My heart is speaking to me

I've been meaning to write another post for the past week but I've been rather distracted lately. I open my laptop to write, get a few paragraphs done, then stop. I start to work on some illustration and I leave off half way through. You see, I've been having heart palpitations recently, some of them pretty scary ones. All, in a nutshell, because I want more than anything to pull myself out of the what am I doing here this is not where I want to be at this point in my career and life rut I'm in, I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself. A lot. And getting wound up whenever someone or something in the outside world (traffic tickets, internet loss, relationship drama) seems to get in my way of doing things. Forgetting that my outside world is only a reflection of my inner world. I can't do that anymore. Because...I went to the doctors this Monday and she confirmed my worst fears. I'd had a mild heart attack.

I didn't hear much of what she said after that, pills I had to take, a clinic I had to go to for further tests. The heart palpitations were panic attacks, things I'd experienced before a long time ago, but she wanted to know what had weakened my heart to the point of not being able to handle them now. My thyroid? A fever? (Could it have been the chicken pox?) Or something like that. I was pretty scared. Me? Thirty something too young me? Tears were streaming down my face as I left the office. I cried in the car. I went home, ate, cried some more, took one of the pills she gave me before noticing it's side effects were nervousness, nausea and heart palpitations among two very long columns of other scary things. Why give a pill that causes nervousness and heart palpitations to someone suffering from anxiety and heart palpitations? It was an anti-depressant of course. And though I wanted nothing more than to sleep away the afternoon, I couldn't, maybe or maybe not because of the pill. I put the rest of them deep in a drawer debating whether or not to chuck them into the bin instead.

Anyway, thank God my brother has been here over the last week visiting from LA. Seeing him every day has helped a lot. Every night we've gone to movies (This is it, Men Who Stare At Goats, A Christmas Carol) or out to eat, and a few bars here and there (I always limit self to one drink). Though he can get annoyingly competitive (must listen to heart and let all that go in one ear and out the other from now on). I told him all about it, weeping like a child, and his reaction proved , to my relief, that blood is thicker than competition. I hope we can become as close as my sister and I are. And today I'm not feeling nearly as frightened as I was Monday. It was a mild one. A warning. My body will recover if I will listen to it. Quit with the burgers and caffeine, run every day especially when I don't want to, but especially ease up on myself, have more faith that things will work out without my trying so hard all the time.

Because on the career front, my work has been getting decent notice on the industry forums (deviantart, conceptart.org) and am in communication with a few agents, one in particular. And though, out of habit I think one more image, one blow them out of the water illustration, I also think my work is already plenty good enough to stand among the best of them. I'm ready. It'll happen. Keep working but ease up on those fifteen hour days. Also, my plans for Paris are taking shape.

Anyway, in lieu of sympathy (well, maybe a little) tell me a joke, make me laugh, or tell how someone you know had a massive one and lived another hundred years so what's the big deal with a mild one? That would be truly and deeply appreciated.

On another note: A few pictures from my Halloween weekend:

November, by David Mamet, at the ACT.


A neighbor's gorgeous front yard decorations. He's a stage set designer I hear.