Or do we just make up excuses for ourselves to make us feel better? It's an interesting question which I'm pretty sure there's no right or wrong answer to... but it's kind of cool to think about... When one thing happens and then something as a result happens because of it, is it a coincidence, a chain of events, or is that just an excuse we give ourselves to justify what we did earlier and make us feel less stupid or less regretful of what we did?
STORY TIME...
This past week and a half I have been back in my home, well, home in Canada, Calgary. Bracing freezing -20 temperatures and leaving my semi-new life behind in beautiful British Columbia to be back here spending the Christmas with my friends and most importantly my parents. Except things didn't really go all that well... The first two days I got back I was still a bit caught up with the cold I managed to get right before leaving Vancouver, but that's okay, I didn't actually have much planned those two days other than relax, rest so I could get better and embark on some adventures with my friends. Unfortunately my days "resting" with the exception of one night didn't really work out as well as I had planned, I went out for drinks/food with some school friends, then stayed up quite late at another friend's house watching them play Majong then proceeded to go home and do some non-productive work (video games, guitar, and talking on the phone) till pretty late... needless to say the rest I was hoping to get didn't exactly happen. The next day I met up with a friend and went to the Oval and did some ice skating... never thought I'd actually do this again willingly, but it's one of those things where I guess I didn't realize how much I enjoyed it till I got the hang of doing it, I had tons of fun and we spent over 3 hours non-stop skating on the biggest rink I've ever been on, in the meantime I had some deep conversations with my friend which was quite invigorating to the mind. Later on that night I had plans to meet up with other friends for dinner, as I was about to leave the house my mom calls me and says.. "wait, don't leave yet".. thinking it was something like.. "can you pickup milk" or something trivial... I waited in the kitchen profusely while constantly checking my phone at the time... then the next thing I hear is.. "uh.. your dad's sick, gotta go to rocky view" (rocky view is a hospital near my house). I'm not really sure how I felt at this point, not gonna lie I was upset because I was already late, but at the same time I was a little worried, so for the next bit my life goal suddenly shifted to get my dad to the hospital as quickly as possible.
the drive to the hospital
While my dad was in the back seat throwing up, I was attempting to speed down the icy roadways of Calgary trying to remember exactly how to get to the hospital the fastest. I don't deal well with someone puking around me, I get sick easily, if I see someone throw up, I will throw up even if I was perfectly healthy... so I had to concentrate my hardest on just driving and tried to ignore everything that was going on behind me. Once we finally got to the hospital I parked asian style and ran in to get a wheel chair, proceeded to help my dad on the wheel chair and pushed him into the ER queue. I left to go meet my friends to which I was an hour late and right before leaving I told my mom to call me as soon as anything happens. Initially at dinner I wasn't sure how I felt, but then I started talking with my friends (about random stuff) and I sorta let what just happened sink to the back of my mind, we ended up staying past till the restaurant closed and was pretty much forced to leave, that was fun, and filling, we had korean bbq and it was really good, minus the smell it left on my jacket.
still waiting for that phone call
It had now been 3 hours since I dropped my mom and dad off at the hospital and I still hadn't heard back, so I attempted to call my mom and it just went straight to voicemail.. I'm like.. ok, well why don't I just go home and wait, in the meantime I'll package up those tires I picked up earlier in the morning to drop them off at Greyhound to ship to Vancouver for my car. So I went home and started doing that, after an hour and a half later I was finally finished, I went back to my room and proceeded to play guitar for an indefinite period of time... I check my phone and it's now 4am... I kept my phone on loud as I proceeded to fall asleep phone in my hand. *RING RING*, 7ish am and I am awoken by a call from my mom, "wow you're awake, you answered so quick, sorry there was no reception here, can you come pick me up, I have an appointment". So I quickly got up and drove again to the hospital to pickup my mom. Once I brought her home I went straight back to bed, except I couldn't sleep well, I was starting to feel... sick. My head was starting to feel quite heavy and my body ached, I chalked it up to wrestling with four 40lb winter tires the night before and didn't think much about it. I woke up shortly after and forced myself out of bed as I needed to bring those packaged tires to Greyhound that day, as I didn't have any time the rest of the days I was here since I was planning on going skiing and hiking the next 2 days. After bringing the tires to greyhound I got home and felt like I was going to die, I was so exhausted and my head must've been on fire at this point I just crashed on my bed, till around 8pm or so when my mom woke me up and said.. "Oh you're here... aren't you suppose to be at your friend's house". Then I realized.. oh crap, yeah... I guess not anymore. Then as I attempted to get up I realized I was not just tired, but I had a fever, not a super high one mind you, but the highest one I can recall having for a number of years, all I could think about was my skip trip tomorrow, what am I going to do. At this point I hadn't taken anything except for vitamin C tablets as I had been the entire time since I was back. My mom made me take a tylenol and I felt a bit better shortly after that, I then proceeded to get extremely pissed off and wrote the blog post you see before this one titled "FTS."
FTS.
I was pretty mad, not really sure at who, it was more at myself for being stupid, at the end of the day I got myself into this situation by not taking care of my health, but at the same time, if my dad didn't get sick I would've been okay, I think... but was I the one who got my dad sick in the first place? Who knows, anyway I stopped thinking about it because ultimately I can't really blame anyone but myself. So I punched my table a few times and just gave up and went back to sleep. The next day I wake up feeling just as bad, and funny thing is the first thing I think of again is the trip to Kananaskis with my friends the next day, I was thinking to myself if I have to cancel this I am going to kill someone. So I spent most of that day trying to force myself back to bed, without much luck I kept waking up feeling like crap and my fever hadn't gone down at all since the first day, my mom kept wanting me to go see a doctor but I hate them so I declined. Finally it was so late I had to decide whether tomorrow was still on or not as we had to pickup rental gear that night if we were still going to go, as much as I wanted to I sadly sent the message that I had to cancel.
-----
So... these are the things I told myself as a result of this past week:
1) Life is unexpected - No matter what you plan for, sh*t happens, and most of the time there's not much you can do about that, you just have to learn to cope and deal with it as it happens..
2) Make the best of what you have - Yeah, none of my plans went well, i got sick, I pretty much didn't leave my house the past few days, but I did manage to play a lot of guitar, and I have now realized playing guitar is another one of those hidden interests which I didn't really realize I had till now. I still suck, but I've never had more fun playing an instrument that causes pain in my fingers.
3) Don't blame others - Sure you could spend all day playing the blame game, but what's the point. Just move on and deal with it.
----
Whether or not those are excuses I gave myself as a result of what happened, or the seemingly poor choices I made that may or may not have resulted in what occurred. I guess we'll never know, but sometimes making a poor choice is what causes us to learn... and grow. I'm a strong believer in learning from our own experiences, what we've done in the past (including what you did 5 minutes ago) makes us who we are today, good or bad decisions, they all add up to become something... quite indescribable.
And oh, on a somewhat unrelated note, I also did something I'm not sure if I should've done.. but oh well, time will tell.
PS: I feel better now, my fever is gone, finally.
No comments:
Post a Comment