A Series of Unfortunate Events

At Longwood I had this really quirky guy that was a Professor in the English Department and the class I was enrolled in was called "Teaching Children's and YA Literature". Our entire syllabus consisted of reading a variety of suggested books, commenting on them, then creating lessons using said books. It was basically a book club using kid lit. Which is totally right up my alley. One of the worst critiques I remember presenting was on Lemony Snickett's books, "A Series of Unfortunate Events". For my class, it was a love it or hate it series and I was the ring leader of the "hate fans". What kid wanted to read about the depressing lives of orphans?

 

I was 20 while attending that class. I lived at home and even though I also worked full-time, life was pretty much handed to me on a glistening, shiny, silver platter. Now, as a 28 year old teacher, I'm finally beginning to see the glistening, shiny, silver linings that come from appreciating a book series that eight years ago I despised. I'm a walking, talking, live version of a character from A Series of Unfortunate Events. I could basically have Jennifer Lawrence play me in a movie about my Unfortunate Events. I'm pretty much Oscar-award entertaining.

 

Since it's January, I officially declared myself as resolutionless. Historically, I'm a take-the-situation-as-it-is kind of girl. Especially situations I have no control over. This being the case, there's no need to declare dramatically what I'm going to change this year because, also historically, things are going to do what they want anyway. Hence what has happened to me this week.

 

For weeks, I've been working up to a somewhat sort of motivation to exercise. This is a long process. It usually involves me looking at old pictures of my skinny self. Then pinning 150 diet ideas on pinterest. Then talking about exercising with my friends and coworkers. Then realizing I have no cute exercise clothes so I squash thoughts of publically exercising. Then I think about how I can't exercise alone because I won't hold myself accountable, just like I can't go to the bathroom in public alone because I don't wash my hands after I tinkle unless somebody is there to judge me. Hey, that's what tiny Bath & Body Works germ-x is for. Annnnnnd I'm back to square one.

 

Up until I was a card-carrying recurrent miscarriager, I considered myself a pretty healthy person. Then it's alllll down hill from there, apparently. I don't consider myself a hypochondriac. I'm more like a person who has a medical flare for the dramatics. My very first "real" gynecologist papsmear at age 19 resulted in a surgery the very next week because I had an ovarian cyst that was about to bust. I couldn't just have braces ONCE, I had to have them twice, the second occurring at age 25 along with a side dose of 2 broken jaws. When I try to get pregnant like a normal 26 year old, I end up embarking on this road of insanity that has been 4 miscarriages. At 27, having never had a broken bone (other than jaws but they don't count because I don't have a cool story about how they got broken) I fall out of a chair and land on my elbow and have to wear a sling and wrap for weeks on end (and THERE'S the cool story to which I was referring). And more recently,  at 28, my first bout of heartburn the other night results in a diagnosis of gallstones that have to be removed ASAP. See, medical dramatics!

 

Gallstones? What am I? 60? At 3:00am the other night I'm thinking I'm having a heart attack while pacing the living room. I'm like, looking around the house, trying to mentally give away my stuff to people I'm about to leave behind. I'm thinking that I'll never get the chance to Blindside a kid. And I don't mean physically hit them, I mean, if it comes down to it and we have to adopt, I'm dying my hair blonde, going to the ghetto, and finding the best kid-athlete orphan I can find and Sandra Bullocking him. Seriousness was going down at my house Sunday night, people.

 

So, alas, it has come to my attention that the disaster that was 2013 for Mike and I will also now dribble over onto 2014. I'm meeting with a surgeon next week to discuss options, and praying that another attack won't happen between now and then because I'm down to deciding who gets the Jonathan Taylor Thomas autographed glossy photo and seasons 1-3 of Jersey Shore. The struggle is real.

It'll get better, they said. Make lemonade, they said. Well, since all the lemonade in my world is bitter right now, I guess the best thing I can do is look back on the sour parts and toss a little sugar on them. After all, the series "A Series of Unfortunate Events" (aptly named, 'The Complete Wreck' <---- can I get this monogrammed on all my shirts?!) eventually, ended.