after the marines, he hoped to be a better man, a better human being.

And that left me quite confused, because in the near 13 years we’ve been friends, I’ve never considered him otherwise. He has always been someone with strong character; kind and considerate, patient (enough to tolerate me for over a decade), and as loyal as a mom for Team Edward.

I didn’t press him to elaborate, partly because I didn’t think that fast, but mostly because I was trying to understand how he couldn’t see everything I’ve seen in him. We grew up together, shared laughs, tears (and occasional snot- on my part), and love for diarrhea-inducing foods. He was the crutch, the brace, and the bandage during my most damaged days. Even with my incessant bullshit and stubbornness, he stuck with me, even when I always stick him with the bill. I watched him (with a little push of my own), tap into the limitless potential I always knew he had. I watched as he took responsibility, owned up to his mistakes, and tried earnestly to correct them at every turn.

And over time, we’ve managed to build this incredible friendship, one with the ability to carry on a conversation with 12 different topics, and an impressive level of trust. I consider him family. And it was that trust that I had to believe in the most when he announced that he would be giving up the comfortable, even enviable life he had established, to join the military. I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t support it. In fact, I was so angry, I wanted to hit him in the face with a folding chair.

Eventually, I accepted it – I trusted his judgment, his instincts. I knew who he was. And that was enough for me to believe that anything he did, there’d be a reason, a purpose, a truth.

But then he threw me off with his “better human being” comment. How could he not see everything I’ve seen, everything I continue to see? I’ve never seen him do one malicious thing, or even, carry an evil-spirited thought. He’s always been open and honest, and never judged anything or anyone carelessly. He’s selfless, generous, and loves his mother (and his ugly ass poodle, rest in peace, Rusty). All I saw, all I’ve ever seen in him are good – so how could he possibly think anything less than that?

I think there’s a clear disconnect from who we see ourselves as, and who everyone else sees. I’m talking about all the qualities that our friends and families know us by, but ones that we rarely allow us to admit for ourselves. We don’t allow ourselves to accept our best features, the characteristics the people around us recognize us with, because it just seems like too high of a compliment to earnestly deserve.

Yet, those who love us, those who knows us best will continue to convince us otherwise. And if we trust our family and friends with their answers to “can you see my back fat in this?” then why do we choose not to believe them with things much more substantial to the heart?

Sometimes, during our attempts to be modest, we resort to self-deprecating tactics. We don’t mean to come off as having the confidence of a 14-year-old, but it just doesn’t feel right to acknowledge the praise being offered. Sure, we could try to be gracious, but the psyche works in such devious ways, that sometimes the only response we’re able to spit out is one that vehemently denies the pleasant offering.

Some days, I like to pick fights with myself, warranted or not. I poke at the squishy part of my stomach, question the genetics that gave me my nose, or wonder why I bother with a bra at all. When it comes to applications, I cringe most at my answers under “describe your personality”, but I have no trouble listing off every redeemable quality in each of my friends (they make it easy). For every six pages I write, I delete four. And it always, always looks better on the mannequin.

I think the trick is to not misinterpret personal insatiability with self-uncertainty.

Sometimes our insecurities can take us down really narrow and twisted roads (google pro-anorexia or “why is Avril the one who gets me?”). We manipulate, torture, and completely obscure who we are in the name of self-improvement. But self-growth is one process that should never reach an end. Don’t allow yourselves to become complacent, to idle in being content. You should never not want to do better, be better… ah …I get it now.

What I’m trying to tell you friend, is that I trust your instincts and judgment (with the exception of the asphalt incident and Pita Pit – where were you on that one?). If you say there’s room for improvement, I will continue to support you in any endeavor you seek in achieving this task (unless you know, you start reciting Miley lyrics as your personal motto). You have never been anything short of amazing when it comes to supporting me, regardless of how idiotic the plan sounded. And the fact that you want to continue to evolve, continue to strive to be better, speaks loudly for your person.

I will always be curious to hear what kitchen utensil you identify with most… you know, as long as you continue to pick up the check.

There are very few things in this world that invoke the type of anger that makes me want to put my fist through a wall (or someone’s face): desecration of religion, Michael Vick, and perhaps Target copying the exact design of a bag that I purchased at Anthropologie for 5x the price are included in that exclusive list.

But every once in awhile, I come across something that is so enraging, so incomprehensible, that it makes me question and worry about the sanctity and future of human existence.

To understand what I am speaking of, please take time to read this:http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/men-more-likely-to-leave-spouse-with-cancer/?hp.

Being diagnosed with a serious illness is difficult news to bear. Being told you have the big C can feel like the emotional equivalent of being hit with a pillowcase filled with bars of soap. Such news can be devastating, shake the faith of the most devoted, and send the eternal optimist into a spiral of depression.

When I worked in the hematology/oncology department at Harborview, I watched as the team treated mostly low or no-income individuals without families or a support system. Having cancer can give you less reasons to smile, but I was convinced these folks were in worse spirits than families I’ve seen come in together. There have been plenty of studies that advocate the importance of having a support system when going through major diseases and surgeries. I believe in science, I believe in facts, but I also believe in the intangible components of the human body, the parts that can’t be shrunk by radiation, or removed by surgery. I believe that the human spirit is an equal and integral part of the process, the cure, and I don’t care that it can’t be measured or quantified.

Cancer has the ability to strip down the emotional barriers of the world’s most composed, imperturbable people. When my grandfather’s condition with stomach cancer worsened, we all flew to Seoul to see him for the last time. What I saw was a man I barely recognized. His body had whittled down to almost nothing; his skin resting on his bones like a thin bed sheet, desperately hanging onto anything it could grip. The treatments were not only unresponsive, but they had caused a severe decrease in appetite – and thus making him too weak to eat anything at all. His veins were so prominent that I felt the urge to poke at them, to see if they were still fluid or if they were as brittle as they appeared. As I reached for his hand, a nurse warned me that he was too weak and ‘fragile’. Fragile? My grandfather? The man who rode a motorcycle even when he was limited by a cane? This man, who punched a doctor for running too many blood tests on me when I was a newborn? He could barely open his eyes to look at me now.

I couldn’t believe this was what cancer had done to one of the most dauntless men I have ever known. But what I saw next knocked the wind out of my thirteen-year-old body. I stood in the hallway with my mother and brother at my side as we watched my father collapse into my grandmother’s arms. She held up all of his weight as they both cried into each other’s shoulders. Here was my father, the very symbol of masculinity, a man who had been perpetually stoic through everything else in his life, breaking down before my very eyes.

This is what cancer had done.

I’ve been around serious illnesses and cancer diagnosis for most of my life. I was too young to understand the complexities and mechanics of my grandfather’s battle, but I always understood the importance of my dad having been there, to say goodbye, and to hold my grandmother (or rather, have her hold him). I knew my grandfather lived a life that should be written about, and left it surrounded by those he shared it with.

When my friend Becky’s breast cancer returned, I visited her in Venice Beach and we cried together, cursing out loud how unfair it all was. We then proceeded to drink three bottles of wine, and I listened to her as she told me how much she enjoyed freaking out little kids with her Sinead O’Connor look. Even after losing her son and her marriage years before, she told me she had never felt more loved and supported by her friends and family. She never spoke about the medication. She occasionally complained about her lack of energy, but mostly talked about how much supplemental strength she was gaining from her friends. She told me she couldn’t even think about going through it again without the people around her, that it was their optimism and prayers that got her out the door each day.

And that night, in my loopy, drunken state, I silently promised myself that I’d be there for Becky, that even after my short visit, I would call regularly, and visit again when I could. I told myself I’d be stronger this time around, so I could really be there for her, in all the ways I wasn’t with her son.

But I called less than I promised. I didn’t visit. I found reasons: midterms, papers, trying to adjust to my first year in college. With every excuse, I tried to convince myself that a phone call wouldn’t do much anyway – nothing I could say would change the fact that Becky had cancer. I couldn’t make it disappear by holding her hand.

I’ve spoken to Becky several times throughout the years, and each call has always been filled with laughs, encouragement, and advice – mostly from Becky to me. She listened patiently as I complained about my latest melodrama, and joked about my inability to keep a boyfriend. We argued about sexy CNN anchors, and talked about her bizarre neighbors – they had a tendency to yell obscenities at their plants in the middle of the night. I tried to explain to her the breakdown of carbohydrates in the body so that she could lose her muffin top(disastrous), and she spent an hour trying to instruct me how to bake a pie from scratch (catastrophic). We talked about everything and anything, but we both deliberately avoided talking about her cancer, or her recovery, or anything remotely related to the subject. I had a hunch she suspected my discomfort, and I was grateful she never confronted it.

It wasn’t until this article that I realized why I stopped trying to support her, why I chose to avoid it entirely, and how I convinced myself it was for the best. As angry as I was with this article, I understood. I understood because…really, was I that much different?

The first time I read the article, I shook my head in disgust. The second time, I caught myself clenching my jaw and fists.

And I was so ready, fueled by disbelief and rage, loaded with angry words, thoughts, and opinions forming a tornado in my head, to spit out a self-righteous rant on how royally messed up this is.

But as I set forth to type out the words, my hands stopped dead in their tracks, frozen and hovering above the keyboard like I was suddenly facing a firing squad. Because the third time I read it, I didn’t feel angry.

I felt ashamed.

For some people, it just too much. For some people, the fear of loss is far greater than any amount of love they may have. For some, denial and the guilt of desertion is more tolerable than the acceptance of reality. For some people, loss becomes incomprehensible. So we run. We run when every fiber of our beings are screaming to do otherwise. When our conscience is ordering us to stay, when our own voices are screaming at us to balls up, we run. We run when our feet want to stop, when we hate ourselves for the betrayal, and even when our hearts hurt so much they don’t seem worth having.

Or at least, that’s why I ran.

It’s why I couldn’t bring myself to visit Cody during his final hospitalization. It’s why I ignored the chance for redemption with Becky.

I ran because I was a coward.

It’s not my place to assume the situations of the couples in the article. Relationships are difficult, they are complicated, and most times, can really only be understood by the two parties that create it. I don’t know anything about the couples studied. I don’t know how they met, when they got engaged, or where they were married. There are numerous variables that probably factored into their dissolution of marriage, and I don’t have any of those facts.

I was quick to become angry and brand these husbands (or ex-husbands) as cowards and asses. I became angrier and angrier each time I read the article, but it wasn’t until I really delved into my own experiences and history that I realized I was mostly angry about how much the article resonated with me – because no matter what reason these men had for leaving their wives during a devastating diagnosis, I couldn’t blame them, not completely, not the way I really wanted to… without admitting my faults as well.

I hope that one of these days, I will gain the courage to explain to Becky – to apologize – why I bailed when I knew better. And god forbid if I ever get another chance to redeem myself, if I am ever thrown back in that scene, I will take it. I won’t be selfish. I won’t run. I won’t even shift my feet.

Because forgiveness is a lot harder to grant when you’re asking yourself.