Boredom

Can I just say something about the boredom? I know, I know. You’re never supposed to admit it when you’re bored. My Dad used to say, “You’re bored? Good. Clean something.” It’s true. There is no reason to ever be bored. That being said, I’m bored as HELL. I’m sorry! I’m at a point in my life where the things that I do now don’t matter. They’ll matter later, but not yet. Let me explain.

I’ve experienced this feeling before. It’s a feeling of total pointlessness. Is that a word? Anyway, I feel like a parasite right now. I’m not working. Thankfully I’m receiving a small amount of money per month from the cruise line in a Maritime version of workers comp, but it’s not enough to do anything accept for buy groceries... kinda. I’m vegan and generally eat everything organic so my groceries are more expensive than average. That’s kind of a good thing at the moment because it means I buy less (and eat less) than usual which helps compensate for how much I’m sitting around. People often say “Oh my God... you’ve been out of work since May??? What have you been doing?” The answer isn’t very interesting, but I’ll tell you anyway.

To start off, let me give you a timeline. My last contract on a ship ended in May. I was offered another contract that was to start up a couple days later which fit my plans perfectly. I’d saved up a lot of money, but not as much as I needed for a trip that I planned. I was going to go to Europe and visit my friends in all of their different countries. Holland is a place I was generally focused on after having met so many people that reside there and I wanted one more quick contract to squeeze in so that I could go during the summer. It was hard, but I had to decline. Something was wrong. I knew that I had to see a doctor. It took a month before I could get in to see a specialist in Idaho and another month after that to see the vocal therapist. I had been told that I had developed vocal nodes and that it would take about 2 months of vocal therapy twice a week to fix it. Two months?? Oh no! That was the worst news that I could imagine. I had the dreaded nodes. My plans for Europe were ruined but my voice was more important. At my two month appointment, my therapist and doctor were both confident that my nodes were gone... until he scoped me and determined they hadn’t even shrunk. What??? Oh my gosh. How long was this going to take? I’d looked into working as a librarian on a ship in the mean time, but I was told that until the doctor gave me the all clear, I wasn’t allowed to work at all. A month later, they were again, sure that I was better. It was hard to tell if my voice was tired because something was still wrong, or merely because I went from singing 4 hours a day, to not singing at all. Again, no progress. This happened twice more during which time my vocal therapist assumed I wasn’t doing my therapy and where my doctor determined that I may never get better so I “May as well go back to work and see how it goes”. WHAT? I sing for a living. I can’t go back to work yet. I reminded him of this and he suggested that I still go and try to see doctors when I’m in port. I asked if he could just refer me to another specialist now. In November I was finally sent to Seattle where I was informed that I’d been misdiagnosed and I had to have surgery to remove a cyst. All of my savings were gone by now due to fact that I thought I was going to be out of work for 2 months tops. My surgery was scheduled for January which was the soonest they could see me, and now here I am a couple weeks later. 

Sorry for that long, elaborated timeline haha. I felt that it was important to express that the doctors kept telling me “next month you can go back to work” because this is the main reason I didn’t search for a side job at home. Also I might have lost my workers comp which was paying for my surgery. I couldn’t talk either which I suppose is kind of inconvenient. So what’s a girl to do when she’s trapped in Idaho with no job, no money, no voice, and messed up joints? Yeah my joints are messed up to. Can’t catch a break, can I? Well... during the summer and fall I was able to be a bit more productive. I had more money because I hadn’t used up my savings yet, and I had a car to drive because my Dad was driving his sports car and hadn’t put it away for the winter yet. I donated my time at a local soup kitchen and participated in a volunteer group of students from the college, helping with Special Olympics. I started taking piano and guitar lessons every week to attempt to improve my music theory. Another thing I was focusing on was my other health problems, seeing an acupuncturist once a week, and later a chiropractor in an attempt to tackle the health issues that I was too busy to address at sea. I was reading my Spanish Harry Potter books, painting, and learning how to use Logic Pro (music software).  For the most part I felt like I was keeping busy and productive, but knew that it was only temporary and I’d be back to work soon. 

By the time winter hit, things went downhill. Before my Seattle appointment, I told myself there’s no way I’d stay in Idaho for the winter. Me, my sinuses, and my joints, HATE being cold. I would no longer have a car. I had just run out of my savings and was having to live off of the small amount of workers comp money, which just wasn’t enough. I had to quit my piano and guitar lessons, and stop seeing my doctors. Since I didn’t have a car, I could no longer commit myself to my volunteer work. I had to get out of here. My thought was simple. I had two options. A: the Seattle doctor would say I’m better (because... again, that’s what my VT and Idaho doctor thought) or B: he’d say to keep doing my therapy. My Idaho doctor had told me those were my only two options and there was really no point going to Seattle, but he still sent me. My plan, therefore, was that if he said I’m better, I’d get some vocal coaching for a month to rebuild my vocal muscles then get back out to sea. If he said I wasn’t better yet, I’d abandon my workers comp, and get onto a ship as a Youth Staff or Librarian and continue to do my therapy on my own. Either way I was set to leave. No longer would I have to attempt to delude myself into thinking I was being a productive citizen. Then I got the news that I wasn’t prepared for. I had to have surgery. I had to stay. 

This was the worst point for me. Aside from being terrified of the potential ramifications of the surgery, this was crushing news. I was trapped. Literally. Because of my joint issues I couldn’t even leave the house on a bike if I wanted to. There’s no public transportation in my town (unless I walked forever to find a shuttle stop which I can’t do...) and most of my friends were either not in Idaho, or very busy with their lives and I couldn’t expect them to cart me around. At this point, it turned out to be a good thing that I couldn’t afford to do my usual activities. I wouldn’t be able to get there even if I could afford it. As an adult woman, my life was as shameful as I could imagine it to be. I went from living on ships making money and being independent, to living with my parents and asking them for rides. I was more independent in High School. Making new friends wasn’t something I was really interested in. What was I going to do. Ask them to come chill at my Mom’s house? Ew. Luckily I had a few good friends in town who could keep me company sometimes and didn’t care where I lived or that my life was boring. That helped a lot. With effort I may have been able to continue to do some of my volunteering but I lost interest. I stopped practicing guitar and piano. I didn’t have motivation to practice my Spanish. Plus, I was sick and I’d been sick since Thanksgiving with a cold and cough that wouldn’t go away. Finally, I was just at the point where I felt sorry for myself. My family and I  weren’t really getting along and the fact that I couldn’t just leave and get a moment to myself made me crazy. 

I don’t like to ask my parents for anything. I’m already a leach that lives in their house and runs up the heating and electricity bills. When Christmas was approaching, however, I needed some tests done by the doctor that insurance didn’t cover and I couldn’t afford. I asked my mother if she could cover the cost of the tests for Christmas and she refused because it wasn’t a nice present. (I still haven’t had the tests...). She told me to think of something else, and so I asked for the thing that I wanted the most. A ticket out of here. I’d already looked at tickets to LA and found some that were cheap and she agreed that I could go. Yes! A long needed vacation. Although I have family in California, they’re busy with their lives and I knew if I went to visit them I’d just be stuck at their house, so I went to see my friend Whitney. It was so nice to have a social life for a week! She kept me busy and we had a lot of fun. During that trip I almost got better from my cold, but as usual, it came back full force. This meant that when I got back to Idaho, I still couldn’t go out drinking and dancing with my friends. Salt in the wound. 

The relaxation from my trip only lasted a few days and then I went back to being a nervous wreck. My days consisted of Facebook (not proud.), reading, painting, crocheting random hats and headbands for people, and trying to suppress my coughing so as not to do further damage to my throat. Another thing that I was still doing was working with Logic Pro. I was taking songs that I’ve written but haven’t had a chance to record yet, and doing all of the music for it. That way, when I can sing again, it’ll be like singing karaoke to tracks that are all finished. My motivation with that was here and there because sometimes my inability to sing would overwhelm me with frustration and the creative juices would just stop. 

The turn around happened when I had my surgery. I’ve explained already that I was relieved when my surgery went well. Understatement of the century. I hadn’t realized how much better my mind would feel after the surgery. Now, I’m in the same dilemma as before. I sit around a lot, get trapped at home all the time, freeze my ass off, feel sometimes like there’s no point trying to get anything done, but somehow it’s not as bad. Those things combined with the fear of a botched surgery was much more overwhelming then what I face now. I’m frustrated at how long my doctor said it’ll be to get well again, but at least this time I’m on the mend and I’ll be able to see progress. Now I can start to plan for my future with more confidence and there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. Like I said. I’ve been here before. During that time people thought I was wasting my time practicing guitar and learning songs, but it payed off in the future with a solo act on cruise ships that took me around the world. Hopefully I’ll find that the mundane seemingly pointless things I’ve been doing for the past 9 months will enrich my life in ways that I never could have predicted. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.