Since a friend died in February 2003, it’s been my worst month. Both his birthday and the anniversary of his accident are in February, exactly two weeks apart.

No matter what I did, I would re-live all those emotions of that week year after year.

But after a little bit of progress last year, I’ve noticed a huge shift this year. You know what I think of when I think about this, the eighth, February?

I think about the start of Spring Training. I think about things that will feed my Android obsession, like whatever Android-related announcement Sprint is making on the 7th and Mobile World Congress. Then I think about baseball some more.

Yes, what happened eight years ago still weighs on me. But it’s not consuming my every thought, emotion, and moment. And if you had asked me three years ago if that would ever be possible for this month, I would have thought you were crazy for even asking the question.

But I’ve finally gotten there.

For the first time in eight years, I can say…

Happy February!

But just how am I doing that?

• First, this is hanging above my head as a nice little reminder as I do most of my work:

It’s also one of the first things I see when I look up in the morning.

• I’ve taken to opening my blinds when I’m home in the middle of the day. I have this wonderful view overlooking the pool, with the mountains in the distance, and I never took advantage of that last quarter.  Doing this has also allowed me to spend some time doing one of my favorite things: watching the planes line up to land at the nearby airport.
• One of the biggest changes from last year to this year: I told people what I’m doing. People are holding me accountable. But more than that, they’re encouraging me.
• Something I really perfected the art of last year: Plenty of sleep. But more than that, plenty of rest. I only go to school 3 days a week. While I have an internship, the schedule is completely up to me. Which means I work around my rest (that’s working for now).
• Writing. Over the last two years, I stopped writing as much. I would say over and over again that I wanted to get back into it. I would buy moleskine after moleskine to start anew. But so far, I’ve actually been putting pen to paper. And it feels good.

Do you have one word for the year? How’s it going?

It all started on my way back to school after spending the weekend at home. My 4 month old iPod, Martin Jebediah, shut off. And, well, I should have known then, at 12:30 am, that the rest of my night was going to go sour.

I got back to my apartment and things were a little off. And that shouldn’t have been a big deal. But at 1:30 in the morning, when I was already a little irritated, changing anything from what I expect and my routine was too much for me to handle. (Okay, it’s always a little too much. But it throws off an entire week when it happens just.like.this.)

When I awoke, there was a slew of new issues in my financial situation since my debit card number was stolen almost 3 weeks ago. In fact, Barnes and Noble Customer Service almost got an ear-ful about their charge. But they kept me on hold for 10 minutes.

That 10 minutes allowed me to calm myself down. It allowed me to realize it wasn’t that person’s fault that anything that had happened in the previous 2 weeks, or the previous 12 hours. It wasn’t even her fault that her company was charging me, though it would have been easy to place that blame.

And so she got the polite me. Not the hysterical me.

But overall, I was still freaking out. Still frustrated and tired of it all.

By Wednesday night, I thought I was getting better. I thought I was calming down a bit. And then there were more problems. And I was sure I would leave my credit union this weekend, after holding my account there for all 22 years of my life. Even though my rational head said it was stupid.

So with my classes done for the week, I did what I always do when I’m really stressed and the opportunity presents itself: I slept. For a long time. And when I awoke, I still didn’t budge. I stayed there until food became more important.

And when I got to my computer, I managed to fix some issues. And some others fixed themselves. And, well, Barnes and Noble will have to wait until I have a new debit card (again)…or a new credit union.

Hopefully, I can (once again) finally get this whole mess cleaned up. Hopefully, I’ll be able to fully use my account after this week. And hopefully a good 3.5 days at home will help calm me down and get me ready for the stressful school weeks ahead.

Because I don’t know how much longer I can deal with both.

Instead of traditional New Years resolutions, my friend Alece does this awesome thing where she picks one word to focus on throughout the year.  She then asks her friends to join in and do the same. I somewhat secretly participated last year.  That is, I’m pretty sure Alece is the only one who knew I was doing it at all.

But that’s how I needed it to be. I needed it to be a private battle. Because in 2010, my word was forgiveness. It started out as a way to get myself to forgive the beatings my heart took in 2009. But it turned into so much more than that (Isn’t that the way it always goes?). Focusing on forgiveness helped me to take a step back and look at things thrown my way from a different perspective. It helped me deal with some pretty big obstacles in a different way. And though I can’t say that I ended 2010 by forgiving all the hurts that I originally set out to, I’m a heck of a lot closer than I ever imagined I would be.

But along the way in 2010, a secondary word also developed.  As I struggled with my health, I found myself making some lifestyle changes.  The biggest one was rest.  While I’ve always been one to make time for sleep, I haven’t always made time for rest. Over the course of the year, I started to make time for both.  I started to become more aware of what my body was telling me, on both a physical and emotional level.

And so I’m going to continue with both of those words in 2011, this time with people knowing about it to hold me accountable.  But I’m also throwing in a new one: calm.

It took me awhile to settle on a word this year. And it had a lot to do with my last several months of 2010, which were utter chaos.  But in that chaos, I learned a lot about myself. And there’s a lot that I would like to work on. But all of the words that I came up with, frankly, sounded perfect for 2012. I’m just not there yet. I need a word to get me from here to there.

Finally, in the rush of getting back to school before the quarter started, it hit me. I need to find new ways to look for the calm in my life. To take some time to relax. Before I can start work on other aspects of myself, I need to first reduce my anxiety level. Because my stress level is ridiculous…just ask the facial twitch I developed towards the end of last year

In a year that I will graduate and search for job opportunities, along with who knows what else, it has become clear that calm is one thing that I’m lacking. And I don’t want to lack anymore.

Step 1: Clean my room.

It’s hard to believe that a year ago, I was gearing up to go to New York City for the first time.

I was in such a different place then. Parts of my world were crumbling around me. I knew that not only was I going to be experiencing the wonders of the city, but that I would also be leaving a part of my crumbling self there.

What I didn’t quite expect is that I would leave even more of myself there than that.  In the 11 months since I’ve returned, I have done nothing but long for the city.  I have never before missed a place so much that I had never lived in.

But I do. I ache for it. I even save pictures that people post on twitter. It’s gotten to the point where I have to stop myself:

“It’s just the Empire State Building in a different color, Marisa. You don’t need it on your phone.”

“But it’s pretty! And…it’s where you want to be!”

“You already have 20 others.”

“No, that one is blue on the bottom and white on top. This one is white on the bottom and blue on top.”

*Blank stare*

I miss the aromas of food seeping out into the city streets.  I still have cravings for my favorites.  It’s a good thing I don’t have a credit card, nor frequent flier miles.

Part of me wonders if it’s not so much that the city is that amazing, that wondrous, but what happened in New York. On January 1st, I bid adieu to a significant portion of my life. I took the elevator back up to the 14th floor from the hotel lobby on that crisp winter day and the picture of my life was suddenly vastly different.

But it’s never as easy as an elevator ride, a nap, and a new life, right? I’m still picking up the pieces of that old life. I’m still living with decisions I made. There’s still a voice in the back of my head that tells me things that simply aren’t true.

One side of me says that I simply miss the beauty that is New York–the city lights, the atmosphere, the food, everything it has to offer.  The other side of me says that it’s not New York itself I miss; it’s that brief version of myself that stood in that elevator on January 1st. The one that was free.

Maybe it’s both.

A class I’m taking this quarter has beat me down in just about every way–physically, mentally, emotionally. It’s normal to have one, maybe two, real breakdowns a quarter. On the 5th day of class, I had my second. As such, it’s very easy for me to look ahead to when I’ll be raising that degree in the air in June.

Then I walk into my favorite tea shop and realize that if I do in fact move away from here, I only have a few more months to savor it. A few more months of the people who know my face because I’ve been going there weekly for the last four years.

Every day, I thoughtlessly walk across the bridge that I distastefully call the “bridge of death” because of the toll it takes on my body. But the truth is, I have walked over that bridge every day for the last three years. It is my territory. I hate it, but it’s mine to hate.

Next quarter, I will be finishing all of my psychology requirements. It’s bittersweet, really. It’ll be great to be done with the psychology half of my degree. But throughout all of my time here, I have considered myself a student of psychology. The fact that I have a major in criminology is quite secondary. I feel like that part of my identity is being ripped from me, when that’s nowhere near the case. It’s just up to me now. They’ve given me the foundation; it’s up to me to build.

I know that I have lived out my time here. By the time June rolls around, I will have taken what feels like hundreds of psychology and criminology courses. I will have conducted my own research study. I will have completed a 6-month long internship at a research and consultation organization. Staying here any longer would be hazardous to my personal growth.

Some days, though, I wish I could stay in this protective bubble, sipping my tea as I walk across the my bridge of death, for just a little while longer.

Now that it’s nearing a year since the whole process started (and I’m trying to get back into this whole blogging thing, when I should be writing resumes, cover letters, and papers), I think it’s time for a legitimate update.

To be honest, it’s been an interesting road with the neurologist. He put me on some meds that took awhile to adjust to. After some trial and error, I was finally put on preventative migraine meds for the first time in my life. I don’t know what took them 15 years to do it, but if I take nothing else from this experience, that alone was worth it. Nine months later, I am no longer on any of the other medicines he prescribed to me. Any benefit they might have had at the beginning has completely dwindled.

Since January, I have had an EMG and an MRI.

The EMG was AW-FUL. Ok, the first part was really cool. The nerd side of me quite enjoyed listening to my neurons firing. But the part where they stick you in the spine with a 6-inch long needle? Twice? And then ask you to move your leg just so? Not so much. That test seriously put me out for 2 weeks. I cannot imagine that I was any fun to be around.

And the MRI. We were actually hoping that it wouldn’t come back clean. So when they called back the following week saying that the results were “within normal limits,” we were a little disheartened, though I had a sneaky suspicion they weren’t telling me something. And because of how much pain I dealt with all summer, we were prepared to fight with my neurologist and anyone we had to when I went in September in order to get more tests done to figure out what was going on.

But it never got to that point. You see, what “within normal limits” meant was that they didn’t find the bulging disc that they were looking for on the MRI. They did, however, find significant degeneration of the facets of my spine. Normal for a 60-70 year old. Not for a 21 year old. Finally an explanation. Granted, we still don’t know what’s causing the cause of my pain. But we know something. (And my 16 year old self says: Ha! I told you I didn’t “just strain my back.”)

So, my neurologist referred me to Pain Management. After reviewing my case, they’ll decide what kind of diagnostic dye injection test they’ll need to perform and from there, what form of spinal injection treatment.

As awful as all that sounds, most of the time, I look forward to it. Because I thought I was in a lot of pain when this whole process started, but I knew nothing yet.

A lot has happened in the last year. But this week, I’m thinking about his wife and kids, who are still trying to put their lives back together. I’m thinking about a family whose hearts and worlds were shattered a year ago.

This week, I hope they know that they’re not alone in picking up the pieces.

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Ryan Day was a social science teacher at my high school. One who was never my teacher, but who was good friends with all of my best teachers. So it’s no surprise that over my four years there, we were on friendly terms.

I’ll never forget the time he heard me call a character in a novel (I forget which character in which novel) a “prick.” He acted surprised to humor my conservative English teacher. But he laughed as he walked out the door. That was my junior year.

In March of my senior year, my brother and I went to a Dropkick Murphys concert at Morongo Casino. To our surprise, we ran into Mr. Day and one of the other teachers at my school. We ended up hanging out the entire night. The 3 of them served as my body guards from all the moshers and the like. I’ll never forget the way Mr. Day could deal with a drunk Marine.

When it came time to pick a teacher to invite to my Top Scholars’ banquet at the end of the year, there was no question in my mind. I was foolish enough not to tell him I invited him; it was a surprise. He almost didn’t show. I am so grateful that he did.

Christmas Day 2007, Ryan Day had a stroke. The doctors found a brain tumor. They successfully removed it and he began to rehabilitate. He had to learn how to walk all over again, but things were going as well as they could be. Then things went south again. He underwent 4 surgeries. By the beginning of the 2008-09 school year, he had run out of paid sick leave. The district asked all of the teachers in the district to give up as many as they could. He and his wife had two small kids to support. My mom gladly gave up 10.

Yesterday, Ryan Day lost his fight with brain cancer.

I hope he knows how many hearts broke yesterday. I hope he knows that former students and non-students all mourned the loss of a great man, father, husband, friend and teacher.

I hope he knows.

(Originally posted on this day last year)

I had a rough few weeks following an EMG several weeks ago. I’m still adjusting to even more meds.

But now that I’m finally starting to actually be present most days, maybe I can make some progress on the number of posts on my dashboard just waiting to be finished.

Maybe.