Monday 12 August 2013
Saturday 15 June 2013
Day 1010
Today is Sunday the 16th of June, 2013. 33 days since I landed here in England. 51 days since Alex's second operation. 315 days since the Bad News. 294 days since I started university. And 1010 days since Alex and I started dating.
Hopefully in the future I can look back at today and say that this was the day when things changed for the better. For the first time in weeks Alex showed me some sort of affection. Crazy, right? My own boyfriend showing me that he loves me? But all joking aside, it felt nice. I know he hasn't been well for weeks and has been in the hospital for 51 days, so it's understandable if he isn't the same Alex who would say things like:
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:30:05 PM) love me still?
Elizabeth says: (5:30:20 PM) forever and always!
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:30:30 PM) i'll keep you to that
Elizabeth says: (5:30:37 PM) and you?
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:30:51 PM) i'll see your forever and always and raise you
Elizabeth says: (5:31:11 PM) hahaha wow. cheesy much?
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:16 PM) haha
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:19 PM) i just thought of it
Elizabeth says: (5:31:27 PM) my little gambler
Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:32 PM) ;)
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:40 PM) only on sure bets
But it's still hard to be so far away from home (5341 miles away to be exact, hence the title of this blog) and to not receive much affection. So it was a miracle this morning when Alex and I woke up and I asked him if he wanted anything and, instead of saying a glass of water as usual, he said a kiss. Hands down the sweetest moment since when I first got here and saw the look of complete surprise and elation on his face.
We spent the rest of the day laughing and joking. If you could forget the fact that we're in a hospital and he is still sick, it was almost like old times. For the first time, I didn't feel as sad as I've felt the last 33 days.
Sometimes when I was really sad I'd replay the First Day. The fear and excitement I felt as my mom drove to the airport. I was afraid he wasn't going to like the real life me. I was afraid he wouldn’t think I was pretty enough in person, or smart or funny enough or whatever. I was afraid we wouldn’t get along as well as we did online and that everything was a mistake. But the moment I saw him, all the anxiety disappeared.
Other times I'd replay the last good day together. It was a year and some months after the First Day. How it felt with my head resting on his strong chest and his muscular arms wrapped around me. When I was in high school, during class I’d daydream about falling asleep like that in his warmth. My favorite thing to do was to sneak looks at him while we were lying in bed watching TV. Sometimes I’d count the moles on his cheeks or wonder at how his eyes were so blue, but mostly I’d stare at him thinking how lucky I was to have him. How lucky I am to have him.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll get days like that again. If things go as well as they did today, I know I'll get days like that again.
But despite good days like this that can come and go, and I know it is kind of selfish, but sometimes I wish I could just disappear from the present and escape into the past. The past where he isn't sick and I'm not so sad all the time and where we were just happy and carefree. Things were so easy then. I wish things were like that now, but they’re not.
Sometimes I wonder if things will get easier. One can only hope.
But no matter what happens in our lifetimes, no matter what happens within our numbered days, I want him to know that I’m so lucky to love him, to have spent an infinity within an infinity with him.
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:30:05 PM) love me still?
Elizabeth says: (5:30:20 PM) forever and always!
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:30:30 PM) i'll keep you to that
Elizabeth says: (5:30:37 PM) and you?
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:30:51 PM) i'll see your forever and always and raise you
Elizabeth says: (5:31:11 PM) hahaha wow. cheesy much?
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:16 PM) haha
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:19 PM) i just thought of it
Elizabeth says: (5:31:27 PM) my little gambler
Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:32 PM) ;)
' Alexxanderr ' says: (5:31:40 PM) only on sure bets
But it's still hard to be so far away from home (5341 miles away to be exact, hence the title of this blog) and to not receive much affection. So it was a miracle this morning when Alex and I woke up and I asked him if he wanted anything and, instead of saying a glass of water as usual, he said a kiss. Hands down the sweetest moment since when I first got here and saw the look of complete surprise and elation on his face.
We spent the rest of the day laughing and joking. If you could forget the fact that we're in a hospital and he is still sick, it was almost like old times. For the first time, I didn't feel as sad as I've felt the last 33 days.
Sometimes when I was really sad I'd replay the First Day. The fear and excitement I felt as my mom drove to the airport. I was afraid he wasn't going to like the real life me. I was afraid he wouldn’t think I was pretty enough in person, or smart or funny enough or whatever. I was afraid we wouldn’t get along as well as we did online and that everything was a mistake. But the moment I saw him, all the anxiety disappeared.
Other times I'd replay the last good day together. It was a year and some months after the First Day. How it felt with my head resting on his strong chest and his muscular arms wrapped around me. When I was in high school, during class I’d daydream about falling asleep like that in his warmth. My favorite thing to do was to sneak looks at him while we were lying in bed watching TV. Sometimes I’d count the moles on his cheeks or wonder at how his eyes were so blue, but mostly I’d stare at him thinking how lucky I was to have him. How lucky I am to have him.
Sometimes I wonder if I’ll get days like that again. If things go as well as they did today, I know I'll get days like that again.
But despite good days like this that can come and go, and I know it is kind of selfish, but sometimes I wish I could just disappear from the present and escape into the past. The past where he isn't sick and I'm not so sad all the time and where we were just happy and carefree. Things were so easy then. I wish things were like that now, but they’re not.
Sometimes I wonder if things will get easier. One can only hope.
But no matter what happens in our lifetimes, no matter what happens within our numbered days, I want him to know that I’m so lucky to love him, to have spent an infinity within an infinity with him.
Wednesday 12 June 2013
Dear John Green
[From an email I had written to author John Green on the 12th of June, 2013]
FIRE! KETAMINE! DEATH! COITUS!
Sorry for the radical subject line – I had the absurd idea that if I were to use some crazy subject line, then the chances of you reading this particular email in the sea of emails you must get every day would be better. I’m sure since you have millions of fans, there are others out there who have used their own forms of yellow journalism on you, but I am still hoping that mine in particular stands out to you.
Now, the real reason I am emailing you is to thank you for your writing. I have followed your masterpieces for many years and have recently read The Fault in Our Stars. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and thought it was brilliant – I am sad, however, that my lack of intelligence and sturdy philosophical opinions has prevented me from understanding all the deeper meanings and existentialism and thought provoking ideals that your book has to offer, but I am determined to wrap my head around all of it someday.
Also, it pains me that the timing of my reading of your book has stopped me from enjoying it more than had I read it, say, when it was first published. The reason for this is that at the moment, the stars between me and a particular boy, Alexander Hawkes, are extremely crossed. Although, like Hazel says, all great love stories really shouldn’t be shared, I am sharing mine with you. Alexander and I met on a certain video chat website called Omegle in early 2010 and reconnected several months later after I had a short episode of bad decisions. A romance sparked between us despite the fact that he was 19 and I was just turning 16 and the even bigger issue of him being in England and I in Los Angeles. Our love prevailed, leading to him visiting America on three different occasions up until last summer.
It was his 21st birthday in August and we were celebrating it in Las Vegas with my parents. On the night of his birthday he had excruciating pains and ended up in the hospital where we found out he had cancer. It was of the Patrick variety and we were told that although it wasn’t caught as early as it should have been, he would make it.
He returned to England, I started college, then he started chemo, I decided to go spend Christmas with him – all was well. In February we found out that he had a 4 inch tumor pressing against his right kidney and although it didn’t seem cancerous, it had to be removed. So it was removed. But surgical complications (I won’t go into too much detail) have prevented him from recovering. After I finished my final exams, I caught a flight to England and surprised him.
Ever since I have arrived here a little over four weeks ago, I have spent every day and every night in the hospital in a little cot by Alexander’s bed. With all the free time I had, I thought it would be the perfect time to read your novel. I didn’t know what it was about, but I knew it would be amazing. When I realized it was about a girl with cancer, I wanted to put it down and stop. But it wasn’t about a girl with cancer. I can’t explain what your book means to me because, frankly, I’m a shitty writer and can’t put into words the things that I feel or think, but everything you have written in this book means something to me and makes sense to me in a strange way even I don’t fully understand it.
Also, the physical similarities between Augustus Waters and my Alexander Hawkes are eerie. Tall, well-built, mahogany hair, wonderful blue eyes, a beautiful face. Then there’s another similarity, their underlying hamartia - the civil war raging within their bodies.
When I look at Alexander now and see how frail he is – how much is own body is destroying itself – how his laughter and smile (both crooked and goofy) are gone, I get…I don’t know, I get sad.
It makes me miss the days when we’d have conversations that would go like this:
Elizabeth says: (2:32:50 PM)
i have some sexy penguin pjs on
'Alexxanderr' says: (2:33:01 PM)
-_-
'Alexxanderr' says: (2:33:41 PM)
:)
Elizabeth says: (2:34:06 PM)
the two different faces send conflicting messages
'Alexxanderr' says: (2:34:29 PM)
lolll
'Alexxanderr' says: (2:34:36 PM)
not sexy
Elizabeth says: (2:34:54 PM)
but
Elizabeth says: (2:34:56 PM)
they're
Elizabeth says: (2:35:00 PM)
PENGUINS
Elizabeth says: (2:35:16 PM)
did you know that when penguins find their mate, they stay together forever?
'Alexxanderr' says: (2:35:57 PM)
wow
'Alexxanderr' says: (2:36:01 PM)
so penguins are like us?
Today doctors came in and said there isn’t too much they can do at the moment As another favorite author of mine wrote, the truth doesn’t glitter and shine, and like you’ve written, the world isn’t some wish granting factory. I'm a believer in the theory of the multiverse and would like to be living in the universe that I'm not in right now and instead in the one where there's no disease or distance or anything. But you and Palahniuk are both right and the truth is crappy and you don't always get what you want. It’s hard knowing I love a grenade but it’s also a privilege to know that I love someone so wonderful as Alexander.
Maybe in the future I'll be able to coherently write about me and Alexander or someone else will. It would be nice if our story is known - maybe I'm like Augustus Waters and want to leave my mark in the world like that, but in any way, it would be nice.
All in all, thank you for being a writer and for sharing your intelligence and creativity with the world.
Your fan for always,
Elizabeth Anne
Sunday 2 June 2013
Now
(from a diary entry I wrote on May 18, 2013)
Three years ago, I never envisioned myself to be where I am now. Sitting on a cot in a hospital room thousands of miles away from home while the love of my life is lying in the bed next to me connected to drips and drains. If you said to me three years ago that this is where I would be right now, I wouldn't have believed you. I'd have said "Pfft, in three years I will be back at home in LA from university partying it up with my friends or with my new college boyfriend." If you told me this two years ago, I would've said you were crazy. I'd have said, "In two years, Alex and I will be sitting on a beach in LA." If you told me this last year, I'd have said, "No, Alex is perfectly fine. Next year he'll be helping me move out of my dorm and we will be on our way back to LA." The funny thing is, a lot can change in three years. Your whole life can change in three years. Sometimes it can lead to unexpected things that make your life much better. Other times, it can lead you down paths you never really wanted to walk. I can't say for sure where I'll be three years from now. I could be sitting in a beach house in Malibu. I could be sipping tea in London. I could be in a library in San Diego. But where I want to be is lying in bed with Alex, talking about whether we'll get burgers or a pizza for lunch. No problems. No worries. Just us. But three years is a long time. Your whole life can change in three years.
Three years ago, I never envisioned myself to be where I am now. Sitting on a cot in a hospital room thousands of miles away from home while the love of my life is lying in the bed next to me connected to drips and drains. If you said to me three years ago that this is where I would be right now, I wouldn't have believed you. I'd have said "Pfft, in three years I will be back at home in LA from university partying it up with my friends or with my new college boyfriend." If you told me this two years ago, I would've said you were crazy. I'd have said, "In two years, Alex and I will be sitting on a beach in LA." If you told me this last year, I'd have said, "No, Alex is perfectly fine. Next year he'll be helping me move out of my dorm and we will be on our way back to LA." The funny thing is, a lot can change in three years. Your whole life can change in three years. Sometimes it can lead to unexpected things that make your life much better. Other times, it can lead you down paths you never really wanted to walk. I can't say for sure where I'll be three years from now. I could be sitting in a beach house in Malibu. I could be sipping tea in London. I could be in a library in San Diego. But where I want to be is lying in bed with Alex, talking about whether we'll get burgers or a pizza for lunch. No problems. No worries. Just us. But three years is a long time. Your whole life can change in three years.
Firsts
(from a post I wrote on a different blog on September 28, 2012)
Firsts are a scary thing. The first time you get on that bike, you're afraid you're going to fall. On your first day of school, you're afraid of all the new things and new people. The first time you take a bite of that new exotic dish, you're afraid you're going to be throwing it up right after. However, life is and will always be full of firsts.
I am currently in my first year of college. I am also in my first serious relationship. It's also a long distance relationship. A very long distance relationship. 5341 miles to be exact. These things don't really go hand in hand, but so far, I've been able to make it work. Difficult? Yes. Worth it? Definitely.
Alex and I have been together for over two years now. We first met when I was 15 and he was 18. Now I'm the 18 year old and he is now 21. Despite the distance, he lives in England and I live in California, it's been able to work.
But today also marks the day of another first. Alex's first day of chemotherapy.
Like everyone else who is starting out at college for the first time, I have a lot to deal with. We're all worrying about being away from home for the first time, what we're going to eat when we run out of meal plan money, how long we can put off that Sociology essay, etc. While I'm juggling the typical woes of a college student, in the back of my mind is the knowledge that thousands of miles away, my boyfriend is suffering without me by his side.
You feel helpless. For the first time, you can't really do anything to help the situation. You can't even comfort him. You're an ocean away, how much can you do? All you can do is sit back and wait. The least you could do is just hold his hand, but you can't even give him that. You would love to be by the computer all day so you could talk him through everything, but you have class and homework and your extra curricular activities. You feel lost and alienated and all you want to do is run to him. But you can't because you're trapped here. You want to scream at the top of your lungs as to why this is happening. Why you? Why him? You feel as though you really must have upset someone upstairs previously or in other life or something.These questions are angrily bouncing around in your head while the whole time he is in his hospital bed begging for the nausea to pass so he can fall asleep for the first time in days.
Firsts are terrifying. Sometimes you just wish the first time would be the last. But sometimes, life doesn't always work like that.
Firsts are a scary thing. The first time you get on that bike, you're afraid you're going to fall. On your first day of school, you're afraid of all the new things and new people. The first time you take a bite of that new exotic dish, you're afraid you're going to be throwing it up right after. However, life is and will always be full of firsts.
I am currently in my first year of college. I am also in my first serious relationship. It's also a long distance relationship. A very long distance relationship. 5341 miles to be exact. These things don't really go hand in hand, but so far, I've been able to make it work. Difficult? Yes. Worth it? Definitely.
Alex and I have been together for over two years now. We first met when I was 15 and he was 18. Now I'm the 18 year old and he is now 21. Despite the distance, he lives in England and I live in California, it's been able to work.
But today also marks the day of another first. Alex's first day of chemotherapy.
Like everyone else who is starting out at college for the first time, I have a lot to deal with. We're all worrying about being away from home for the first time, what we're going to eat when we run out of meal plan money, how long we can put off that Sociology essay, etc. While I'm juggling the typical woes of a college student, in the back of my mind is the knowledge that thousands of miles away, my boyfriend is suffering without me by his side.
You feel helpless. For the first time, you can't really do anything to help the situation. You can't even comfort him. You're an ocean away, how much can you do? All you can do is sit back and wait. The least you could do is just hold his hand, but you can't even give him that. You would love to be by the computer all day so you could talk him through everything, but you have class and homework and your extra curricular activities. You feel lost and alienated and all you want to do is run to him. But you can't because you're trapped here. You want to scream at the top of your lungs as to why this is happening. Why you? Why him? You feel as though you really must have upset someone upstairs previously or in other life or something.These questions are angrily bouncing around in your head while the whole time he is in his hospital bed begging for the nausea to pass so he can fall asleep for the first time in days.
Firsts are terrifying. Sometimes you just wish the first time would be the last. But sometimes, life doesn't always work like that.
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