The 1st (well, 2nd) Day of the Rest of My Life

I had this moment walking home yesterday from my first day at my new job, this moment where I actually stepped away from my physical body and hovered over myself, taking the entire scene in and feeling completely astonished.  Because at 24 (and a half, but who's counting), yesterday was the first day of my adult life or, to be more specific, my life as an adult on my own.  I am 3000 miles away from my dear parents and beginning to do things totally (mostly) on my own for the first time.  Yesterday was literally the first day of the rest of my life.

I can't say that I've dreamt of this moment my whole life because really, I didn't ever think of this moment specifically before last night, but it seems like something one should dream about--the day when you are on your own for reals, the day when you become responsible for you entirely.  Don't misunderstand me, my parents haven't tossed me off completely, they are still helping me until my first paycheck comes in (ok, maybe until the 2nd comes in.  They are the best).  But once that happens, it is Ashleigh responsibility time.  And you know what? Even though that is completely terrifying, it is also super exciting.  I've sort of been waiting for this time in my life for a while, ever since graduating from college in fact.  And even though right now it feels a little bit like I'm just visiting New York for funsies, I know that feeling is going to go away soon (or at least diminish).  Things are finally starting to take shape for me in this city that I love and I sort of can't believe it.  I get to do so many lovely and fun things here in New York, which include but aren't limited to-: 1) live in my favorite city, 2) work in my field doing something I actually believe in and enjoy, 3) play guitar for tiny people on a regular basis (starting next week!), 4) see my beautiful college friends whenever I can/want, 5) eat all the yummy food New York City has to offer.  My dear friend Kyle said it best: what an amazing time to be alive and living in New York City.

I've mentioned it before (at least twice), but during college I would walk around the city and be stopped dead in my tracks because I realized, "I live here.  I can't believe it."  It still happens and every time I get the same tingle down my spine and smile across my face.  I feel constantly elated that I get to live my life in the place of my dreams every single day.  How many people get to say that?  And sometimes when I feel that familiar smile start to cross my face I fast forward 20 or 30 years into the future and I look back at this time on my life and I feel incredibly blessed and grateful, saying to myself (and my future family), "How lucky was I that I got to be young and alive in New York City at such a time? Isn't that amazing?!  Let me tell you, future as-yet-unnamed-child-of-mine, it was amazing to me even then." (this is totally true and a totally unweird conversation to imagine, by the way).

Being able to consult with my future self is sort of a new thing and I assume comes from getting older.  I swear, I just had this moment about a year ago while, I believe, I was watching an episode Bones that I suddenly became aware of how fragile and imminent the end is.  Now, I know that this sounds a) like something some sort of paranoid hypochondriac would say and b) a little overly dramatic, but it is true.  For some reason, on this day, sitting on the couch alone in my parents living room, I realized that, at some point, I will no longer exist.  And while the crushing weight of this terrifying realization washed over me, I was met with what is probably the most comforting image that has ever come to my mind.  It was of me, a very old and crimpy and completely content grey-haired lady, laying in a bed at the end, surrounded by my family.  And I concede that this image is likely something I've constructed out of scenes from movies and television shows, but I none the less was calmed by it.  Because it seemed to mean that there was something out there for me, something I was and have always been driving towards--a life. A full, beautiful, exciting life.  And every choice that I make is leading me towards that moment and all the moments before it.  What a fantastic and transcendent thought, ay?  I am learning to accepted that every step of my journey to that image is taking me exactly where I need to go and teaching me what I need to learn, even if I often have no idea what I'm going or where I am going.  The not knowing is half the fun, right?  Truthfully, I don't know if I completely agree with that statement but I am learning to be ok with it and allow for the possibility that it might be true.

So here I am, on the 2nd day of the rest of my life, journey yet to be written, but knowing a beautiful and satisfying destination lies just beyond it.  Not too shabby for a Wednesday, I'd say. Not too shabby at all.

Journey, Part 3

(Continued from here)

Depression was something that I'd been warned about.  But, like, warned about in passing.  The surgeon mentioned it to me once while he was telling me about how many rubber bands they were going to put in my mouth (at one point we got up to 15, by the way)) to keep it from opening.  "You might feel a little depressed while you are healing.  Don't worry, it'll pass," he said.  Sure.  No problem.  I can totally handle that.

Except that what he didn't mention is that it would come slamming into me like a freight train.  That one minute I would be feeling ok, sitting on my parents bed watching silly reruns and the next I would be crying about god only knows what.  And this would have been fine—after all, I was entitled to a little cry since my face had been broken just weeks before—except that when it happened I was home alone, sobbing, unable to open my mouth.  Which meant that (sorry everyone), when I inevitably got all snotty I couldn't breathe.  And then because I was all snotty I got all post-nasal drippy and so I started coughing.  But remember, I couldn't open my mouth, so coughing wasn't so much coughing as choking to death.  Naturally, I panicked, but because I had only had 80 calories to eat that day in the form of a syringe full of Gatorade (plus, you know, the depression) I couldn't form any sort of rational thought to calm myself down.  I just kept thinking, “I can’t stop crying, I can’t stop crying, HOLY SHIT I CAN’T STOP CRYING.”  I remember calling my mother and somehow mumbling out that I couldn't stop crying and I couldn't breathe and please oh please couldn't some one come home immediately and help me?!  It was awful.  Honestly, some of the worst moments in my memory.

That summer was, without a doubt, the most trying of my life.  Very few pictures of that time exist, something I made sure of.  I was adamant about the no-photo policy.  As a joke, friends would try to sneak a shot of me and, like a ninja, I would dodge the camera.  I didn’t want to see myself.  I could look in the mirror and that was enough.  Because when I looked in the mirror, what I saw was a disfigured Ashleigh, swollen beyond recognition.

And still, after all of this, the hardest part was still ahead of me.  Because by the fall my jaw was no longer rubber banded shut and a lot of the swelling had gone down (which was awesome), revealing...someone I didn't recognize.  I would literally look in the mirror and have to remind myself, "Don't freak out. This is what you look like now."  It was awful.  I felt so lost and awkward in my own skin.  At first, I avoided mirrors all together, stopping only to make sure my hair wasn’t totally out of control.  But then I’d catch a reflection in the car window and I’d have to remind myself that the person I had just seen was, in fact, me.  I cried a lot, often at the drop of a hat (I still wasn’t eating a ton, mostly just instant oatmeal and miso soup, so I constantly had low blood sugar which kept me on edge).  Then I would stare at my face in the mirror, turning it this way and that, trying to find some piece of the old Ashleigh in there and always coming up short.  The image of me in my head was a complete 360 from what I saw in the mirror.

(I should also mention that, in the middle of everything, I transferred to NYU, which I’d been dreaming about for years.  And once I got there I felt like no one knew the real me because the real me's face was gone.  It was a very confusing time.)

Now, as time went on, I finally got used to my new face.  My beautiful friends from home didn't really make a big deal about it (bless them) though I did have someone I knew from high school (and honestly didn't really enjoy) see me in a coffee shop about a year later and say, much to my chagrin, "Oh. My. GOD. You look so different!" which wasn't exactly something I liked hearing.  The swelling kept going down and I kept getting used to my new look.  I wouldn't get as freaked out when I looked in the mirror.  And I was noticing that I was feeling better.  I didn't feel as insecure about myself anymore.  Things were good.

And then I saw a picture of myself pre-surgery and I just about dropped to the ground.  Who was that girl?  Surely that couldn't be me.  I'd finally accepted the way I looked, only to be unable to recognize my former face.  I was (and, honestly, still am) embarrassed by the way I looked.  It is one of those things that, like my new face, I am slowly coming to terms with as well, but the process is a lot slower, probably since I don't have to look at that old face every day like I do the new one.  

So, here I am, 4 and a half years later.  The swelling has gone down and I outwardly show no signs of major change (though I still have numbness in my gums and lower lip, which means I tend to drool at inconvenient times).  Do I still feel insecure about my face?  Certainly.  Do I still have moments where I don't recognize myself in the mirror?  Absolutely, though the lag time in remembering is much shorter.  Do I get that uncomfortable-flip-floppy-embarrassed-stomach feeling when I see pictures of myself before the surgery?  Totally.  Do I recognize myself in pictures from high school?  Usually, but it takes a moment.  I give my friends and family all the credit for how I feel now—they have been unwaveringly supportive and generous with their love, something for which I'll be forever in their debt.  To those people, you guys are absolutely the best thing that has ever happened to me and I thank you, from the very bottom of my heart, for dealing with my crazy and helping me really see myself.

I have no idea what the future holds or how long I'll feel the way I do, but I know that my support system will be there with a shoulder and a glass of wine, and that is what gets me through all the insecurity.  And really, what is better than that?

Journey, Part 2

play me

Where did we leave off?  Oh yes, that's right.  They decided I needed jaw surgery.  Now I wish I could say that this surgery was no big deal, but that's not at all true.  I wouldn't be writing about it so much if it hadn't been a big deal.  Or a HUGE deal, in fact.

Here, in rather lengthy detail, is PART 2:

We began to prepare, waiting for the day when I would finally stop growing.  This involved putting braces on the 2nd semester of my senior year (adorable) and then....waiting.  I waited for a year and a half, going to college in Washington state and coming home once a month for appointments with my orthodontist. I waited through living on my own for the first time, having my first boyfriend (and subsequent first break up with said boyfriend), I waited through figuring out the school wasn't a fit to applying to transfer, through finding out I'd been accepted to NYU.  Finally, the time came.  Just 2 days before my 19th birthday, I went to the hospital to finally take care of this damn jaw thing.

There had been a lot of prep for this day, talking about what was going to happen and in what order, watching videos and then talking about it again.  The plan was to (squeamish people, be ware) break my jaw in 4 places, remove bone from the bottom so it was the right size, adjust the top and then screw everything in place.  Bing bam boom. They were also going to give me a chin implant so I had the same profile and move my top lip up to show a little bit more of my teeth (seriously, the surgeon asked me if I was "happy with the amount of teeth I was showing." Who has ever even thought about that?).  Fine, all fine.  A lot of details I'd never even thought about but the oral surgeon and orthodontist were old friends of the family I'd known my entire life, so I knew they had my best interests in mind.  

It is important to mention that too achieve the new and improved me they were going to have to wire my mouth shut for 3 months.  Yep.  You read that right. They WIRED. MY. MOUTH. SHUT (ok, fine, it was actually rubber banded shut, but that's neither here nor there).  The nice people at my oral surgeon's office even gave me a book of recipes for when I couldn't eat solid food called (and this is no joke) Dinner Through a Straw.  My hand to god the first time I opened it up the first recipe I saw was for Chicken Cordon Bleu....THROUGH A STRAW.  Totally grossed out, I promptly slammed the book shut and never looked at it again.

The surgery went off without a hitch and it looked like I was in for a long, hot summer (did I mention that we moved just a week after my surgery?  We did. On the hottest day of the year.  To a house with no air conditioning).  I tried to keep things pretty normal, spending time with my friends and doing all the things I'd normally do, though all a little modified since I was only subsisting on liquids through a syringe (at one point all I could eat was Gatorade, so I was subsisting on, like, 80 calories a day).  Needless to say it was difficult for me to exert myself since I basically wasn't eating.  I dropped 2 dress sizes in about 2 weeks, which sounds great, but meant that I couldn't do anything because I'd nearly pass out any time I exerted myself. I don't recommend it. 

And of course, because it's me and I can't have anything go easily, I wasn't able to take the good drugs. Nope, I'm violently allergic to Vicodin (Ashleigh + Vicodin = gastrointestinal pyrotechnics, not good when you can't open your mouth), which is what they typically prescribe (in liquid form) for surgeries like this.  And the big time pain meds I can take aren't available in liquid form.  They literally told me I could crush the pill up into water and take it what way.  And I don't know if you've ever accidentally tasted a crushed up pill (like when you hold it in your mouth too long while trying to find water so you can swallow it), but it is awful.  So I said, "NO THANKS, what else you got?"  And their reply was almost comical: " You can take children's Motrin, which comes in liquid form."  THAT'S RIGHT.  LIQUID CHILDREN'S MOTRIN.  But, being an adult, I had to take basically an half of a bottle at a time to equal the correct dosage.  Through a syringe hooked into the back of my mouth.  I told you, comical.  Needless to say, I spent a lot of those first weeks on my parent's bed watching "The Drug Years" on VH1, which was good, because about 3 weeks after surgery-- BAM.  Depression hit.

To Be Continued...

Journey, Part 1

I hesitated a lot when trying to decide to post this. I wrote it about 2 weeks ago and then sidelined it. It embarrassed me. But there has been something on my mind and I'm feeling the need to get it out there, outside of my head and into the universe. Would that be ok with everyone?  Yeah? Ok.

It should be said on the outset that I do not tell this story simply to get sympathy, to say "waah waah poor me", or to have people tell me I'm beautiful. No, I tell this story because it is about the journey I'm on, a journey that I've been sharing with you all for a while now, and a part of the journey that has been rather difficult for me. Five years on, I am beginning to feel able to fully process this part of my journey, which is exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

What is this thing I'm going to share, you ask?  Well, to put it bluntly, it's my face.  I have struggled for a while with the way that I look, not because I think I need any plastic surgery or anything, but because the face I have now, the face a large number of my friends know as mine, is in fact my new face. No, I didn't have a face transplant or anything, and for a lot of people there will be no difference between the before and after pictures, but when I was 18 I had to make a big change to the way I look...and it has become an extremely important part of the Ashleigh Renaissance story. Renaissance is all about rebirth, right? Well, the way I see myself was reborn, but it took a long time before I recognized what I saw.

This story is too long to post at once.  So here, my beautiful and patient friends, is PART I.

It all started my freshman year of high school, 9 long years ago (has it been that long?).  Being the daughter of a dentist, the quest for perfect teeth was less of an option and more of a moral imperative.  And when I hit puberty and my growth spurt at 14 it became clear that I was going to have, let's say, a less than perfect mouth.  To be honest, my bottom jaw was growing more than my top jaw.  If we were face to face I would act the entire thing out for you. Here, instead, is a pretty accurate depiction of what I looked like: 

We are kindreds, this dog and I.

I know, I know, obviously my face didn't look like a dog's. But really, this is what I looked like (below). This is a picture of me smiling, with my teeth together by the way, I'm not laughing or anything. I'm on the right.

That's me, on the right, with my best friends from high school on an impromptu trip to Santa Cruz.

At first it wasn't anything terrible and, truth be told, I didn't feel like there was any sort of problem, but as I went through high school my jaw kept on growing.  By my junior year, no end to my growing in sight, I couldn't bite through anything.  Yes, you read that right.  I couldn't take a bite without tearing it away from whatever the food was.  Many an inside joke was formed because of this (right, Brooke?). Eating became a chore--I avoided sandwiches or any food you had to eat with your hands, I only ate things that could be cut up (or didn't need to be cut up at all, like salad).  Looking at menus was like looking at an insurmountable obstacle. I cried in restaurants. A lot. Do you know that feeling when you look at something and you just can't see a solution anywhere? All you see are big, red NOs?. It is perhaps the worst feeling in the world. You feel helpless and small. It is beyond frustrating.

It became abundantly clear that I needed to change something. And change meant surgery.  And not just little surgery, BIG surgery.  Jaw surgery.  Wire-your-jaw-shut surgery. And soon.

To be continued....