Create A Line Part 2: Unclosed Eyes

I was obsessed with him. I had liked him for such a long time & he knew it even though I had never said it. One day I was  standing there with him & some friends as we were all having a conversation. He spotted the ring I was wearing. I loved that ring. It was made of wood & I saved up forever to buy it. I just thought it was so cool. “Ew. That is the ugliest ring I have ever seen. I would never like a girl who would wear something as ugly as that!” he spat. Wow. Did his teeth always look like that? Crooked & gross. Did his smile always come off as cocky like it was right then? I always thought it was so cute. & then all of a sudden, it was like a veil was lifted from over my eyes. Why was I waisting my time with this guy? “Well I don’t really care what you think” I said very matter of factly. “Sure you don’t” he said in a way I used to find attractive but now seemed supper lame. “No. I really don’t because I like this ring & that makes it cool to me. You know, I thought I really liked you” I said with very little emotion. “No. Really?” he replied. “Yes. Really. But the truth is I could never like you because you are a jerk & completely blind if you can’t see how special I am” I told that stuck up turd. I heard some people start to clap & with the stunned look on his face I walked away. “Whatever. You don’t know what your saying! You never do! All I ever hear from you is the ADHD talking!” he shouted after me. That was crossing the line right there. But because he probably already knew that, I didn’t bother letting him know. I just kept on walking. Sometimes people will cross the line & know it. & you just shouldn’t care because those people are like my ex crush, a huge waste of time. & just so you know, the very next day when I was sitting at my desk in history class, a guy who was sitting at the desk in front of me I hadn’t talked to much but I knew was very nice turned around, looked at my ring, & said “Whoa. Really cool ring.” Lets just say that everything worked out just fine in the end.

Create A Line

I personally have no problem talking about my ADHD. I don’t mind at all when people ask me questions about it either. However, there is a line & it has been crossed before. Here are a few stories of when that line has been crossed & how I created my line.

I usually only take my ADHD medicine on days I have a test or something of that sort. When I take the medicine, I can’t eat a thing & I get depressed & loose my personality. One day at school I didn’t have a test so naturally I did not take my medicine. I was sitting in study hall with some of my friends working on some homework. The room was silent with only a few whispers here & there. “Lea” my teacher who was watching over study hall said. I replied “Yes Mr. Olds?” & waited for a response. “Did you take your ADHD medicine today? You have the attention span of a fly today.” My Face turned read. He had no right. Especially in front of all my friends. I heard some sixth graders giggle. “Sorry. I didn’t take it today” I tried to say in a way that would end the conversation. “Please take it tomorrow” he said. He also had no right to tell me where & when to take it. He could have asked me in private. Like I said, he had no right. My line started there. I do not like when people tell me that I have to take my medicine & when they do they are crossing the line.

I was in an interview for high school that is not my top choice being interviewed by the vice principal. I walked in, we said our hellos, & she began to talk about my ADHD right away. “So, from my understanding, you have something called ADHD, am I correct?” she asked. “Um yeah. It’s not a big deal” I said, trying to wave it off. I was all ready to talk about who I am as a person & as a student & my hobbies & whatever questions she had for me. “But it is” she continued. “How does it effect your school work?” she asked critically. “Oh uh I guess it’s a bit of a challenge” I replied. Truthfully, having ADHD that will most likely never go away is beyond hard. When I take medicine, i’m miserable & when I don’t I can’t do well in school. If she thought I wanted to talk about that than she was crazy. When I went to the school that is my top choice for high school for summer school I learned that my top choice has an ADHD support group. That is a place for talking about my ADHD, not an interview. “I just want you to know that if you went here for high school, we wouldn’t expect that much from you with your disability & all” she said. That comment right there, was crossing the line. The whole interview was dedicated to talking about my ADHD. She didn’t care about who I am & what makes me special. She only cared about my “disability.” She’s not the first person to talk down to me because of my ADHD. I do not like when people think that my ADHD defines who I am. Maybe if she cared, I would have told her that I love English & Science. Maybe I would have told her that I do just fine in school & am a straight A student in spite of my “disability.” I work hard but apparently I wouldn’t need to at that particular school.

You & only you can decide what is acceptable & appropriate. You have to make your own line. When somebody does cross the line however, make sure you let them know. Sometimes it is done unknowingly. & for all of you who don’t have ADHD, be somewhat sensitive to your friends that do have it & find out where there line is.

*Just remember having ADHD doesn’t mean you should get any kind of special privileges. You are just the same as everybody else & should be treated the same.

All the Glory that I Bear..

All the Glory that I Bear

I usually don’t do posts like this, but I have a question. What is the purpose of hair? I mean it doesn’t define who you are. It’s just part of who we are on the outside. Isn’t it what’s on the inside that counts? So how can the hair on your head possibly matter so much? When I was five years old, a doctor told my mom that I had a rare form of cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma. I was five. I didn’t care. I didn’t even know what that meant. So it’s weird how the only time I ever cried for myself was when the doctor told me that I would loose all my hair for two years. I understood that. I knew that meant I would look like a boy and that I would look ugly. I didn’t care about all the IV drips hooked up to me, or the board they attached to my arm, or the huge plastic port they put inside my chest.  I didn’t even notice that I wouldn’t get to see my friends for two years. I certainly didn’t know my family, who had just moved from Detroit & were tight on money, would have to go through so much because of it. My only concern was how I would be judged because I looked like a freak. I’m not telling you this so you’ll pitty me, but so you can understand where i’m coming from.

A few days ago, I went to go and talk to some kids going through treatment so I could help them. I’m not suppose to say specifics, but what most of the kids said is that the hardest part of treatment is being bullied by other kids. They spoke about how they were bullied daily about being bald and being sick. They all had something in common, they just want to be themselves and they want people to love them for who they are. Talk about the ultimate injustice. Kids wanting to change because they’re ashamed of the way they look.

Listening to these children brought me back. Like the morning I woke up short of my identity. People bought me wigs and hats, thinking that I wanted to hide my head. I never wore any of it. Now I know why. Because I just wanted to be free. Free of hospitals. Free of Vanities. Free to be me. I didn’t want anything that would make me anything more or less than who I am. So why do people care so much about their hair? & why did I care so much? I wish I knew.What’s the point of it if it means these children will be picked on because of a lack of it.  Well I’ve had enough. Children shouldn’t be sacred of going to school because they don’t have hair like all the other kids.

Now that I have a full head of hair, I feel free. I know that sounds silly because after all, I am not my hair. I was always here, my hair just wasn’t. But I feel blessed that I can let my hair down and let it be free and loose.  I feel happy that I can touch and pull on my hair. I feel relieved that no one will ever call me a freak again because of what’s on top of my head. So for the kids going through it, my best advise was to stay true to themselves and just wait for when their hair returns and that it doesn’t matter what people say about them, the only thing that matters is what they think of themselves.

People shouldn’t be judged because of the way they appear on the outsides. They should be respected because of their bravery and resilience. Each person bears glory but everyone bears it in a different place. I am the spirit of my hair. As it grows, so does my perspective. Everyone Bears glory in a different place. Some people bear glory in their religion or culture or even in athletic ability. All the glory that I bare is not in my eyes or in my shoes. All the glory that I bare is my hair. My hair is free to grow as it pleases and I am as free as my hair and I will die as free as my hair. I survived, and I will not only continue to survive, but prosper. Even if it takes me a long time. I was born in the september of 1997 so I have a lot of life left in me. I could do all kinds of things. Change my name again maybe? For sure make more mistakes. “Making mistakes is how we grow, & in a way, were always growing..” -Adventure Time.

So to tie ADHD in to all of this, I just really want you to know that even though ADHD is a challenge, it can be overcome. Even though I’m both neurotic & have ADHD, I wake up every morning & find a reason to run the coarse of life. I know depression isn’t something one can just turn off. But if i had given into mine, I wouldn’t have learned that i’m a fast runner, or that I love science, or that I love  ADventure Time & Regular Show & want to join the peace corps.. or be a voice over artists. Trust me, if I can make it, so can you. Don’t let ADHD define you & all that your capable of. Do what you deem as right & be the person who makes a difference. It doesn’t matter what Race, Religion, Culture, or Sexual Orientation you are. You are you. & you are awesome. ADHD or no ADHD.

“I just want to be Free, I want to be me, & I want lots of friends that invite me to there parties. I don’t want to change & I don’t want to be ashamed…”

-Lady Gaga <3

“I Just wanna be myself & I want you to love me for who I am. I just wanna be myself & I want you to know, I am my hair…”

-Lady Gaga <3

We’re all out

I’m pretty wasteful when it comes to products. I know that’s a bad thing because it’s a waste of money and resources, but I guess that fact doesn’t stop me because I do it all the time. One day I was suppose to be cleaning my bathroom but I hadn’t taken my focus medicine so I couldn’t really focus. I took some shaving cream and began to squirt it in my sink. Soon my sink was filled with shaving cream. Then I mindlessly and impulsively grabbed some hairspray & I started spraying the shaving cream I squirted in the sink with the spray until the hair spray can was empty. Then, all of a sudden, my sister, Kiersten walked in with a gasp. “LEA! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR HAIR SPRAY!?”

I froze. “It was already empty” I lied. “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I JUST BOUGHT THAT YESTERDAY!” she screamed. “ WELL! WHO BUYS ONE HUNDERED DOLLAR HAIR SPRAY ANYWAY?” I screamed back. “That’s not JUST hair spray. It’s special SALT WATER hair spray for frizzy hair. You KNOW how frizzy my hair gets!” she countered.  “What? Since when?” I stalled. “MOM! LEA JUST FREAKING WASTED ALL MY IMPORTED HAIR SPRAY I BOUGHT WITH MY OWN MONEY! MOM!” she shouted across the house.

As you can imagine, I got grounded. I felt pretty bad, so I paid Kiersten back all the money, and gave her my Kate Spade wallet, but she was still mad.

To avoid having to re-inburse another hundred bucks, when I clean and I’m not wearing my Daytrana ADHD medicine patch, I blast some SHINee and sing and dance to their music while I clean so I know if I stop dancing and singing, I’ve also stopped cleaning. Although I guess it works with any type of music but I strongly recommend Korean pop (Kpop) because it’s amazing.

P.E Pajama Party

It was that day of the month again when we run the mile in P.E. at school. Before school that day, I woke up kind of late. That meant that I had no time to put on my ADHD medicine patch so I was just a little bit unfocused. As I mindlessly packed my backpack, I thought I packed all my books and my change of P.E clothes.

After lunch, when it was time to change for P.E, some of my friends and I walked up to the locker area to get our change of clothes. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a pair of pajamas. “Huh?” I thought out loud. I must have accidently packed my pajamas instead of my P.E clothes. I was completely mad at myself because if you forget to bring a change of P.E clothes, you have to run two miles. Good thing my friend, Celeste had an extra pair of P.E clothes and let me borrow them. Bad thing that they were way too big on me. The shirt looked like a dress on me and the shorts were pretty much falling off of me. I didn’t really care though because it’s school, so who cares what my outfit looks like. It’s not like I have a say in what our uniforms look like.

During P.E class when we started running around the school campus, I noticed some hot guy touring the school. I stopped to wave at him, not because he was hot, but to be friendly. Anyway, I stopped to wave and wouldn’t you know it? My shorts fell down. The dude started cracking up. I really hope he doesn’t end up coming to my school.

To prevent another 17 magazine worthy embarrassing story, I always put on my ADHD medicine patch before I start getting ready for school.

Teacher’s Pet

I’m really lucky that I live so close to my best friend Suttons’ house. I can seriously walk there in five minutes. One day I was walking to her house so we could “study” together. I was texting while walking (as usual) because I kind of live in suburbia where there are no crazy drivers. Because I was texting, I had no idea that I had taken the wrong way. When I saw a house that looked like Suttons’, I walked up and rang the doorbell without hesitation. Since I have walked to Suttons’ place pretty much every Tuesday after school, I was completely taken by surprise when my history teacher answered the door. “Lea? What are you doing at my house?”

I was still in shock so I said the only good excuse that could come to mind. “Oh. I though you might need help grading some papers” I spat. I thought she would say no but instead she said “Actually, now that you mentioned it, I do need help grading some papers. Come on in and lets get started.” I was stuck there for two hours helping grade papers. On the bright side, I gave Gale, my history challenged friend, a few extra points.

To prevent another paper grading session with Ms. Haswaytoomanycats, I don’t text and walk at the same time.

Fish out of Water

Out of all the chores I have to do, vacuuming is the least lame.  One day when I got home from the mall my mom asked me to vacuum the living room. I sighed. I was tired enough from all the shopping. But before I could argue, my mom told me if I didn’t do it right away, she was going to freak out. I really didn’t want that so I got to work.

I started up the vacuum and began to work on the rug. Then I took off the big part of the vacuum so it was just the little sucker part so I could do the shelves. My living room has this epic fish tank with all these cool gold fish.  I walked over to the tank and without thinking, started vacuuming the top part of the water in the tank. All of a sudden I looked down at the tank and saw the unthinkable. Little Capers the gold fish had been sucked into the vacuum.

I started to panic and ran over to the big thingy attached to the vacuum where everything sucked up goes. I unzipped it and looked around. All covered in dust and who knows what else was Capers. I scooped him up with my hands and put him back in the tank. I was still worried that he might be injured from being sucked up or traumatized from the whole thing, but that’s what is great about an animal with a three second memory.

To avoid that happening again, I make sure to take some focus medicine before I operate machinery (even if the machine is just a vacuum.)

Back Breaking

I hate missing school. Missing school means doing homework on a lesson you didn’t even learn. But I had a raging fever so my mom made me stay home. It was Monday but I had had the fever since Saturday. My friend Kristi dropped of the book we had to finish by Monday, fever, on Sunday. Ironic right? She told me that the book was her sisters’ and not to get anything on it or it would be her head. I promised I would keep the book looking perfect.

So on Monday morning I began reading the book. I am a pretty fast reader even without my ADHD medicine patch on so I was half way through the book by mid afternoon. As I continued to read, I began to zone out. I began day dreaming about my favorite Korean pop boy band, SHINee. Don’t get me wrong, it was a really good book, but SHINee can distract really distract a girl. As I thought about what it would be like to meet them I realized I was staring at the binding of the book. I began mindlessly bending the book until I heard something weird. It sounded like stitches tearing apart. I picked up the book and half the pages of the book fell out. I had ripped the stitches that were holding the book together! I jumped out of my bed and started pacing. How on earth was I going to tell Kristi? I heard my phone vibrate and I picked it up. It was a text from Kristi. “Hey Lea! Hope your feeling better. I’m in History class. Yawn. I just remembered that my sister wants the book back by tomorrow so I’m coming by after school to pick it up. I don’t think she knows I took the book from her closet, lol. C ya!”

 I started freaking out. I called my mom and told her that I needed her to get me another copy of the book. She came home and dropped off the new copy. Unfortunately the cover of the one she got was different then the one Kristi gave me. When Kristi got to my house I explained what happened and gave her the new copy. She was a little mad at first, but was really nice and understanding about it. Maybe she’s used to those things I do by now.

Having ADHD means that sometimes you can be destructive and impulsive. To avoid destroying anymore books, I always ask my self about every possible thing that could happen before I do something destructive.

Dunce Cap

I do pretty well in all my subjects in school, but science is what I am best at. I’m more of a Literature person than a math person, and history’s okay, but most of all I love science. Life science is my favorite aspect of science. One day during science class, we were talking about the human body and I had forgotten to put on my Daytranna medicine patch, or as I like to call them, smart patches. Anyway, I had forgotten to put on my patch and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stay focused.

So half way into class as I was staring at my friends, Luke and Kaylin, trying to figure out if they had the same exact color hair, or just similar shades of hair color, when my teacher called me out and said “So Lea, what do you think about all of this?”  She probably knew I wasn’t listing to her, which is really sad for me, because I love science and I hate to miss anything my science teacher tells us. I had remembered three words she had said from before. “Girls’, Heart attacks, and can’t.” I had those three words to go off of. I didn’t want to just sit there, looking like a buffoon for to long, because even though I’m not scared to participate in class and me and all my classmates are really tight so they don’t make me nervous, science was the thing I was known for being good at, and I didn’t want my teacher to think I was getting bored of her class.

“ Well” I began. “I think that people should study girls because they can’t have heart attacks and we should find out why to see er, if we can make boys hearts like girls hearts.” That had to be the stupidest thing to ever come out of my mouth. Usually I am way more clever than that, more resourceful, but at that moment, I was losing it. Lots of people laughed, and I just smiled, knowing that it’s okay to look stupid sometimes. A few people even applauded my answer. My friend, Dean, looked at me with an “oh Lea, what are we going to do with you” look, and I figured that’s probably what my teacher was thinking at that moment.

To avoid making a fool of myself again, when a teacher calls on me and I wasn’t listening, I simply tell them “I’m sorry, I was zoning out.” But there is not a lot of strategies I know of to stay focused in class.

Pudding for Pups

Summer time, and the living is easy. Plus, what could be sweeter than some chocolate pudding and American dad? Yes sir, what could compare to this summers day?

As I was watching Fran yell at the alien, I noticed my dog, Beemo, was watching me eat. “Aw! Does my doggy want the rest of my pudding?” I asked my pup. “Well, this is your lucky day boy, here you go” I said to him as I put my pudding bowl to the floor for him to lick. He was really making sure to lick of every last bit of pudding.

When I was done mindlessly watching the show, I decided I wanted more pudding. I walked into the kitchen, and then forgot why I was in the kitchen.  But just before I made it back to my room, I remembered why I went into the kitchen, to get more pudding. So yet again I walked into the kitchen. I did remember having a bowl I used for my last pudding, so went to go get it. I spooned the pudding into my bowl and as I stood their eating, I remembered two things…

1. I left the fridge open
2. I was using the same bowl Beemo had licked/ drooled all over!

I immediately spit the pudding out, and ran to my kitchen faucet to rinse out my mouth. Even after a nice mouth cleansing, I still felt like I was going to puke. I was also very cold for some reason. “Damn” I thought to myself as I sprinted over to the fridge and shut it. All I wanted was some nice chocolate pudding.

To avoid almost yacking again, I don’t feed my dog from the same plates I eat off of.