Pause

I'mma pause in my retelling of my recovery to inform people of what and who I am, exactly.


You see, I'm a nice kid, I love to joke and make people laugh. I have always wanted to be a stand up comedian when I was young and I still wish to do that one day. I like to think that my entire point in life is to make others laugh. I could die happy tomorrow if I saw my friends laughing then live forever never making anyone smile.

That's just who I am. Even when I was certain I was going to die, (Before I went into the OR)I never cried infront of my friends, I cracked a joke that made them all laugh. I went out on a high note because that's how I wanted to be remembered.

But I am also a selfish person. While, I do try to make people laugh and smile, I also try to focus on myself and I love talking about myself and the stuff I went through. I know it gets on the nerves of people who have heard my stories a thousand times but I am proud of everything I've been through. Everyone tells me I'm so strong and whatnot but I don't see it that way.

The way I see it is I was just a kid thrown into that life. I never wanted it, I never grow up in it. Up till I was 13~14 I was a normal kid. I always told people about CF but I never really had it effect me. I was never worried about my life, I was only sick once as a kid, I was like every other stupid kid out there but that changed once I get sick.

The first few times didn't really bother. Infact, the only real thing to hit me was when I was 13, one of my Doctors told me that I would not live to see 25. That hurt me a lot inside and from that day forth I wanted to do my best to be remembered. I didn't want to die and then be forgotten about in a year or two, no fucking way. I want to be remembered for as long as possible.

I realize that my flavor of personality doesn't always agree with most people. I'm hyper, I love to chat, I love to be loud, and I love to joke. A lot of people get annoyed by this and my theory on why is because I'm something most people can't be(yes, I'm a bit of a narcissist aswell). Despite every shitty thing I've been through in my life, I'm still able to greet every morning with a smile. I live in a horrid family, I get depressed a lot, and I have friends that can't really understand what I've been through so me venting to them never really works.

The way I deal with my stress is I talk aloud to myself and use myself to vent. It's not the best and isn't what I want at all but it works. I'll admit there are days when even that doesn't work but those are the days when things are at their worst.

Like when my brothers both told me that they wish I never had my Transplant and wish I died. That hurt deep and I can never understand where their hatred for me comes from. They have lived amazing lives with a mother who gave them everything despite them being greedy selfish assholes.

Though, I will confess that my mother isn't a bag of peaches either. She's just as bad as my brothers. Granted, she hasn't wished me dead yet but the way she treats me at times feels like it. I'm in a family of completely healthy people who grew up watching a family member slowly die. Now, I know some others who have watched their family members slowly die and instead of resenting life and becoming a bad person. They did their best to enjoy life and make the most of it.

My family, no. My older brother, Matthew is in jail for murder because he joined a gang and shit went down. My younger brother is a selfish drug addict who told me to fuck off 2 hours before I expected to die. My mother is someone who will call you a waste of life over the tiniest of things and yell at you about said tiny thing for a solid 20 minutes. I've never really had a father growing up as he abandoned my family when I was just a baby. I have a step dad right now but he's just as bad as the rest of them. He was supportive for me when I was recovering but now he does nothing but fight with my mom and younger brother.

Anyways, back to me.

People don't really understand how hard it is to smile like I do and take everything with a smile. I have "friends" who constantly insult me(sometimes jokingly but sometimes not) and I just play along into it. A lot of the time those insults hurt but they never know that. I don't really want to say anything because it makes them smile. And I'm Okay with that.

I will admit I do cry a lot. It just builds up so much. A lot of the time stuff hits me in waves and it makes me question everything.

Like recently, my best friend past away, his name was Carl, he had a double lung transplant approx 3 years before me and I owe my recovery to him. He was the only person in the world who actually understood what it was like to have so much shitty luck. Just before he past away, my broken back started to get really bad. I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't as happy, I was becoming a rude prick again, and then one night I'm reading Facebook and I see from a friends updated Feed that Carl had died and it hurt me so much. My best friend was there for me when I should have died last year in Feb 2010 and I couldn't even have been there for him. I loved him more than my brothers and I had to find out from a fucking Facebook feed. I'm even tearing up as I type this.

We had plans to go to Hawaii this year as a "We survived" type thing. I was looking forward to it and now I'm pretty much going on my own.

But no matter what happens to me, I still smile.

Why? Because where would being depressed get me? It'd get me nowhere. Depression would make me workout less, that in turn would affect my lungs, and that in turn would affect my mood. It would be a crazy cycle that would end up killing me. Instead, I smile, I joke, I laugh, I hide the pain. I do my best to be the best to those I care about. No matter what, I want to be remembered as the guy who always laughed.

So ya, that's who I am. I doubt that anyone reading this doesn't already know me but for the 1 or 2 people who don't know me, there you go.

I do my best to enjoy life, no matter how many times I get shit on and I'd like for anyone reading this to do the same. Remember, we're only on this planet for an extremely short amount of time. We might get shit on constantly by god, bad luck, or whatever but never let that get you stop you from laughing. Laugh and make others laugh.

I don't ask for pity, I ask for understanding. I'm not rude asshole because I'm a selfish jerk. I just pretend to be a rude asshole because, amazingly enough, it makes people laugh a lot.

That's all I got to say. I'll try to have some more recovery stories by the end of this week.