Well, Well, Well...

Make sure you're sitting down everyone. I know I've made a lot of promises regarding this issue, but I finally did it. I finally made an appointment for my wisdom tooth surgery. I sure am going to be one fun, giant ball of anxiety until the moment of sedation!

After a lot of nudging from both personal and professional sources, I finally called for a consultation. I woke up bright n' early this morning to head to the oral surgeon to see what he had to say.

I got there and was greeted by delightful staff and a very lovely, tech-savvy office. I watched Obama make some jokes on Leno while I filled out my patient information. A cute child tried to pet my leopard flats.

"This isn't so bad," I thought. "You have been building this up for no reason. It's not like you even hate the dentist. What if you get back there and he's like 'LOLZ, U DON'T NEED TO GET THESE TAKEN OUT!' What if he lets me stay conscious? I can do this! I can conquer the world!!"

My overly nice dental assistant got me comfy, despite the fact that my view was kind of disorienting. It's weird looking at your own mouth on the big-screen.

I told her it might be scary in there since my teeth have been bothering me off and on since January. She boosted my confidence by noting they see a lot of "meth mouth." Sorry for the addicts, but not so sorry for finding a dental assistant who scratched my huge "Breaking Bad" itch. Again, what had I been worried about? THINGS ARE GOING TO BE FINE, RIGHT?!

The surgeon walked in and was beyond pleasant. He looked professional yet friendly, certainly capable of ripping my teeth out of my face bones. He kind of poked around my mouth for 30 seconds and then used my mouth map to tell me what was up.

"See these teeth here, here, and here? They're all covered in bone. Oh, and behind this one? That's a cyst, and we're going to have to test that to make sure it's not something worse. Because of all this, you're going to have to be asleep via an IV drip."

I replied with some nervous laughs and let him know I'd done way too much research, so I knew that tumors could develop because of your wisdom teeth. EHEHEH, IT'S SO FUNNY, I'M DEALING WITH THIS SO WELL, DOC! Inside my head though, my optimism was crashing and burning as my cynicism screamed "DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU'D GET OFF THAT EASY?!"

I chatted with him about my overwhelming fear of anesthesia after he let me know there was no way around sedation. The assistant had taken my blood pressure and instantly commented about how low it was, so she was there to back me up. He assured me about as much as anyone could ever hope to, and mentioned that the medicine would even make my blood pressure rise. He also promised a 20-30 minute surgery. Come on, little body, we can hold out for that long, can't we? Pretty please?

So I discussed price (JESUS.) with the insurance coordinator and made my appointment for the earliest time slot available on Halloween. I figure the juju of my favorite holiday has got to count for something.

I spent the remainder of my day starting to make arrangements for next week and trying to convince my dad to film my post-op jokes in the recovery room. He's not really a huge fan of the idea.

I'll probably say my farewells to everyone, make a last will and testament video, and cry a lot about my ultimate demise, but when I wake up on the other side four teeth and a potential tumor less, I'll feel like a big ol' dummy. A BIG 'UN! Especially since it looks like Hurricane Sandy will kill all of us that week anyway.

One Step at a Time

It's funny how much you can change your own life. Since promising myself I was going to get over my fears, I've felt much more confident and free. I pride myself on being those things 365 days a year, but I had unknowingly lost a little of each in the face of my strange phobias. Simply saying I wasn't going to let them control me anymore loosened their grip on me. I'm not cured, but I am now bold enough to be cured.

I wasn't sure where to start facing my fears. Do I bungee jump off a bridge? Do I hop a flight to Paris? Do I ask for a loan to start the small business I've built in my head? I didn't really know, especially when I had daily to-do lists longer than Adrien Brody's nose. I had no choice but to start small, so that's just what I did.

I don't have a phobia of the phone per say, but I do have quite the aversion to it. I always have. I will leave my phone in a room far across the house so I don't have to handle it. Most people feel this incessant need to talk, even if they're talking about nothing - a gene I missed out on somewhere. Rather than give endless and blatant social cues to someone who will inevitably disregard my schedule, I just don't make it an issue by deleting it from my itinerary. It's probably a point of contention for some of my pals, but I hate holding that beautiful iPhone up to my face for longer than five minutes.

Last week I spent a day calling all of my friends to catch up. It was honestly mostly out of forgetfulness (and a few shameless TV marathons) that we hadn't chatted in so long, but because of this extreme distaste I have for the phone, it dawned on me that it was entirely possible I had subconsciously put it off. I realized I might have let this whole me versus the phone thing edge closer and closer to a becoming a full-blown fear than was healthy.

While I am not physically afraid of the phone, I do fear getting phone calls from unwanted chit-chatters. I fear I will receive bad news that will destroy my day or I'll have to listen to a barrage of shit I do not care about. I fear my conversation won't be conveyed correctly because my face isn't there to accompany my words. But most of all, I have always been afraid that my friends won't understand my missing telephone gene. I fear when I go a few days without returning a friend's phone call that they will take it the wrong way, that they will think it's them, but it's me. It's always been me.

I realized very quickly that I had to stop avoiding the phone to avoid a harder turnaround later in life. While I will never be satisfied chatting away on my deck for hours – looking at you, Mom – I have to insert this annoying communication device back in my life. Because I want to? No. Because I have to? Of course. I don't want to become Howard Hughes, J.D. Salinger, or Monk's brother. (That was a super meta reference. If you don't get it, you're probably the worst..... or you have a life.)

Since that day, I have been carrying my phone around with me a lot more. I have been making an effort to answer calls, and those I haven't, I've tried to return more promptly. My borderline fear was stunting me from fully living, and that's the whole purpose of overturning these gonnas.

I will never, ever have proper phone etiquette, but at least I've steered clear of a ridiculous, inconvenient phobia.

Fear is a Dangerous Thing

Coming from someone who has a lot of experience with the F word, fear is truly the most dangerous entity in the world. I don't really know if it can be classified as an emotion, maybe a feeling, but whatever it is, is perilous to life.

Most of my fears are physical: heights, flying, serial killers hiding in my house, bad health, elevators falling, house fires... you know, the lot of neuroses most people would claim as being one of their irrational phobias because we're all scared of the same shit, deep down inside. These stem from places inside us, but we can touch the airplanes, the buildings, and the matches that could burn our house and memories to ash.

But the most detrimental fears are those that live solely in our heads, the things that fuel our physical fears but aren't necessarily tangible to our fingertips: fear of failure, of loss, of being alone, of success, of love, of dying. The list goes on. I have most of these fears and they're extremely deep-seated. (Being alone and love aren't in my mental list. I've racked up a lot of solo time lately and I've been surviving. Oh, and love ain't scary, 'cause I got it and it's so, so delicious.)

The difference between my dreading these things and everyone else dreading them is that I let the fear take over. I let it impede the things I do. I let it dictate my life. I can't travel to the dazzling places I dream of because I can't hop on a plane. I can't throw myself into my many ideas for the future because I'm terrified I'll fail. I can't not get winded climbing up the stairs of a 20-foot building because I just didn't trust the shady, smelly elevator.

Fear is my Ike Turner, but enough is enough. I'm prepared to run penniless from our hotel and get the hell outta this shitty, abusive relationship I have with fear.

As you long-time readers have noticed, this blog has evolved to more of a personal one over the months. It is peppered with gonnas here and there, the kind of stuff that was the life-blood of this blog in its beginning days, but it is so much more now. It became what it should have - the continuation of The Gonna Girl's life after she no longer had to get y'all, or herself, to publicly force her to do the things she said she would.

So here it is, evolving again. While I no longer need to note and then complete gonnas for groceries, cleaning, and job-hunting, I do need to complete gonnas pertaining to all of these fears blocking me from living a full life. I no longer need to record my every move every month because I am doing those things off camera, off blog. I do need to document me jumping over massive hurdles and conquering the things that scare me the most.

I'll continue posting random stuff about my life, ranting in HB entries, and attempting to make everyone laugh with my writing, but the gonnas as you've known them will be gone. They will be more meaningful, more difficult to overcome. The gonnas might show up less often because they are so massive to overcome in my brain, but perhaps they will be easier to tackle than I could have ever possibly imagined.

Wish me luck!

P.S. If you haven't read my past entry, it's important to do so! It will benefit the needy in this holiday season. Feel free to pass it along :) Love you all.

Always, Always Will

"You're waiting for a train, a train that will take you far away."

Sometimes it takes an outsider to give you perspective on a situational problem. Sometimes, that person is you.

In the middle of the trip, somewhere between walking in Central Park and laughing over drinks, I realized that NYC will always be my dream. I will always feel at home there. I will always feel an undeniable pull back to the city lights. I will eventually and always come back.

But like Ms. Norbury, I’m a pusher. I pushed myself and others around me into accepting my dream because I felt, and still feel far too often, like no one takes what I have to say seriously. Yes, I had legitimate reasons for my trip, but I also had to metaphorically slap everyone in the face so they could see I meant business.

I still do mean business. I mean it wholeheartedly, but I found out that I don’t have to push myself so hard, so fast, to get it done. I don’t have to rush my dream into fruition, even though I have a constant fear of my life ending before I see it come true (thanatophobia/necrophobia). I don’t have to make my happy ending harder than it needs to be.

Even if half of my relocation plans hadn’t fallen through, at the end of the day, I don’t want to have to struggle when I make Manhattan my home. I don’t want to have to run myself ragged to make enough money for shelter, food, and fun. I don’t want to have to feel my health deteriorate as I lose sleep to gain funds or notoriety. I don’t want to lose any more sleep period.

I always thought that if I didn’t achieve the dream fast enough that it would never happen, but now I see that if I don’t do it slow enough, it’ll all just as promptly crash and burn. Not only will my wallet reject the sudden change, but my body and mind will, too. I will shut down and that can’t happen. I need all three to survive, especially in the city.

Like my walking, my nights, my copyediting, and my recovery from anything, I have to take it slow. I can’t walk too fast, party at all, send a piece of writing off without millions of edits, or bounce back the next day from a cold or night of heavy drinking. It was silly of me to think anything else in my life would be different. For the first time in my life, though, that trademark slowness doesn’t repulse me.

That slowness represents who I am and is what makes me different from everyone else. I don’t wait beside my phone for anyone because most of the time, it can wait. I don’t speed because most of the time, I get there just as fast as everyone else. I don’t run anywhere because most of the time, there’s a better view when you walk.

Besides, if I run toward a dream instead of strolling there, I leave behind all of the things that shaped me along the way. Not allowing myself to give them all a proper goodbye would be unflattering and unforgivable.

I like my parents. I really do. I think they’re great and interesting people who took the time to make me smart and funny and creative and silly. They still have the ability to make me feel safe in a world that is horrid. They give me great advice that they might think I don’t take to heart, but I always do. I wouldn’t want them thinking I was leaving because they hadn’t cared for me enough. They always have and always will.

I like my sister. She makes me laugh, even when we’re fighting. I wouldn’t want her to think I was leaving because she wasn’t a good right-hand-man, because she always has been and always will be.

I like my family in general, because it is so vast and so different, but at the end of the day, we all love each other. We all know that time doesn’t matter because we are tied by the bonds of blood (or marriage or choice.) I wouldn’t want them to think that those bonds weren’t strong enough for me, because they always have been and always will be.

I like my friends. They put up with my erratic phone habits and are always around to shoot the shit. They forgive me when I screw up and let me hang out with them, even when I disappear for a while. I wouldn’t want them to think I was leaving because they just weren’t enough for me, because they always have been and always will be.

I like my dog. I like my homes, both in Greensboro and Boone. I like the South. I like the weather. I like my car. I like the food. I like the laughter. Most of all, I love the love it all becomes mixed together.

I wouldn’t want that love for all of it, for all of them, to feel like I was leaving it because I didn’t love it with all of my heart. I always do and I always will.

So I’ll take my time. Take my time padding my wallet, padding my health, padding my heart. I will stop for a moment to let everyone know how much I appreciate them before I journey to my newest love, one that I need to be whole but one that will never replace any of the loves that came before it.

I’ve always felt out of place in the universe because, well, I wasn’t in my place. I found a slowness in the city that never sleeps, a slowness that I have to embrace within before I can embrace without. I found a solidarity in the weird, the angry, the eclectic, the energetic, the sad, the hungry, the lonely, the lovely. I found a peace in the metropolis that hosts them all, and with that peace, I found peace within myself.

Today I’m gonna savor all the slowness. I’m gonna save my pennies. I’m gonna meditate my way to strength. I’m gonna enjoy the long journey to the destination. I’m gonna memorize the sights and sounds and smells I want need to carry with me to get there. I’m gonna give the many hearts that deserve it a lengthy and proper goodbye.