I know I haven’t had many excerpts lately but I promise they will come back as soon as I am sane and in one piece.

When I mentioned that my back was broken yesterday, I meant it. Last night, I lay in bed almost crying from the pain. There was absolutely no possible position in which I could curl up and not hurt myself. I tried lying on my back, my stomach, my side, half leg off the bed, both legs under my stomach. None of it worked. Nothing. Nada!

So this morning after a few hours of walking around hunched and changing positions in my chair every few seconds, I started worrying that something might have gone seriously wrong. I have a family full of people with slipped disks, so I had reason to worry. My wonderful doctor was kind enough to give me an appointment pretty much right away and she told me, thankfully, that I hadn’t injured anything permanently but that I wasn’t in real good shape. She gave me some strong drugs (weee!) to take the pain away and told me that she wants me to do physical therapy. Ugh!

My experiences with physical therapy are horrendous at best. I had years of it back at home. It was okay while the guy was doing it but minutes after he’d leave the pain would start shooting up and down my spine and I’d end up, curled up on the floor, weeping. You must understand that after such magnificent memories, I am really not looking forward to these sessions. It might even be better to keep walking around hunched up.

Thanks to Heather, I had my first laugh today. Thanks for making my day, I really needed it, especially today.

I came home, all bummed out, really feeling quite miserable. About forty minutes later, I called my friend John who lives in Japan and we talked for quite a while and I am so glad we did. From December of last year to this past May, I was living in Tokyo, for work and I had no friends whatsoever. John, and his now girlfriend Liz, were two of my closest friends. John actually ate lunch with my almost every single day of those six months. We even sat at the restaurant, him reading his book and me reading mine. He listened to me whine about my job and played the typing arcade game with me until the wee hours of the morning. Liz took me to my first and second hairdresser trips. Since she knows how to speak Japanese, she talked to the funnily dressed woman who was about to change the length and color of my hair. If it weren’t for her, I would have never had the opportunity to experience the hair washing machines that wash your hair on their own. Just like sticking your head in a toilet bowl. By the time I got off the phone, I missed Japan and felt thankful for my friends, no matter how much or little I get to speak to them. Thank you John and Liz for being the best! Since they are both taking the same Japanese exam as I am on Sunday (well Liz is taking the expert level but it’s on the same day) I also wanted to wish them both tons of luck!

May you always be surrounded with friends (and no backache).

Before?

Thoughts
Starting at age 11, I wrote in my diary every single day. So much so that my friends would make fun of me. To top it off, I was a very private person and shared my feelings with no one, which made these diaries even more precious. My friends would tease about having read them and I’d fly off the handle, as they wanted me to.

The greatest thing about having written years of diaries is that I can now go back and read them all. Amidst the childish blabber, I find some gems.

During the last years of high school and in the beginning of college, I used to ask people to write me letters. Handwritten ones. As much as they whined about it, I have all these amazing letters now. Trust me when I say that they are much more precious than email. I had this theory (which I still believe in) that people feel more comfortable writing things down as opposed to vocalizing them. Somehow when we write them down, things become easier to say. We can talk about our feelings and our disappointments, etc.

When you write things down, you don’t have to worry about the opposite party’s reaction. You don’t have to worry about their disappointment, lack of excitement, disapproval, anger, bewilderment or anything else. You just pour things out, writing to a faceless entity. I’ve found that this process makes people more honest, more open and more at ease. Don’t believe me? Give it a try!

Before?