#nine months of the year I spend half my energy trying to tune out feelings of maddening physical discomfort so I can act regular

[rulesforthedance]

I am exhausted and it has always been 40 degrees and raining and it will always be 40 degrees and raining

[alice-angel12x]

💔Father!Kalim x Son!Reader x Jamil

Not Romantic, platonic family love! sequel to the Jamil x reader story.

Get ready 'cause I'm feeling angsty and was inspired by Hamilton.

Y/n was the firstborn son of Kalim Al-Asim and Amina Akilah and was the most hard-working son. Sadly Y/n would get overshadowed by his 20 other step-siblings, That Fool Kalim can't even remember his firstborn son's name and was more in tune with his other more carefree children. Y/n studied hard and achieved more than those brats, he did all this to earn some approval and praise from that fool. And what he gets is a simple pat on the head and a 'good job' as he goes off and rides through town with his other children. Jamil was in love with Kalim's first wife, but when she passed he swore to take care of Y/n in her place. So his anger grew whenever he saw that Kalim never acknowledged his own first-born son's great potential. So Jamil happily became Y/n's father-figure, even seeing Y/n as his own while Kalim favors his younger son, Adnan, from Kalim's second wife.  

Adnan was a spoiled brat who simply like to appeal to his father's carefree nature, earning his status as the favorite child. And because of this, he bullied his other siblings and play the victim when they fight back. Jamil would admit the boy was clever in kissing up to his father to convince him to give him everything in his will. And he was good at sports, but that is it. The boy wasn't smart and didn't care to learn or study. He would use his power over his other siblings to get him decent grades. 

Jamil sighed as he brought his young master's lunch.

"Y/n, your lunch is ready," Jamil said as he placed the plates on the desk, " What are you doing?"

"I want to try to pick up an instrument, maybe that father will notice me. Mr. Azul said that Father likes to dance and play music. Can you teach me music and dancing?" Y/n begged.

"If this is to win back the inheritance Adnan-"

"No it's not about the inheritance, I just want to spend time with Father. I want to at least remember me and my name," Y/n frowned.

'Why do you want to spend time with that fool? I was more of a father to you than him,' Jamil thought to himself.

"Alright, recently Kalim has been really interested in the Piano," Jamil said as he masked a smile.

So the next month Jamil taught Y/n everything he knew about playing the piano and a few other assortments of instruments. As Jamil taught him, he noticed that Y/n quickly picked up on music easily and quickly, and even enjoyed it. So he did have something from Kalim.

"Un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq-six-sept-huit-neuf (un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq-six-sept-huit-neuf )

Good, un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit (un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq-six-sept-huit-neuf)Sept-huit-neuf (sept-huit-neuf)Sept-huit-neuf (sept-huit-neuf)One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine," The two sang togeather.

______

Y/n happily ran over to his father and showed off his musical talent's much to Kalim's amazement.

"Father, Father, look My name is Y/n I am a poet, I wrote this poem just to show it. And I just turned nine, You can write rhymes but you can't write mine," Y/n sang as he played the piano.

"What!" Kalim smiled as he sat next to his son.

"I practice French and play piano with Jamil. I have a bother, but I want a little sister," Y/n continued.

 "Okay," Kalim chuckled.

"Un deux trois quatre cinq," Y/n finished with a smile.

"Bravo!" Kalim cheered.

 Kalim happily gave him tips on each instrument as they made a small two-person band. From that point on Kalim and Y/n spent more and more Father and son time, and even became more involved in Y/n's life. Much to Jamil's slight dismay. Kalim and Y/n would spend time playing instruments to entertain guests, or could even be found playing board and card games together. His once-forgotten son, to his pride and joy within a year.

"And Check Mate," Y/n said proudly.

"Again?! alright one more game," Kalim laughed.

Jamil brought Kalim his dinner for the night when he noticed, Kalim looking over Y/n's great accomplishments, all proudly presented on Y/n's bedroom wall.

"Master Kalim?" Jamil called.

"Jamil, Kalim is just fine. Your my friend," Kalim smiled at Jamil, " Y/n my son, I never knew he was such a genius."

"Y-yes, your son is a very bright boy," Jamil said as he forced a smile.

"I feel terrible now that I realize I'm leaving him empty-handed once I pass," Kalim frowned as he hung his head.

_______

As years went by Y/n continued to grow to be a handsome young man and be on top of his classes, and showed great skill in his music skills, and Kalim was there for him the entire time. Word about Y/n spread far and wide across the Land of Hot Sands and even was heard by The Sultan of the land.

"Mr.  Al-Asim, I hear that you have a very exceptional son, is that true?" The Sultan asked as Kalim and Y/n bowed before him.

"Yes, he is a very bright boy," Kalim said with a calm and confidant smile.

"I've been looking new advisor, and I hope he is as good as they say," The Sultan said simply as he left the  Al-Asim household.

"Father, Do you really think I'm up to the task?" Y/n asked nervesly.

"I am confident you have what it takes to be the best Advisor in this generation," Kalim smiled brightly.

---------

"I don't know if I can do this, Jamil, I'm not ready," Y/n panicked as he passed back and forth.

Jamil rolled his eyes as he grabbed Y/n's shoulders.

"Y/n, calm down," Jamil said, " you are the son of the smart  Amina Akilah, I know you're more than capable."

"Thank's Jamil," Y/n smiled as he kneeled before him," For always looking out for me when I needed someone to turn to."

"Y/n I'm just a servant, I did what I was required to do," Jamil said as he turned away from Y/n.

Y/n was able to catch a quick glimpse of a hint of sadness in Jamil's eyes. If Y/n were to be chosen as the advisor to the Sultan he would spend most or all of his time in the castle. Jamil was going to miss the young boy, but he quickly barrier those sorrows had hurried Y/n out of the house.

The Sultan sent a trial for the candidates, and whoever passed would be his advisor. Using this to weed out the less impressive, and soon it was down to Y/n and on another proud candidate, Abbas. 

Abbas noticed with each trail Y/n grew more and more favor with the Sultan. Abbas was an older man who worked hard to even step foot into the palace, but he had dark reasons for wanting to become the advisor. The sultan was a carefree man, and a kind ruler, easy to manipulate. Surly the Sultan would choose a wiser older man with more experience than this ignorant rich boy, Abbas thought to himself.

So when the sultan chose the young  Y/n, Abbas's anger took hold as he drew his gun and aimed for the Sultan and BANG!!!

"Someone apprehend that man!!"

"Call the doctor!!"

"Call for the boy's father!!" The Sultan creamed as he held a dying Y/n in his arm. 

---------

"Where's my son?!" Kalim asked as he entered the hospital.

"Mr. Al-Asim, come in, they brought him in half an hour ago," The healer said, "He lost a lot of blood on the way over (stay alive)"

"Is he alive?" Kalim asked as his heart raced.

"Yes, but you have to understand, The bullet entered just above his hip and lodged in his right arm," The healer tried to explain. "The bullet was coated in some unknown poison,"

"Can I see him please?" Kalim asked as tears ran down his face.

"I'm doing everything I can but the wound was already infected when he arrived," The healer frowned.

"Y/n," Kalim gasped.

"Father!" Y/n smiled weakly.

"I did exactly as you said, Pa held my head up high."

"I know, I know, shh (high)I know, I know, shh," Kalim said, trying to get Y/n to save his energy."I know you did everything just right,"

"Even before we got to ten 

I was aiming for the sky 

I was aiming for the sky," Y/n repeated as he grew weaker.

 "I know, I know, shhI know, save your strength and stay alive!" Kalim begged.

Jamil wandered to the door of the room, unaware of why Kalim rushed here in such a hurry. Til he saw Y/n laying on the bed, growing paler by the minute.

"NO!" Jamil cried out as he ran into the room.

"Jamil," Kalim gasped.

"Is he breathing? Is he going to survive this?" Jamil gasped as he hugged the injured boy close, " Who did this, Kalim, did you know?"

"Jamil, I'm so sorry for forgetting what you taught me," Y/n chocked out in pain.

At that moment Jamil couldn't hold back his tears as his emotions break through his usual cool facade, as he cried out the words he always wished he could say to Y/n.

"My son," Jamil cried as he turned to Y/n.

"We played piano," Y/n said in pain.

"I taught you piano," Jamil smiled through his tears.

"You would put your hands on mine," Y/n said slowly.

"You changed the melody every time," Jamil said as he chocked out a laugh.

"I would always change the line," Y/n said.

"Shh, I know, I know," Jamil shushed softly.

"I would always change the line," Y/n repeated.

"I know, I know. Un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq-six-sept-huit-neuf," Jamil said as Y/n copied, " Good Un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq-six-sept-huit-neuf."

Jamil paused after Y/n suddenly stopped singing with him.

"Sept-huit-neuf. Sept-huit," Jamil stuttered, "NOOO!"

That hospital room soon was full of cries of mourning.

----------

Kalim stood behind Jamil, who was standing over Y/n's grave. His umbrella has long been toasted aside as he was soaked to the bone. Kalim tried to comfort his friend as he placed flowers of hydrangeas and Sunflowers on his son's grave. Kalim turned to Jamil, to ask him to come out of the rain.

"Leave Me!" Jamil growled without looking at Kalim.

Kalim backed away as he slowly joined his wife and kids inside the house. Jamil stood over the two graves, one for Y/n Al-Asim, the other Amina Akilah.

"Please," Jamil croaked softly, " Y/n, Amina, take me with you." 

_______

[boxoftheskyking]

Something Good, Part Eight

In which the children learn some things

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

---

Wei Wuxian lights three lamps and spreads his discarded curtains on the wooden walkway outside the servants quarters. The cultivators at Cloud Recesses retire at nine, leaving a good three hours for servants to work in the main areas, cleaning and mending and tidying with no bothersome children or late meetings to interrupt them. It’s actually a little fun—the laundry yard is far enough from the sleeping quarters so they can be a bit loud, singing and laughing while they work. The servants try to sleep by midnight if they can in order to grab three or four hours to rest before fires need to be lit and breakfast started.

The Lan Clan rules have quite a lot to say about setting aside the proper number of hours to sleep. These rules don’t seem to apply to the servants. Wei Wuxian wonders sometimes who knows what actually goes into running a place like Cloud Recesses. Does Lan Xichen? Lan Qiren? Has Lan Wangji ever stayed up late and seen the flurry of work in his beloved library? But they are all such diligent students, they’d never stay up so late. Cultivators. So studious in topics of importance, so clueless about everything else.

Sometimes—though he tries to avoid it—he thinks about the servants back at Lotus Pier. Yunmeng has no such rules about sleeping and waking hours, and Wei Wuxian remembers many late nights entertaining guests, holding silly sword tournaments in the training yards after a few jugs of wine, even Jiang Fengmian holding discussions with other sect leaders that ran long into the morning. When had their servants cleaned, swept, repaired the things broken by careless bursts of spiritual energy? He’d always thought Madam Yu’s servants to be so cruel, extensions of her fury and rigidity. But maybe they were just tired.

In any event, he hasn’t slept a full night since he lost his golden core, so he doesn’t mind much. 

After a lot of thought, he’s decided that the children’s play clothes won’t be robes but rather a version of a laborer’s shirt and trousers. He’s only got one full set of clothes himself, but he’s picked apart the seams and laid out the pieces as a pattern. If he can figure out how to make children’s versions, then he’ll be able to stitch his own back together. If not, well, Madam Xiao likes him now. He can come up with some story to justify running up to her in just his sleeping robe. He’s kneeling in it now, bony knees sticking out at odd angles and night breeze raising gooseflesh on all his exposed skin.

He doesn’t think of warm hands on his neck as he bends to his work. He traces around each piece with charcoal before cutting them out. By the time the sky turns purply-grey with sunrise, he has a neat little stack of various sized patterns, each set rolled into a dusty blue cylinder. 

It takes another week and a half of spare hours during lessons and after dark to make a full set of clothes and another week to improvise adjustments to hems and inseams. He finds himself saved by the addition of drawstring belts, and while they hardly look tidy, he ends up with an army of midnight colored miscreants that he’s quite proud of. 

The little ones are the most delighted—only a few months or years out of shirts and trousers themselves. The older children are uncomfortable initially, so used to the many layers of robes and sashes that they’ve been wearing. Wei Wuxian asked Wen Ning whether he wanted a set of play clothes, as he’s practically an adult himself. Wen Ning’s deep bow and “It would be an honor to wear clothes made by Wei-qianbei” made Wei Wuxian blush and threaten to dump him over the waterfall.

He’s a bit disappointed that Lan Wangji leaves for an important council before he’s finished—he’d rather have liked to show off his new skills. But politics are politics, and the rumor among the servants is that he’s visiting with the family of his betrothed.

“But who is it?” Wei Wuxian whines at Madam Xiao as he helps her fold a set of bedsheets. “Surely if anyone knows it’s you.”

Madam clicks her tongue and takes a swipe at his head. “I don’t bother myself with the noble family trees. At my age you’ve seen so many cultivators come and go, so many weddings and funerals, it hardly pays to keep track of it all. Sure, won’t she need to eat and sleep and relieve herself just like the rest of them? We’ll all get to know her better than Young Master Lan himself does before too long.”

Wei Wuxian laughs, though there’s something inside him that flinches, like picking off a scab when you haven’t finished healing beneath.

With Lan Wangji gone, the juniors have fewer classes. Lan Xichen teaches a few here and there, which is surprisingly enjoyable to watch. Wei Wuxian can tell he doesn’t spend much time with children so young, and he finds his delighted smile and swallowed laughter somehow gratifying. It’s not right, and it’s dangerous to start thinking yes, these are my children. Aren’t they clever, aren’t they funny? My children. But his command over his own mind has always been tenuous at best.

The result of all this means that Wei Wuxian has many extra hours with the kids in their new play clothes. He’s taken a few day trips down to Caiyi town, not bothered by the impropriety of junior disciples running about in trousers. As far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing shameful about being dressed like a farmer or a laborer. One day he found himself exhausted from hustling them all down the mountain, so he asked a few of his new friends in the Caiyi market if they’d mind taking on a few apprentices. The day turned into a highlight for the children—some learned to make delicately spiced pork dumplings, some wrapped sticky pastries for customers, some sanded down slats of wood for chair building, and some tried their hand at painting cleverly stitched kites. Su Meiling has declared she is going to be a carpenter when she grows up, and Wei Wuxian finds himself hoping that she will. 

He wonders if his new life would have been less jarring if he’d been allowed to learn more as a kid—to truly befriend the townsfolk of Yunmeng instead of drifting in and out as the benevolent gentry. On darker days he almost wishes Jiang Fengmian had never found him and that he’d grown up as he deserved on the streets of Yunping City. It hurts to imagine never knowing Jiang Yanli or Jiang Cheng, but if he’d never had that artificial sense of nobility, his fall from grace would have truly meant nothing. 

The walk from Cloud Recesses to town and back is unsupervised by anyone but him, so he takes the risk and teaches his charges little songs as they march. He makes up funny tunes about rabbits and sets his favorite Lan Sect rules to music. When the clothes are done he stays up at night figuring out rhymes for “silence” and “forbidden” and “floppy-ears.”

“Little, little rabbit, oh! Up the mountain you must go Grass is sweeter up the hill Salty seaweed makes you ill! Rabbits, rabbits, time to run Up the mountain one by one Quick, before the sunlight ends Run and run to meet your friends!”

After Lan Wangji has been away for a full week, Wei Wuxian gets a bit bolder. He’s had a number of days now running the children around the back hill, teaching songs and some basic hand-to-hand combat.

“But Wei-qianbei,” Ouyang Zizhen had said. “Once we are fully grown cultivators we will have swords. Why would we need to know how to fight without them?”

“Ah, Zizhen, but what if some clever demon takes your sword from you? What if you are cursed and your spiritual power is locked away? Don’t you want to be prepared, so you are not caught off guard? And after all, your Wei-qianbei has neither a sword nor spiritual power. Don’t you want to know how I can protect you if something dangerous comes?”

Zizhen had hung his head and nodded, embarrassed, but after a hug and a one-on-one lesson in punching his good nature had returned.

Today, Wei Wuxian decides to push more boundaries. He’s created a stack of talisman paper woven through with spells. First, a spell that imbues the whole paper with the same qualities so it can be cut into smaller pieces without disrupting its power. Second, he’s added what he calls a safety lock, which prevents the paper from being used for anything overly powerful or damaging. The last character he’s added makes all of the power of this stack of talisman paper subservient to one specific piece—a piece he keeps in preparation for any coming problems.

The activity of the day is to make papermen. He passes out the paper and lets each of them cut a little stack of figures in whatever shape they like. Some are standard—one round head, two stubby arms and two legs—while some have long hair or funny pointed feet. Lan Jingyi’s have rabbit ears.

“All right, juniors. Now take your brush and ink. You are going to take one paperman and give him an action. This might be to walk or to run or to do a somersault or anything else. Do not command him to hurt anyone—I don’t need to tell you that! Make your command simple and write it in the middle of your paper.”

He goes around to help the younger ones with their characters. Lan Sizhui has chosen “Dance,” while Lan Jingyi has chosen “Climb.” 

“All right! Now you have your commands ready. Focus your energy and take some full, deep breaths. What you are going to do is think very hard and clearly about your paperman. Imagine that he is you. Imagine what it feels like to be as small as he is, as thin. Imagine that you are your paperman, and imagine standing up.”

At first, nothing happens. Then Wen Ning’s paperman stands up from the ground. Everyone around him gasps and cheers, and as he blushes and hides his face, his paperman falls back to the dirt.

“Very good, Wen Ning! But you all must focus on your own papermen. Come now, quietly, focus.”

One by one, a few little cutouts rise to stand. When about seven of the eleven look at least partially alert, Wei Wuxian instructs them to focus on their commands.

“This is your first time making papermen, so it may help to perform the action along with them. Try to imagine yourself as a little piece of paper, running or climbing or stretching as you’ve instructed.”

At first, only two are moving. Wen Ning’s paperman bends into one perfect kowtow after another. Surprisingly, little Sizhui is the next most successful, his little man rising to spin and dance around the clearing. Over the next fifteen minutes more stand and begin to move. Those who are unsuccessful are frustrated, but Wei Wuxian gives them each a squeeze on the shoulder and lets them play with the others who are running and jumping and dancing along with their paper avatars.

“Yes, well done! Look at them go!” he cheers, swinging Jingyi around as his little man climbs the nearest tree. It falls back to the ground after about a minute, but nothing can discourage Jingyi’s grin.

“It feels so odd, Wei-qianbei!” Yao Hualing cries as her paperman does a series of stretches. “I feel like I’m in two different places at the same time!”

“Yes, that means you are successful, A-Ling!” he cries and drops a kiss on the top of her hair.

He has an armful of two ten-year-olds when the rest of the children suddenly fall silent and stand at attention, papermen falling to the ground. He spins back around, dropping Zizhen and Lan Ting to the grass. He looks at the ground, following Jingyi’s paperman as it finds and begins to climb a set of luxurious red robes. He sees familiar set of boots leading to white and sky blue robes, though he hesitates to look Lan Wangji in the face. 

When he finally does, he’s almost gratified to see red in his cheeks and down his neck, his fists clenched at his side. And next to him, elegant face turned to the children, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise—

“Jiejie!” Wen Ning cries. 

Wei Wuxian feels all the breath leave him as he sways on the spot. He reaches out for Lan Ting’s shoulder to steady himself, his other hand flying to his abdomen, down low where the scar tissues sits, twisted and ugly and still sore.

Wen Qing looks over the crowd of messy children dressed as servants and then, finally, meets his eyes.

Part Nine

[heli0s-writes]

V. Twenty Years and a Month*

Summary: You spend four summer weeks with Steve, but some things are too good to be true. Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader A/N: Modern AU, Teacher reader, Dad/Baker Steve… lots of pining, slow burn, romance. Enjoy! 

Slow Like Honey Masterpost

Your first thought when you stir the next morning is that someone is cooking in your apartment. The second thought you have is purely frantic as you realize that no one should be cooking in your apartment, and then finally, that this isn’t your apartment at all.

The comforter is gray under your clenched fingers, not cream, like your own. The bedsheets are too smooth and silky, and the pillow under your head is much too nice to be anything you’ve bought for yourself. In the distance is the quiet hum of a range hood as well as a peppy whistling tune. Your heart begins to slow as you realize… it’s only Steve.

The alarm clock on top of his dresser blinks six-fifteen back at you and you wipe the sleep from your eyes with a traitorous yawn. From the commotion in the kitchen, he wasn’t joking when he said that he only slept four hours a night.

You only hope that you’re somewhat decent as you hear his footsteps coming closer to the bedroom. Should you pretend you’re asleep? Should you run to the restroom? It’s been so long since you’ve woken up next to anyone that you’re grasping at straws.

“Hey…” Steve greets shyly as he steps in, as if he’ll scare you off. “Good morning.”

He’s wearing grey lounge pants and an off-white tee, feet nestled in a pair of green house-slippers. His hair is slightly ruffled from sleep, but he is otherwise just as magical as ever. Glowing, almost, as he scratches his beard.

“I, um, made breakfast, if you’d like to join me? Monday’s my day off… so… no rush.”

You nod with a smile, but then point towards the restroom door. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”

He dutifully dips into the room and pulls out one from the cabinet before picking up his own as well. You ease yourself from the warmth of his sheets, not quite ready to start the day, but hopeful that you can return to the plush fabric that smells fragrantly like him.

And, you think suddenly, like sex.

You become introverted like a timid maiden, blatantly aware of your nakedness in his bedroom. You slip on his shirt from last night—a faded, speckled grey jersey knit that hangs on you like a dress. You have no idea where your underwear is, so you’re glad Steve’s as large as a door because the hem swings a few inches above your knees, just enough for some modesty.

He’s already gently scrubbing at his teeth by the time you start, and you tilt your head forward so that he can’t see the shyness that’s determinedly crawling up your neck.

He rinses and spits. Then moves to the door but stops.

“I… really like this…” He says quietly, trailing a finger down your spine. You rinse and spit too, standing up and wiping your mouth, catching his downcast eyes in the mirror as they trail over the shape of you through his clothing.

His gaze flickers upward, holding your own eyes steady in the reflection of the glass. Steve clamps his minty fresh teeth over lower his lip and takes a step forward until his knee is situated between the back of your two thighs.

When he presses his body against yours, the sudden shyness that seized you in the bedroom is nowhere to be found as the two of you watch each other in the glass.

“You should have more days off, I think...” You sigh distractedly as his hand reaches under the shirt. Steve smiles into the back of your neck, hums a musical agreeance, squeezes your sides.

 Breakfast is cold by the time you make it to the kitchen, but you eat it anyway, both giggly and alive with newfound energy. Steve pulls your chair so close to his that you end up practically in his lap and nuzzles his nose into your neck any chance he gets.

The sunlight pours in from the opened blinds and cuts across the table and your legs with streaks of bright white. Scents of coffee, bacon, and spices fill the air. Steve licks frosting from your mouth as the two of you share a cinnamon roll and when you gasp at the way his tongue tickles, he promptly takes you back to bed to show you what else his tongue will do to you this morning.

It’s blissful like a dream, your time with him now that you’ve crossed this bridge. He makes love to you ardently, cradles your body like it’s made of glass, and breathes sincerity onto your extremities until all you feel is the warmth of Steve Rogers.

You spend the next few Monday mornings like this: lazy, indulgent, with sleepy eyes and roguish smiles.

The weekdays are spent mostly apart with Steve’s schedule of waking up at three to work out before he starts baking at Cap&Co. His timetable is strict and nothing like your own, so you don’t see him until he gets off work for dinner— when he still makes the meals. You try your best to help, washing the dishes afterward and wiping the counters. He’s usually so tired that he’s asleep before he hits the bed at nine, so you let yourself out and lock the door behind you.

And it’s not like you don’t have your own life. You see Heather for dinner and get together with some other co-workers when they go out for drinks. You also visit your mother—a five-hour drive away, and even slowly begin to add more furniture into your world.

Steve also gifts you a small watercolor kit and four very expensive brushes. When he’s busy at work, you continue practicing your painting. It gets better, slowly, and you branch out to different types of still-life: fruit, knick-knacks, silly arrangements you scrounge together with the items in your house.

Your days are spent looking forward to Sunday evening, when you meet up with Steve early, help him close, and trail him enthusiastically back to his house. The nights are full of fingertips and wine, knees knocking together following the rhythm of unhurried kisses and husky breaths, exultant laughter and pillow talk after the fact. Then, you both fall asleep in each other’s arms, naked as the day you were born.

 Eight-thirty blinks on the clock when you finally settle on your side the third Monday of this divine ritual, tracing the lines of Steve’s face with your eyes. His room is rosy with daylight as the beams catch on his drawn curtains and scatter over the walls.

“Mm…” He hums, smiling, returning the gesture with his own inspection of your face. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” You say breathlessly, praying to every known deity that you looked okay, just as you do every morning with him. This new love still blooms butterflies in your stomach. “Just, appreciating you—you’re really handsome.”

He laughs, eyelashes landing on his cheeks before he begins to scrub his beard with his fist, “Thank you.”

“So you agree?” You ask mischievously, “You think you’re really handsome?”

His brow furrows before he pops one eye open and asks carefully, “Mean Girls?”

You shriek with laughter, turning over on your back and holding your sides- encased in another one of his shirt, “Oh my God!” You cry, “You’re perfect!”

He shares a lopsided grin with you, pulling you into his arms that you playfully take a bite of.

“So…” Steve croons, “You don’t just like me for my arms? You also like me for my knowledge of Mean Girls, is that right?”

You nod eagerly along, cheek pressed against his chest, and he gives you the equivalent of a noogie with his chin, the thick hairs on it scrrtch-scrrtching as the sound echoes along your skull.

It’s more of this bliss for the next half hour. Joking, playing, burrowing beneath the covers to stare at each other under diffused light. Your fingers are linked in his, and he’s telling you a story about his childhood when you start to nod off, dreaming about Steve as a boy, catching bus rides all over Brooklyn.

“Bucky and I would get into all sorts of trouble,” his disembodied voice floats over your fuzzy state of mind, “Bucky with the girls, and me… well, with everybody else.”

You chuckle softly as he kisses the top of your head.

“—we’d forgotten the fare—“

Back and forth, like floating on a Caribbean current, staring into the clouds, you sway.

“—and the dog chasing—“

You can almost hear it, a little terrier’s yelp. You’re warm and full of sunshine and affection for him. The young man, troublesome, and the grown man, tender and loving. Both blonde and blue and beaming at you with a smile brighter than any star. A sluggish smile spreads over your lips when Steve tilts his head down to check on you. He presses his nose into your scalp, breathing in the fragrant scent of his shampoo in your hair and a lingering aroma that’s solely yours.

“Love you.”

His eyebrows raise at your sudden admission. The words sound so nonchalant that he thought they might have belonged to someone who’s been in his life more than a month. He checks on you again because he was sure you’d fallen asleep already. And you are, heavy sighs caressing his sternum.

He rolls your words around in his mouth silently, the syllables making his chest swell with every touch of tongue to teeth. It’s new love, and he hasn’t felt a new love in over two decades. The excitement, the unknowing, the thrill of discovering, he’s never thought he’d look forward to ---

A shrill ring jerks you from your slumber and Steve from his musings.

He paws around the bed for his phone. Peggy’s number lights up and he knows it’s Sarah requesting a video chat. They’ve done this at least twice a week, but it’s the first time that you’re here, too. You rub your eyes and scoot to the edge of the bed, making sure that you’re out of sight when Sarah comes on screen.

“Daddy?” Her voice calls when he picks up.

You watch Steve’s profile light up with a grin as you rub the sleep out of your eyes. You smile too as you watch him beaming. “Sweetheart! I’ve missed you so much.”

“I miss you too daddy! I’m about to eat dinner and mummy is setting the table. Today mum, she took me to see this big clock thing and it’s name is Ben! And didja know? Didja know in London, the money is called a quid? Like a squid, daddy!”

Steve chuckles as Sarah rambles on, telling him more about her sightseeing in London. You hear her blow kisses and can’t help but smile because you also miss her.

“Daddy when I come back I’m gonna bring you some squids and—“

Your heart leaps when she asks if you’ll be there at the airport too. Steve sends a quick look your way and you reply with a nod. He reaches over to squeeze your hand before pulling it back.

“—Yay! I’ve been taking lots of pictures I want to show! Look, look! Here’s me and grandma and mummy—“

“Mummy, huh?” Steve asks, “Why, Sarah, you’re a certified Brit now, aren’t you?”

“Well, I’m half!” Sarah cries, “Here’s mummy and I put this flower in her hair. Isn’t she the most beautiful person in the world?”

A pang of jealousy hits your chest as soon as Sarah’s words leave her lips. Steve looks on, sadness eroding his formerly happy features. He doesn’t say anything, though, and you know it must be to spare your own feelings as you lie perfectly still only a couple of feet away. It feels like leagues of ocean as you float unsteadily, waiting selfishly for the moment to end. The rocking of the Caribbean is gone. You sink down like Atlantis now.

“Sarah, my dove,” A voice calls on the other line, growing closer. “Sweetheart, could I have the phone?”

“Can you talk to mumma today?”

His Adam’s apple bobs as he sits up quickly, back against the headboard. You watch him run his fingers through his hair, patting down the sides that have become disheveled. He’s become fearful like a deer in headlights.

“Hello, Peggy.” He says quietly when the screen shifts. If you weren’t motionless before, you certainly are now. A perfect frozen statue, steely and cold, drained of even your own breath.

“Steven,” she responds, “You look… healthy. I… I’m glad to see you. Have you been well?”

“Yes. You?”

“Yes.”

Even her voice sounds beautiful—polished and refined with that fantastic English accent Americans are so easily attracted to. You’ve seen pictures of her, of course, ones that Sarah has shown you all those months ago when the kids did a project over their parents. You only wish you felt the way you did then—appreciative of Peggy Carter’s loveliness in a completely disengaged way, rather than how you do now. Sick. Ill with envy and dread.

“That’s excellent. I just want to, well, I just want to let you know that she’s doing well on our little holiday.” You hear her voice lift a little, tell-tale sign of a smile, and you can only imagine just how radiant her smile is. “She’s very impressive, our girl.” Peggy says, “She’s really grown so much.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees quietly, “She has. I’m glad she’s having fun. Thanks for letting me know, Peg.”

“Of course. Well, I’ll leave you be. Sarah’s already at the table so perhaps we’ll call you later tonight? If that’s alright with you?”

“Yeah... of course.”

A moment passes before they both say their goodbyes carefully and Steve tucks the phone face-down under the blanket next to his thigh. Yes, you know this feeling, you think as you watch him slide his palm over his forehead until the heel of it is the only thing touching his temple. His eyes are closed as he inhales deeply.

You don’t want to be the first to speak, so you wait for him to acknowledge you.

“I’m sorry about that.” He whispers, staring up at the stationary fan overhead.

“No, it’s nothing.” You respond. Your hand moves to take his, but you stop yourself. It suddenly feels wrong, and you feel wrong—like an unwelcome guest in his home, in his life. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“I- I, uh, sorry!” He laughs bitterly, “Don’t know what’s come over me.”

“No, I understand.” You pluck up the courage to hold onto his hand, but it lies heavy over your own.

“I haven’t talked to Peggy in months,” he sighs, “It’s… it’s hard. You know? Being with someone for half your life and… now my life is… this.”

Of course, he doesn’t mean it that way, but you take his statement like a slap to the face because you are the this that he’s talking about—the other, the unknown thing that he’s fumbling with. There’s not a lot for you to compare what he’s feeling to, because your previous relationship is a blip compared to Steve and Peggy’s marriage.

Even though this new relationship is fun and thrilling, full of electricity and warmth, you know that the comfort of being with someone you know, someone you have loved, someone you can fall back to so easily… is just that. So damn easy.

Steve and Peggy have spent nearly two decades together. They know each other just as well as they know themselves. If this recent conversation is the beginning of a reconciliation, then, who are you to stand in the way of their family?

You’re full of concern and self-hatred as you suddenly feel like… like this: like four short weeks, like nothing at all.

“Y-yeah.” You breathe, because it’s all you can do.

 Twenty minutes later you’re heading out the door, much earlier than your usual Mondays together. But the call from London had left a painful thorn in your side and a haze of discomfort over Steve. The two of you stepped around each other when you go to the restroom to shower, bumping into the doorframe and wall on accident. He reached for the curtain first, but you had the same thought, and your hands both retreated. Then you accidentally elbowed him when you tried to take off your shirt and, in his attempt to dodge the rest of your arm, he knocked into the sharp corner of the countertop.

Steve had snapped at you after that—asking you harshly to be more careful with what you’re doing, and it made you physically take a step back, cheeks burning with ire. He was so caught up--merely minutes later after talking to Peggy—that it was all he was thinking about.

“I think I’ll just go.” You said, hastily pulling on your clothes from the night before and sweeping your hair up into a bun.

 He doesn’t even stop you, which makes it all the more painful.

 He doesn’t text or call the next day. Or the day after that. And you conclude that both of those days signify the death of your new relationship. He doesn’t need to tell you it’s over for you to feel it in your heart. You think it’s better like this anyway and begin trying to sweep the memories of him into the back of your mind.

You spend the mornings sleeping in as late as your body will allow you to because any moment awake would be another moment that your mind will wander to Steve. You feel beyond torn, oscillating between accepting the fact that the man has a family and a history, and then growing infuriated that you let yourself fall into his trap in the first place.

What were you expecting, anyway? That he’d marry you? That he’d fall in love with you and you would live happily ever after in his cozy Four-Square sanctuary? You wish you had never said yes to him, never gone to the bakery, never given him your number, never kissed him or made love to him. Your body aches to think of him.

Less than thirty days ago, Steve Rogers was the absolute least of your worries. And now, you can only blame yourself.

You cry at the end of your jogs and into your bowls of oatmeal. You throw the watercolors against the wall. You stare angrily at the black hole of your phone screen. Your eyes burn into themselves any time you catch your reflection in the mirror.

“Idiot.” You chastise yourself to the emptiness of your apartment. “You goddamn idiot.”

--

On the phone, Bucky Barnes rolls his eyes and gestures incredulously to his girlfriend. Sometimes he can’t believe that Steve is capable of being so senseless.

“Rogers, you goddamn idiot!”

“I’m serious, Bucky.” Steve retorts, “It’s—you know it’s more complicated than that.”

Bucky scoffs loudly and disapprovingly, “I don’t think it is, man. Run it through for me again. C’mon—from the top.”

Steve sighs loudly and leans back on the couch, craning his neck to the ceiling as he cradles the phone against his ear. “For the last month, I’ve—“  

“You’ve been seeing the teacher—someone you’ve pined after for like, a year.”

“Am I telling this? Or are you?”

Bucky snorts. “Go on, then.”

“We’ve been seeing each other the last four weeks—it’s been wonderful. She’s yeah, she’s exactly how I thought she’d be.” Steve mumbles almost apologetically, “Sweet. Kind. Hilarious. Beautiful… Listens to my shit. Takes me up on my painting lessons.”

“Good in bed.” Bucky supplies.

“Jesus, Buck.”

“Wasn’t she?”

“Jesus—yes, fine.” He groans forcefully, feeling his face grow warm with embarrassment. “But—I don’t know. Peggy’s been calling me again. She’s been… talking to me. A lot.”

“A lot being… two times.”

“Yes, but… God, Bucky. We talked for hours yesterday and—“

“And you’re convinced it’ll just snap back together like it used to be?”

“We were together for almost twenty years! That’s the equivalent of some people’s lifetimes. We have a daughter, Buck. Sarah wants her mother in her life. And Peggy is her mother.” A quiet passing of your name goes through the receiver—so softly Bucky almost misses it. Steve sounds like he’s grieving when he says it, “She’s so young— And she doesn’t even want kids, Buck. How can that work? I already have one.”

“Hey, man.” Bucky cuts him off, “Twenty years is somebody’s lifetime, sure. But so is four weeks. You get me?”

Steve doesn’t.

“Buddy, you called me every night for almost eight months. You spent days on my couch in shambles—you lost fifteen pounds! I still can’t look at Peggy. A lifetime is… fucking nothing to me. Nothing when I’m looking at you crying on the floor.”

The venom in Bucky’s voice stings Steve even from hundreds of miles away. He remembers those days—when Peggy first started pulling away from him, from Sarah, and he felt his heart begin to chip away until it crumbled all over the divorce papers as they finally slipped under his nose.

“You know Peggy’s only there when it’s convenient for her. You two brought an entire person into the world and she still left. This… this isn’t real, man.”

“But what if it is?”

“What if it is?” Bucky asks back, “What if what you already have is real, too? I know you think time and security is reassuring, but nothing about Peggy reassures me. I’d rather you raise Sarah on your own than get back together with Peggy and watch her leave for weeks at a time again. Did she say she’s going to quit her job?”

“No.” Steve admits, that’s the one thing they haven’t reached yet when they talk on the phone late into the night. They’ve reminisced about all sorts of things--- high school, their first dates, their wedding, Sarah’s birth, her interests, and even future ruminations—what she might be when she grows up. But not once did Peggy bring up the topic of her career as they discussed their broken little family. And Steve had been too scared to prod—too complacent in just enjoying the relief of her familiar voice, her laughter, like falling backwards into his own bed at the end of the day.

“If that wasn’t her first topic of discussion,” Bucky cuts through his thoughts, “Then it’s not one at all.”

Steve snatches his hair in frustration because Bucky’s words on a side not invested in Peggy’s happiness or comfort, rings with deafening truth.

“And it wasn’t just a month, Stevie—you’ve seen your new girl for a year. And you’ve seen her through Sarah. Throw that not wanting kids thing out the window, pal. You said it yourself—you already got one, and they already know each other. What? You want another baby?”

“No! God, I don’t think so.”

“Then it doesn’t matter. Rogers, I swear to God—don’t be a sentimental idiot.” Bucky huffs angrily, “Twenty years…” He sounds like he’s rolling his eyes, “Those fucking years crushed you. Last month, man. I haven’t heard you that happy in almost ten years. If you care so much about numbers, think about that some, you dumbass.”

 Steve hangs up minutes later when Bucky grows even more frustrated with him and groans loudly as he stares at his screen of recent calls. Bucky. Bucky. The bakery. Peggy. Peggy. Peggy. You. Bucky. You.

And then the trend is--- You. You. You. Peggy. You. You. You. You.

You.

He throws his head back once more. Steve Rogers hates himself. He hates himself so much. It’s been three days since he’s talked to you, and he knows, in his goddamn bones, he knows it’s wrong. He’s a coward. And he’s desperately clinging onto some hope that maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow and his whole life will be figured out and nothing will hurt anyone anymore. Steve shuts his eyes with a wretched whimper.

He wants what’s best for Sarah, which is her mother. The possibility of having his family back to one semi-chipped but almost-perfect piece is killing him, because that’s all he’s ever wanted.

But, it’s made him a selfish fucking asshole, he thinks. Because he convinced a perfectly happy woman to date him, and then ghosts her after four sublime weeks, right after she says that she loves him. And maybe it would have been forgivable if she was just any random woman.

But she’s not.

She’s the kind of woman who loves his daughter so much she spends twenty extra minutes at every parent-teacher conference to tell him as much detail as possible about her. The kind of woman who shares her lunch with her. Who advises him at every arbitrary panic-induced question he flings out about her. Who gifts his daughter her own camera so she can have fun on vacation. Who coaxes her out to apologize to him—something he can never do on his own.

She’s the kind of woman who conceded to quietly slip out of his life when he turned his back on her. Because she understands that he loves his daughter.

Because she loves his daughter too.

And he’s not even brave enough to apologize. Or say goodbye. Or do anything.

 Steve’s fists land on the coffee table with a slam as lurches forward.

He needs to do something to get his mind off all this—even for a few minutes, because any more of it and he might just lose it. He clambers to the kitchen and starts tearing out cleaning supplies because that’s the kind of stupid domesticated shit that he does when he’s distressed—cleaning. Like a fucking giant, idiot Roomba.

He sprays and scrubs. Mops and vacuums. Polishes and dusts and scours every single surface of his house for any single speck of grime that he can wipe out of his sight. The more he cleans, the more he imagines doing it to his own conscience because it is so saturated with filth that he can hardly stand it. He doesn’t even bother to use gloves because maybe the solutions will simply eat the flesh of his hands right off because he fucking deserves that, too.

 In the third hour of punishing himself, Steve ends up in the kitchen—the last room. Both his and Sarah’s bedrooms are spotless. The spare bedroom that he’s transformed into a study is immaculate, and he’s even rearranged the bookshelves so he can dust everything behind them. He’s cleaned out the garage, too, Jesus Christ Almighty, he’s thrown away so much crap that he’s been stupidly hoarding—at least three old mixers with broken paddles and frayed wires. The two bathrooms are bleached so brightly that they’re nearly blinding. The dining room looks like it’s been pulled straight out of an IKEA magazine.

He gets to work on the stovetop and the sink, spraying the ever-loving crap out of it before he grabs the rags from out underneath the cabinet. Then he moves objects off the bar counter, putting Sarah’s favorite potted plant on another surface and reaching for the next when something catches his eye.

Steve leans forward curiously as he finds a little plastic rectangle that had been hidden behind the plant’s pot, sprinkled lightly with soil. His chest seizes with guilt. It feels like it could collapse right into his guts.

Inside the tiny plastic rectangle between his fingers, there you are. Wearing that yellow summer dress with the flutter sleeves that he held onto so desperately. You’re sitting on your knees, leaning back and putting your weight on your hands as you grin fondly at Sarah.

And at him, now, four weeks later, after he’s broken your heart.

 Steve doesn’t even bother washing his slightly burning hands as he drops the rags and runs back to the couch where he left his phone.

On the fourth ring, Peggy picks up—voice dazed and crackly as she breathes out an unsteady “Hello?”

“Are you quitting your job?” Steve says with as much confidence as he can.

“Steven? Goodness—what time---“

“Are you quitting your job?” He demands before she can finish.

“What?” He hears her rousing, pillows and sheets sliding around as she tries to catch onto his train of thought.

“Are you quitting your job, yes or no.”

“Steven what are you—I—what?”

“Why have you been calling me? Why have you been talking to me?” The longer he speaks, the louder his voice becomes, and the more assertive he grows as he stands next to the coffee table, absently nudging it with his shin. “This friendliness—it’s confusing Peggy. Because you know that what I want-- more than anything-- is for us to be a family again.”

Steve pauses, listening to see if she’s still there before he asks calmly, even though he feels like he could burst apart and erupt into tears following this mission. “So I need you to tell me, right now. Are you quitting your job?”

And she knows that he doesn’t mean for her to not be employed at all and live as a stay-at-home mother, but that he needs her with him, if this is to work. He needs her with Sarah. Stateside, at least. Home for more than a couple weekends a month, at least.

“No,” she whispers, after a silence, “No, Steven. I won’t be quitting my job. It’s my career—you know that. It’s my--”

“Goddamn it, Peg!” He cries, “What the hell has this been, huh? You just yankin’ my chain around? Watching me fall apart again?” Steve’s voice catches in his throat as it fizzles out. Tears spill from his eyes and he falls backwards onto the couch, placing his throbbing head in his hand. He tries to speak, but his voice only comes out as a raspy whisper, choked by a sob that shakes his whole body.

“You know I’d do anything for her.” He weeps. “You know that. I’d let you tear me apart again.”

Six hours ahead of his time, Peggy sighs deeply into the phone. “I’m sorry, Steven.” She says, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s… hard for both of us. Please believe me… I’m sorry.” There’s a short breath being taken, as if Peggy would continue, perhaps explaining herself or continuing to apologize, but Steve’s had enough. His heart hurts so much he can hardly breathe.

Steve shakes his head, as if she can see it four thousand miles across the Atlantic, “Goodbye, Peggy.”

 It’s eleven-thirty. He washes his hands and face in the immaculate guest sink and stares at himself unsteadily as he takes deep breaths. He should go to bed because he needs to wake up early tomorrow. But instead, he stares at his phone again.

The list of recent calls stares back at him. Peggy. Bucky. Bucky. The bakery. Peggy. Peggy. Peggy. You.

He hits the last number as time stops completely. He runs through every possible scenario in his head. What is there to say that could remedy this situation? How does he even begin to apologize for being such a selfish coward? Steve clutches onto your polaroid picture like a lifeline.

It goes to voicemail.

He tries again, only to receive the same automated tone— the phone doesn’t even ring. Have you blocked him? Of course, thinks, he deserves it.

He grabs his keys from the table and slams the door on the way out, chewing viciously on his lip the entire drive to your apartment complex. He even angrily punches the power button to turn off the radio because he’s punishing himself with silence. It’s only fair.

It’s dark and crickets chirp as he plods up the steps, reaching your door with the curling numbers hanging over mahogany paint.

Steve knocks.

Nothing.

He tries again. Nothing.

First, he thinks, it might be for the best. Then, because he’s an overreaching asshole, his mind leaps over into the conclusion that you might be in trouble. He rushes down the steps, as quietly as possible because it is midnight and normal people are asleep—not stalking their girlfriends. Steve winces at the thought. Perhaps ex-girlfriend is more fitting.

He whirls around the parking lot for any sign of your car, air whipping through his beard and hair as he searches frantically. It’s not in your usual spot, and for the life of him, he can’t find it anywhere.

Steve’s heart pounds. It’s midnight. Other than his house, where the hell could you go?

Defeatedly, he trudges back to his car where the quiet rumble of the engine rocks his body gently. There are a million and one thoughts racing through his mind. But he knows now, none of them are true other than the fact that you’re ignoring him. And he deserves it. Goddamn, does he deserve it.

He sighs and picks up his phone again. As expected, it cuts off before it even rings.

“Hey.” Steve sighs after the beep, “Hey. I—I’m so sorry.” He scrubs his beard and lays his head against the top of the steering wheel, letting the ridges press into his face.

“I know there’s nothing I can say that will actually express just how sorry I am. I... I really messed this up. I messed it all up, honey.”

He’s sniffling shamelessly at this point, letting the tears blur his vision as he stars blankly to the empty passenger seat and out the window. The streetlights look like fireflies. The sky an inky black sea staring down at him. Infinite twinkling eyes, asking what he’ll do next.

“If you’ll ever talk to me again—which I hope you will, please know... I want to make this better. Any way I can, I will.”

And then he pulls it out—the confession he’d been holding on to as soon as he heard you half-mutter it in your sleep. It’s desperate. It’s perhaps not the right time. But he blurts it anyway.

“I love you. I know how that sounds. I... just.. It's true. Please call me back when you’re ready.”

He uses when and not if because maybe the connotation will persuade you into calling him back sooner. He doesn’t want if. He wants when. He wants now.

Steve lingers in the car a few more minutes after he hangs up, holding as tightly as he can to the far-fetched hope that you’ll pull up in the empty space beside him. He thinks he’d jump out of the window if he could and fall to his knees. He’d beg. He’d cry and beg until both of his kneecaps bleed.

It would be another week before you hear his message. It would be even longer for you to actually listen to it.

-

It’s eight when you wake up. There is a tray of breakfast on the vanity to your right and the big gold mirror stares your reflection right back. Pink eyes, a little blue underneath, much better than last Monday, at least.

Your mother had let you stay with her when you showed up Wednesday night. She didn’t ask any questions and has been consistently accommodating by cooking, letting you have your space, watching movies with you in silence, and rubbing your back when you suddenly burst into tears. You return her kindness by picking up groceries, doing the dishes, watering the plants, anything that allows you to stay busy.

It’s been nice. Peaceful and dumbly idyllic back home. Old neighbors wave to you and remind you of when you used to run around under the sprinklers as a child. Your brother even comes by with his wife and daughter and at the sight of her little pudgy 6-year-old cheeks you almost crumble right there in the front yard.

They ask you what’s wrong. You lie and say you just really love children. Your brother knows you better than that, but he doesn’t say anything more of it.

His daughter only reminds you that teacher workdays begin in two days, then it’s back to school the following week. You’re absolutely not ready because you know you’ll see Sarah’s sandy blonde head and pudgy cheeks. You’ll see her father’s blue eyes and beautiful lashes in the carline. You’ll see the weeks you’ve spent with him, reflecting back at you.

Next Chapter

[dragons-in-bowties-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[fuckyeahslightlyamusing-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[typhoonprecious-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[tothe-tooth-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[inkundu1]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[cowgirluli-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[ungracefulswan-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[theinternetismylyfe-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[gayyogurt-blog]

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks

I remember the day we found it. It was a Sunday, and my family and I were getting ready for church. My mom was fussing over us as she always did, fixing our hair and picking out our clothes. As she zipped up my dress, she froze. “What is this?” she asked while touching my back. My mom often examined the tiniest bruise on my body with extreme caution, so I didn't recognize the fearful urgency in her voice until she called my dad over to take a second look. They had both noticed a round protrusion on the left side of my back, which was raised up slightly higher than my right side. I had no idea what they were talking about.

I was 12 when I was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis, a condition where the spine curves sideways, mimicking the shape of an S. Scientists haven't discovered what causes scoliosis, but it primarily affects adolescent girls. It's estimated that approximately two to three percent of the population (six to nine million people) in the U.S. have scoliosis.

But after my diagnosis, I was crippled by fear. My mind pictured the hospital fundraiser commercials I often saw on TV featuring sick children with breathing tubes and blood bags. Even though my condition was not fatal, I identified as a sick child. At 12-years-old, I learned that my health could not be taken for granted, and for the rest of my life, my health would be discussed differently.

This was the first time I didn't feel in control of my body.

I can't remember when the pain began, but once it started, it was a near constant in my life. The pain tingled along my spine and stiffened my back muscles to the point of soreness. Still, I didn't let the pain stop me. I hung out with my friends, competed in classical music competitions, and even learned to scuba dive. Most of the time, I endured the discomfort with a smile on my face, but I had my limitations.

I couldn't walk for more than 20 minutes without having to sit down and take a break. I couldn't lift anything heavier than five pounds without suffering silently. At the end of a school day, I'd often find myself splayed out on the floor with one of my parents massaging my back with their hands, ice packs, or massaging machines that “promised results” that were promoted on the Shopping Channel. When those options failed to provide relief, I saw an osteopath who gave me manual readjustments, massaging my tissue piece by piece so I could gain just a couple days of relief.

Despite my doctor's best efforts, the scoliosis worsened.

My curve became more severe and I was quite literally shrinking. At my eighth grade graduation I stood 5'3″. By the end of ninth grade, I was 5 '1″. It became a challenge to find clothes that wouldn't emphasize my curve, leaving me to look totally lopsided. My mom and i would spend hours in the mall searching for something that fit, or that at least wouldn't make one side of my ribcage look bigger than the other.

Courtesy of Genelle Levy

As a teenage girl, you learn the value placed on physical appearance early on.

I wasn't exempt from feeling this persistent pressure. I sang the negative tune of self-hate that becomes an anthem for many women. My stomach is too chubby. My cheeks have baby fat. My face isn't alluring. These were all thoughts that spun in the wheel of my mind.

But when my body began failing me, I realized that how I felt about my body was linked to how I felt in my body. We often put a lot of emphasis on how our bodies look, and less emphasis on all the things our bodies can do. I had wasted so much time focusing on my “wish list” (flatter stomach, smaller waist, carved cheekbones) that I had neglected to be grateful for all the things my body could do pre-scoliosis: playing with my sister for hours in the backyard without experiencing fatigue, standing on my feet for endless shopping trips with my mom, running around for hours with lots of energy at Disney World.

I also had never stopped to think about how exercise could alleviate some of my discomfort. In fact, it is only in the last few months (nearly 14 years after my diagnosis) that I have started to reframe exercise as something I do to strengthen my muscles weakened by scoliosis-not something I do to maintain a certain number on the scale. I exercise so that my body can give me all the gifts it can offer, like the ability to be present for experiences with people I love.

When I turned 14, my spine was 65 degrees off-kilter. I needed to have reconstructive surgery to lower the risk of the curve getting worse and crushing my organs. The surgery was followed by six weeks of recovery, and I had to practice walking again while my body healed. I gripped my IV pole and inched forward one half baby step at a time. At first, I could only make it halfway down the hall. It was another few weeks until I could make it down a flight of stairs without assistance. Every step was a victory.

I had a newfound respect for my body and its ability to fight.

Most people don't know my body's story just by looking at it–but I know. So I try not to trash my body. When my mind returns to old habits of self-hatred, I recenter my focus on all the ways my body has changed and grown. I measure it against what it can do now, and what it couldn't do before. It's been 10 years since the surgery, and today marks 100+ days that I've been pain-free. Now I sit up straight with the confidence that my body is a part of my journey, and I refuse to belittle it.

The post Scoliosis taught me to respect my body for what it can do, instead of for how it looks appeared first on HelloGiggles.

[psychicmedium14]

The Power of Tarot: Are you the person who wants a timeline? Do you want to know when the magic is going to happen, be it in a relationship or do you want a career conundrum? If so, then this is the week for you. In honor of timelines, I will be using the Numerology Guidance Cards. After all, what could be better for timelines than a tarot deck that is all about numbers! Numbers are a language with depth and wisdom beyond everyday use. There is a spiritual, ritual energy that numbers vibrate too, and looking into each number tarot card covers a broad spectrum of information. I’ll also share words of wisdom for each tarot card that will carry you through the day and night. So relax, meditate on the words of wisdom, absorb, and enjoy this tarot deck. SUNDAY: DAY – 44 ENVIRONMENT. If you’re thinking of making a move, this card is telling you to be very clear about the neighborhood you choose. In an effort to improve the earth, recycling is also very important as you prepare for the change. If your stuff is no longer useful, if things are broken, or the items simply don’t bring you joy, then it’s time to recycle the old to make room for the new. You have eight weeks from the point of your decision to shift your environment. Words of Wisdom: I show respect for Mother Earth and align myself with Source. EVENING – 3 CREATIVITY. Improving your life is the name of the game. Through your creative process, you can certainly find your natural rhythm that allows creative energy to flow with ease. Over the next three weeks, your imagination will be at a high point and you will also discover magic in your life. Words of Wisdom: Through playful creative expression, I make my dreams come true. MONDAY: DAY – 67 PHYSICAL ACTIVITY. Adjusting to your own pace is very important because not everyone has the same level of activity in their life! For the ones who run like the wind and spend hours in the gym, you will feel great about yourself. However, if you’re not moving, a good stretch could be the place to start. This tarot card is certainly about getting your body in tune with your mind. This card is also showing you that you need a healthy foundation to be the best you can be. Therefore, you should give yourself a four-week challenge, and each day, do something to make your body feel good. Try walking, dancing, or yoga. Start easy and you will be amazed at how successful you are in being the best you. Words of Wisdom: I exercise my body and improve my quality of life. EVENING – 56 RELATIONSHIP CHANGE. Your relationships that are going through changes will ultimately work out for the best. This is an enlightening time in your life. Over the next 11 weeks, you’ll find a deeper meaning in your partnership and the process of growth is natural. Adjust so you can make improvements. Words of Wisdom: My relationships grow and evolve for the greater good of all. TUESDAY: DAY – 14 MODERATION. Slow down with the stuff that can become addictive! The summer is certainly a hard time to resist temptation. This card is a reminder that compulsive behavior can delay your dreams and goals. In order to improve your situation, use moderation and mindfulness. Over the next five days work with boundaries for your well-being. Within 21 days you can make or break a habit. Words of Wisdom: With temperance and moderations I create balance in my life. EVENING – 96 FORGIVENESS. After taking in the day’s message, tonight is a time when you can put all the hard times to rest by the grace of forgiveness. Over the next 13-and-a-half weeks, things are going to change for the best. What might seem like a never-ending feeling of self-loathing vanishes never to return. Therefore, you should do the work of forgiveness through meditation and prayer. I know you can do it! Words of Wisdom: I create a happier future as I accept and forgive the past. WEDNESDAY: DAY – 4 PERSEVERANCE. In order to build a strong foundation, you must keep moving. Face the challenges head on and you will accomplish your deepest desires. This is a card to guide you towards cultivating mental resilience. In four days you are ready to start a new project. In seven weeks the project will be completed, and in nine weeks you will certainly be at the top of your game. Words of Wisdom: With perseverance, I create an exceptional life. EVENING – 61 SELF-LOVE. There are times in life when it is very important to focus on yourself. After all, if you are not running at your full potential how can you be helpful to others? Draining your energy is not the way to go. Instead, do something special for yourself each day this week. It’s a time of introspective thinking, so look at where you’ve been and where you want to go. Words of Wisdom: I love and believe in myself, and make my dreams come true. THURSDAY: DAY – 19 PRIDE. Every once in awhile you’ll have to swallow your pride in order to improve a situation. To be happy and accomplished you must let go of the need to be right. I ask, “Would you rather be right or happy?” Letting go of prideful energy will certainly empower you. Over the next 10 weeks there will be much to do, but if you stay on a humble path you will shine. Words of Wisdom: I admit my mistakes and improve my quality of life. EVENING – 22 INTUITION. The soul speaks and says “embrace your intuitive wisdom.” Over the next four months, there will certainly be experiences that involve your spiritual thinking and soulful actions. Therefore, keep notes on your thought process as this is a time of growth and renewal. You master your career, love life, and your mind, body, and spirit. Words of Wisdom: My intuition leads me to where I need to be. FRIDAY: DAY – 71 HEALTH. There are infinite possibilities when it comes to finding your balance and being in the best shape. Therefore, it’s time to go out and find a yoga, dance, meditation, or spinning class. The interaction with others will broaden your knowledge base and you will become mentally sharp and improve your stamina. For the next eight weeks, do something new to improve your groove. Words of Wisdom: With a healthy body and mind, I raise my energy vibration. EVENING – 7 PERSONAL GROWTH. Now is the time to ask yourself, “Who am I? What do I want from life? What can I do to avoid pitfalls?” Know your boundaries, and get comfortable with them. Only then will you be able to expand them and achieve mental freedom. This will take seven months. However, for those of you who are young, this is likely to take seven years and that will do you some good. Words of Wisdom: As I improve myself, I improve the circumstances of my life. SATURDAY: DAY – 87 SYNCHRONICITY. This card is about universal faith. It asks you to love, be compassionate and live a life of Metta (loving kindness). Trust in the magical power of synchronicity. The universe has an order to events, and if you have faith in that you cannot go wrong. Being in tune with all that is opens doors for you to deeper dreams and higher intellectual understanding. Within the next 12 weeks, many chances will present themselves for you to become part of something big. Words of Wisdom: I have faith that synchronicity will lead me to where I need to be. EVENING – 46 DOMESTIC HARMONY. There is a time for healing and that time is now. If you want peace in your household, every person needs to take responsibility for their own happiness. Over the next 10 days, try to be unattached, yet compassionate, and loving. Words of Wisdom: I have a happy, harmonious relationship within my happy, harmonious home.

[recentanimenews]

A Beginner's Guide To Dragon Ball

What is your great shame as an anime fan? What show has absolutely everyone seen but you? What titles in your backlog do you scroll over thinking you’ll watch it someday but never do? What series has your continued hesitance to engage with developed into an elitist disdain for? What colossal, inescapable anime will you never EVER watch?

  Hello, my name is Danni, and I’ve never seen a single episode of Dragon Ball.

      Let me explain myself. Growing up, there were few shows my siblings and I were allowed to watch on TV. It’s not just Dragon Ball Z that I missed out on. Name your favorite childhood show and I’ve probably never seen it. I did end up falling deep into the anime hole in my teen years, but I developed a habit of only watching short anime. My backlog was (and still is) massive, so I stuck to shows I could knock out in under a week. If it ran more than two seasons, I just didn’t have time for it.

  Lately, though, I’ve started to change my tune. I’ve been watching JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure since season one and got pretty deep into My Hero Academia last year. I’ve had a pretty snobbish attitude towards shonen anime for awhile now, but I think I’m starting to see the appeal. I could start watching Naruto...nah, maybe another time.

    Come to think of it, Dragon Ball Super ended pretty recently, didn’t it? I feel like everyone I know was freaking out about that final battle. I’ve also had this Dragon Ball FighterZ game for a month now, and it’s actually really cool. I know I’ve always thought that Dragon Ball Z can’t possibly be as good as it is long, but maybe it’s time I gave it a fair shot.

  It’s settled then. I’ll try watching Dragon Ball Z. My favorite characters in FighterZ are from Super, so I guess I should watch that, too. Isn’t there also an anime that comes before Z? I hate starting a series from the middle, so I’ll watch that, too. How many episodes is that in total? 575? Great, this is gonna take me like six years or something. Ah well. I can always slip into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to watch them. I don’t know what that is yet, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon. See you all in a year!

    Wow, what a year! It’s been so long since I wrote all that other stuff before. That definitely wasn’t all a bit I just wrote because I hadn’t started writing for Crunchyroll a year ago. It’s been a whole eleven months since I started watching Dragon Ball, and it’s been about three weeks since I finished Super just in time to catch the new movie. I’m living in a post-Dragon Ball world now, and there’s a Goku-shaped hole in my heart that I don’t know how to fill. I have a deeper appreciation for this series now than I ever expected to have, and I’ve been itching to tell you all about it.

  What can I say about Dragon Ball that hasn’t already been said, though? Surely its legions of fans don’t need me to tell them what they already know. Then I realized something. I can’t be the only one who hadn’t seen it. Somewhere, somehow, someone out there right now has yet to experience for themselves the joys of Toei’s crowning achievement.  They’re probably sitting there right now asking themselves why they should watch it now after so long. Their thoughts might be clogged with preconceived notions about the series that couldn’t be further from the truth. Mine were. I’d like to right that wrong, so I’ve compiled a list of seven things I didn’t know until I saw for myself. This is the beginner’s guide to watching Dragon Ball.

It’s perfect for binge-watching

    The biggest lie you’ll ever hear about Dragon Ball from both fans and critics alike is that there are long stretches of episodes full of attacks charging and nothing else. It was something I had always heard about the show and was warned about when I decided to check it out. I waited and waited for these fabled episodes and by the end of DBZ, I realized they don’t exist (Before you ask, no, I wasn’t watching Kai). To be fair, there are times in the show when a character needs to spend most or all of an episode charging an attack. This isn’t near as boring as it sounds, though, as there is always a battle taking place to defend that character and usually a B plot to cut away to.

  Climactic battles do tend to drag on a lot in Dragon Ball, I’ll admit. So if you were a kid only able to watch at the pace of one episode a week, it would sure feel like nothing was happening. I watched the entire series at an average pace of almost two episodes a day, and that made all the difference. I was able to see battles play out over a few hours rather than a few months. If it ever got dull (which it did sometimes), I could just leave it on in the background and listen to some legendary voices shout at each other while browsing Twitter or playing on my Switch. Most of the time, though, my eyes were glued to the screen, anxious to see what would happen next.

  It’s actually about martial arts

I’m honestly a little embarrassed that I didn’t already know this. My second-hand exposure to Dragon Ball had only ever shown me clips and images of people flying around shooting energy beams and fireballs at each other. It wasn’t until I saw FighterZ gameplay in action that I realized there’s hand-to-hand combat in the show, and it took watching the original series for me to learn it’s the whole dang focus. In fact, a large chunk of the series’ sagas take place in or under the guise of a worldwide martial arts tournament, most of which can be found in the original series. Speaking of which…

  You can skip the original series, but you should still give it a shot

  Everyone I know thought I was crazy for not simply starting with Z. I thought I was crazy for not starting with Z. I had been told over and over again that everything that needed to be explained from it eventually gets explained in its sequel. I had been warned countless times that it’s so far apart from what it eventually becomes. I knew all this, but I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d be missing part of the story if I skipped it. So, I took the plunge. Now, eleven months later, I’m here to tell you that, yeah, you don’t need it to watch Z and Super, but you should still watch it anyway.

  The thing that will surprise you most about Dragon Ball is that it isn’t an action series yet -- it’s an adventure series. Loosely inspired by the classic adventure novel Journey to the West, the original series largely revolves around a young Goku’s quests to retrieve the seven Dragon Balls that can (presumably) grant any wish when brought together. Along the way, he encounters a series of villains who all seek the Dragon Balls for some nefarious reason, and Goku takes it on himself to stop them.

  Admittedly, the original series takes awhile to get going. It’s incredibly dated in some of the worst ways, making the first half of the series a bit of a slog to get through. Still, though, it features the first World Martial Arts Tournament saga, which offered me my first glimpses at Dragon Ball’s potential. The latter half of the series kicks off with its second tournament arc, aka the Tien Shinhan saga, aka the moment I finally fell in love with Dragon Ball. It’s here that Dragon Ball offered it’s best action and most compelling characters to date in the show. It still sits as my personal favorite tournament arc in the series. Dragon Ball manages to keep the momentum rolling with great arc after great arc as it launches itself straight into Z. It has its fair share of flaws and isn’t altogether necessary, but it’s absolutely still worth your time.

  The titular Dragon Balls aren’t lost for long

    So when Dragon Ball’s first episode ended with Goku and Bulma beginning their quest to find all seven Dragon Balls, I got a little antsy. I asked, “Is this gonna be like One Piece where they’re gonna need over a thousand episodes just to find the Dragon Balls?” Turns out I was about 987+ episodes short on my guess there. It really doesn’t take them long at all to find Dragon Balls and make their wish, even if it doesn’t exactly go as planned.

Every time the Dragon Balls are used, they disappear for a full year. This means that most of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z’s first sagas bounce back and forth between quests to find them and killing time until they can be used again. At some point in Z, though, the goal posts shift to a point where obtaining the Dragon Balls becomes completely trivial and they merely act as macguffins for resurrecting dead cast members.

  Power levels don’t actually matter

    If you’ve existed on the internet at all within the last decade and a half, you’ve likely seen the most popular Dragon Ball meme over nine-thousand times already. Between all the memes and chatter from fans, I learned about Dragon Ball’s power levels long before I ever saw them in action. Everyone has a power level and if your power level is lower than someone else’s, you’re guaranteed to lose. At least, that’s what I thought. As it turns out, power levels don’t actually mean that much in the grand scope of Dragon Ball.

  They’re first introduced in the very first episode of DBZ supposedly with the rules I listed until Goku surprises everyone by actually raising his power level. The first few sagas in DBZ are filled with villains boasting about their power levels only to somehow be defeated by someone whose power level had been lower just moments ago. It doesn’t even take Goku half the series to defeat the highest power level in the universe, at which point the term has already become meaningless.

  Super nullifies the concept even further by bringing back characters whose powers had long since been eclipsed and making them legitimate contenders. I wish someone had cleared this up for me much sooner. I had always figured that Dragon Ball fights were done deals where the highest power level always won. Who wants to watch a battle anime where the underdog never wins? Thankfully, Dragon Ball is all about the underdogs.

  Goku is pretty cool

    The hero of the story is cool. Big shocker, I know, but bear with me. If you only know Goku through clips of him fighting, of course it makes sense that he’s cool. However, once you actually start watching Dragon Ball, you kind of forget all about it, because he’s a massive goofball 99% of the time. He’s a dork from the countryside who only ever thinks about eating and fighting and doesn’t know what a kiss is despite having two sons and a granddaughter. He’s childish and naive, but when the chips are down and he gets serious, he gets serious. It rules every single time.

  Get this, Dragon Ball is really good

    Like, really really good. Don’t get me wrong, I had hoped to appreciate Dragon Ball when I first began watching it, but I never expected to fall this deeply in love with it. I spent nearly a full year watching every single episode of this series -- a series I had never intended to watch before. I spent literal hundreds of hours of my year bonding with Goku and his pals, and it hasn’t even been a month and I already wanna do it all over again.

Dragon Ball is a monolithic, world-renowned series for a reason, and that reason is because it’s freaking GOOD. Its cast is iconic, its art style is timeless, its action is to die for, and it only gets better and better as it goes on. Seriously, it’s been more than three decades since the show began and it’s still blowing minds at the box office. It isn’t a series that rests on its laurels and name recognition alone, it constantly one-ups itself with every iteration.

  I know, there probably aren’t many of you out there who haven’t seen Dragon Ball and thus most of you won’t find this article very useful. That doesn’t matter to me right now. Because I know I’m not alone. I know there are people out there just like I used to be who at best think they don’t have time for Dragon Ball and at worst think it’s somehow beneath them. Even if there are only twelve people like that out there, I want all twelve of them to read this piece and rethink their prior misconceptions.

If that doesn’t apply to you, yet you’re still with me anyway, first of all, thank you. Second of all, I want you to think of the Dragon Ball in your life. What show do you think you don’t have the time for? What show do you think isn’t worth your time? If you’ve learned anything from me today, I want it to be this: that show might be your next favorite. You’ll never know until you sit down and watch it.

    Are you a lifelong fan of Dragon Ball? A relative newcomer like Danni? Did you not even know it existed before? Let us know in the comments below!

  -----

Danni Wilmoth is a Features and Social Videos writer for Crunchyroll and also co-hosts the video game podcast Indiecent. You can find more words from her on Twitter @NanamisEgg.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[thegroovethief]

#TGTfeature 004: Doctor Jeep [Trouble & Bass, Tumble Audio, ENCHUFADA: New York City, USA] Following last month’s Afrofunk excursion with Denver band ATOMGA, #TGTfeature 004 returns to low-end theory with the man to call if the bass isn’t ill enough: Doctor Jeep! This and forthcoming #TGTfeature articles will highlight dedicated musical talents by featuring their recent work as well as an in-depth interview. Undeterred by tempo and style, Doctor Jeep is well-regarded from techno to dubstep to dnb. Speaking via phone prior to his return to the Denver stage on March 2nd, the good doctor discusses the challenges of being a multi-genre specialist, his own crucial musical experiences, how he gets his bass so massive, and much more. Special note: Make sure to tune in late-night this Sunday evening Feb 26 at midnight MST for my next live “Pomegranate Sounds” radio show on KGNU Community Radio (Boulder/Denver). A Doctor Jeep feature will be on just after 1am (on Monday), with an exclusive chance to win tickets! A bit about Doctor Jeep: - a leading voice in the New York City bass scene, DOCTOR JEEP is known for rocking a range of bpms - has stacks of remixes under his own name as well as his DJ Bark Lee alias; his latest production release, the half-time dnb DISSOCIATE EP, came out mid-2016 on Aufect Recordings - HEADLINING this Thursday, March 2, at The Black Box with Snubluck and Kompra, presented by Sub.mission

TGT: You’re an artist who works within multiple styles and tempos, yet there’s always a clear focus on the low-end. How did you first get into bass music, and why has it become such an important part of your life? DJ: Basically, I went to a record store near my college when I was a freshman, and I bought a CD with an interesting looking cover, even though I had never heard of the artists or label. It ended up being Caspa and Rusko’s Fabriclive mix. That just opened my eyes to dubstep in general, and from there I just went through my usual process of how I found new music nowadays, which is just Googling every artist and/or label that was mentioned in the track list, and just kind of going in a wormhole from there… that was nine or ten years ago at this point. Weirdly enough, it took a while to get back into dubstep properly. Somehow after listening to that Fabriclive mix, I got really into Hessle Audio and Hemlock, and the kind of more techno-y stuff for the rest of my college experience. A few years later, I started going to a party in New York called Reconstrvct - basically its initial iteration was an all-UK dubstep party. They were bringing in these crazy lineups…like six or seven DJs from the UK and then one or two other residents. And it was just super insane because you would never see these producers in the US, ever, outside of that one party since it was fairly underground people for the most part. I think one of the defining moments that solidified my love for bass music was their two-year anniversary that had Kahn & Neek, their side project Gorgon Sound, Vivek, Youngsta, and Amit, all on the Tsunami Bass soundsystem which is probably one of, if not the best soundsystems in New York. I guess as for why that kind of music is important to me: it’s an escape from real life and the stuff I like makes me feel like I’m going back to my ancestral tribal roots. Sometimes when I’m in the dance, it gives me this feeling like we’re in the Stone Age dancing around a fire with like a shaman guiding us… it’s really cool to think about it in that way, knowing that people around me are also on the same wave length and it’s a meditative, trance-like experience. You’re feeling this energy in your chest and it’s so different than listening to music at a house party or in your headphones or something. Not to be too hippy-dippy about it, but bass is healing, and it allows you to mentally recharge and let go after a long week – I just love going to parties and dancing and, you know, getting into it… if I’m paying $15 to see some DJ, I’m gonna dance, I’m not just gonna stand there and cross my arms and nod my head! [laughs] Finding this community in New York was really important to me, because for all my life prior to that I felt like an outsider who just liked weird music. It’s really great to go out somewhere and spend a few hours with your friends every weekend doing what makes you the happiest.

TGT: So what challenges do you face as an artist whose work isn’t defined by a single genre? DJ: I make so many different kinds of music that I think it’s important to have certain distinctions as to what’s Jeep stuff versus other small side projects, because… I feel like if I’m making techno as Doctor Jeep, and I’m making drum ‘n’ bass as Doctor Jeep, people don’t really know how to book me, or where to book me, and that’s a huge issue. Because if I was, you know, [Berghain resident and legendary techno DJ] Marcel Dettmann or something, and I primarily played one or two fairly similar types of music, people would know what to expect when I came to play a party. At any gig, I have the ability to play rap or dancehall or UK garage or jungle or whatever, but some crowds know me for my older 130bpm productions, some crowds come for the newer drum ‘n’ bass side of me, and it’s like a divided crowd where I can’t appease everyone, and it’s definitely more difficult than if I was able to go into it with a clear game plan every time. It’s all situational. After I play a party once, I generally know the vibe. These days I’m super into a lot of electro and ’90s hardcore, but I know that’s not what fits the vibe at Sub.mission for example, so I’ll focus more on the dubstep and halftime side of things. I guess that is the benefit of playing a lot of different kinds of music, I can hone it in if I know what the crowd tends to like. At the end of the day if I’m getting paid to fly somewhere and play music for two hours, my job is to make the crowd happy, regardless if I just got a bunch of sick tracks from a totally different style the weekend beforehand [laughs]. That being said, I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what works on any given night. I think that there are some situations in which a change of vibe within the set is welcomed, and this kind of ties back to that Reconstrvct two-year anniversary. At some point in Youngsta’s set he went from a deeper dubstep section to a more hype halftime dnb part, and that was one of the first times I ever saw someone play a hybrid set like that and do it super well. And it made me think, damn, these two tempos are separated by 30bpm – which is a pretty big jump – but are stylistically quite similar in sound design and the sound palette, and people really fuck with both. I mean, it was just another one of those times where I was like ‘wow, you can really go all over the place, and still keep the crowd with you,’ so that was really inspiring for me, and definitely a very formative experience where I was like alright, that’s how you connect the dots from very different tempos. You find stuff that has similar textures or atmospheres or whatever, and you kind of go from those tracks. You’re not just slamming in a totally different track or doing a backspin and then just throwing in something from left field. That will kill a crowd, but you just gotta think of it kind of intellectually: where’s this set going? Basically, long story short, I think it’s tough as an artist who likes to make different kinds of stuff to get booked as much as if I only specialized in one genre. On the other hand though, I do think it’s important to experiment as much as possible and try new things. I mean, every time I’ve tried consciously to make a different style than I normally do, I learn a new production technique just by fucking around with the software or using a sample in a different way. I do think it’s important to experiment, but at the same time you have to have a consistent sound. I feel like over the years I’ve found the quote-unquote ‘Doctor Jeep sound,’ and it’s not necessarily a genre thing, but it’s more so just a general vibe or the samples I use or the way I use certain vocal samples or whatever… I’ll give a quick example: I really like weird, disembodied vocal chants or little cut-ups of a vocal that aren’t full words. There’s that, and I also really like running full vocal phrases through a vocoder and having them sound like a robot. Just things that kind of remind you of the human voice but aren’t exactly that, because it’s important I think to have a human element in the music too.

TGT: You’ve dropped some heavyweight remixes within the past few years, notably including a recent “Topper Top” rework (under your DJ Bark Lee alias), a mix of Benga & Coki’s “Night,” and a personal favorite of mine, “Back to Africa” by Tour De Force. What’s your approach when remixing to truly make tracks your own, and any tips for producers on how to get the bass banging properly? DJ: It’s funny you mention that [“Back To Africa”], because actually I think that’s the track that’s statistically done the poorest of any track I’ve ever uploaded, in terms of number of listens or comments, so it’s kind of heartwarming knowing at least one person liked it [laughs]. One thing that really bums me out is when an artist remixes something else and doesn’t use the main elements of the track. They might use like a tiny vocal before the drop, and then suddenly it shifts into a different song with no samples from the original… for me, it’s really important that if I’m doing a remix, it has to, at the very least, remind you of the track or even better, be obviously identifiable as being a flip on this song. I guess my approach to it all is to have the remix be different enough where I’m putting my stamp on it, but still paying tribute to the original artist. I’ve had remixes done for me (that ultimately never were released) where I’ve been like ‘uh.... [chuckles] so where’s the parts of my track – this isn’t really a remix, it’s just your track that has my name on it.’ It’s just so weird you know? Getting back to the second half of your question - I know people that have a million VSTs and 10 types of EQs, and I’m sitting here only using the Ableton plugins because my philosophy is just mastering what you’ve got. In terms of instruments, I only use the VST MASSIVE, that’s what I build my sounds out of primarily except for occasionally manipulating samples. It’s the first one I learned, and I feel very comfortable with it at this point, and for me to learn a totally different software instrument would just be frustrating. I just know how to get the sounds I want with MASSIVE, and I now associate the Jeep sound with the basses I make with it, so I just go with that for now. So my tip is: get good at one or two things and stick with it. Your creativity can lead you to make sounds that you didn’t think were possible with that specific instrument.

TGT: You’ve spoken before about the role tribal percussion plays in your production, while the just-released freebie “Adianta” brings in a similar vibe via a choice vocal. What’s your view on sampling? DJ: In general I think sampling is super important for music, especially if you look at any of the major developments in terms of the way dance music has evolved. I think back to one of my favorite genres – early ‘90s rave music – and they’re throwing so many different elements in the pot: breakbeats from old funk or hiphop records, synthesizers, vocals from sci-fi movies, or straight up just sampling other people’s tracks unashamedly [laughs]. That was the most exciting period of music for a short period of time because they had so many different influences and elements. Even nowadays, a lot of the stuff I like is just re-contextualized old music. With that track you mentioned, “Adianta,” - basically I heard this ‘70s bossa nova tune on a Brazilian compilation I got (my family is from there so I listened to that kind of music all the time growing up), and I really wanted to do a side project that was all remixes of Brazilian tracks. I had four tracks lined up for it, but three of them were just not as good as I really wanted, so I decided to give away the one decent track. The main sample is an eight-bar loop from the original, Trio Mocoto’s “Nao Adianta”. A funny thing happened, where basically I put this track out, and a promoter who booked me once shared my track with this someone she knows and she said ‘hey, check out this kid’s music, I think you might like it, you guys should connect for a coffee or something.’ In a very weird coincidence, it turned out that the guy she sent it to runs a label that the band I sampled was signed to. We actually ended up meeting up and talking shop about a potential new project, so I’ll probably create another alias in the next year or two that’s dedicated to that and that’s very focused on sampling Brazilian music and reinterpreting it in a modern context. I think my parents would be quite proud [laughs]. I mean, honestly, my take on that is don’t be dumb and sample something that’s on Sony or some major label that is gonna go after you. Don’t take an obvious, long sample from something really well known. The strategy is just do it in such a manner that it may pay homage to the original track but it’s not a total rip-off. I would be insane to take more than a few seconds of a Drake vocal and put it into a song and try and sell it – I think if you’re giving it away for free that’s one thing, if you’re trying to make money off it that’s where you’re going to come into some issues. TGT: Not necessarily connected, but which artists’ musical influence do you view as crucial to the Dr. Jeep sound? DJ: For me, it’s not so much specific artists as much as it is experiences. When I was in college I had a six-month long internship in London. And on the third day I was there, I went to Fabric, and it was a Hessle Audio night. This one moment I remember really specifically was Ben UFO (or Blawan, I can’t remember) playing Head High’s remix of Joy Orbison’s “Ellipsis”. It’s just a really cool, groovy tune – it’s a breakbeat techno track that’s not 4x4, it has an odd rhythmic pattern to it, and just very drum-oriented, but hearing that was just like ‘damn, this kind of shit sounds awesome in a proper club sound system.’ I think that really influenced the way I like to program drums these days. It’s all about rhythm. In the same night actually, Jackmaster did a set from 5-6am, and he played a Burial “Archangel” – and that was really bizarre because I never thought I’d hear that track in a club. It was just so crazy hearing such a raw powerful song in a nightclub full of people that are on all kinds of mind altering substances and seeing how much it really affected them. I think that was one of the moments where I was like ‘alright, I want my music to – even if it’s not this emotional – have this visceral impact’ … I don’t think my music is at that point yet, but that’s the kind of goal… if I can get one person to say ‘this is an insanely good track,’ then I think I’ve done my job. I heard Kode9 do a mix for FACT magazine, that’s pretty much all mid 90’s jungle, and that was definitely a point where I was like ‘I really enjoy this kind of music.’ You know, uptempo, breakbeat music. That mix got me going down the drum ‘n’ bass wormhole, which I now very much enjoy. You can tell he actually grew up in the era when that music was being made, and it’s really cool to see an artist’s influences, even if it’s not what they’re primarily known for nowadays.

STAY LOCKED IN WITH DOCTOR JEEP: Facebook Soundcloud Twitter Instagram Event: Thursday, March 2 Image Credit: Rachel Amico