We pay our debts sometimes

*my arm was pretty swollen here but in the days to come it would nearly double in size..

Spent the week trying to get out of this funk. I’ve been in a funk. I think last weekend’s St. Patrick’s bar crawl would have helped but I was on a heavy dose of antibiotics and I had to sit that one out. My arm is maybe 95% healed but there are strange gaps in my arm where the bacteria ate away tissue and muscle. It is very strange because I did a few push-ups this morning and my right arm feels very weak but I’m told that rehabilitation could help replace my lost chunk of arm. School was fine this week. I took a long bus rides with my iPod while finding myself thinking strange thoughts like, “I’m pleasantly lonely today.” I like the company of single-serving friends you meet on the bus. They usually begin by asking you if you speak Samoan and then follow up by asking if you’re married. My iPod was a great gift. I like to disappear into drum n bass while staring at the ocean. I’m in my own world.

I lost a few pounds this last couple of weeks. When you’re as slim as I am to begin with, losing weight is a terrible thing. I didn’t go into much of the details about my infection and the miserating sickness which entailed (mostly because I didn’t want to scare my parents) but it was pretty bad. I was told by our medical officer that I was very fortunate because infections that bad can take a wrong turn and should the swelling refuse to go down I could have fallen into something called septic-shock where the fluid in your body turns toxic. I didn’t eat much and I had a super high fever. I’m feeling relatively excellent now and gaining a few pounds back but the whole ordeal knocked my mental health on its ass. You know, I can’t escape this life-long belief in karma and I firmly believe that we pay our debts sometimes. If there is anything in the cosmic mechanics of things that I have dishonored then perhaps I am paying my dues.

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This story has a happy ending though. Around eleven today, Robin, Lopi, Sitivi, Aaron and I made our way to Tamasina to do the ocean thing. We build a bar-b-q pit and cooked up two skipjack that turned out awesome. I spent the better part of the day hanging out in a beach fale with good friends and everything seemed to turn out okay. It is a strange planet we live on in this chaotic universe but once in a while life slows down enough to dip your toes in the sand and concentrate on the nothingness of things. The sky turns into a sunset which then turns into beautiful stars with a mysterious moon to keep you company. In this very big sea I am still just a fish splashing in the twilight and I know there are other fish out there just like me so there is no reason to feel lonely. Maybe it’s just my time to understand more about myself and focus on the important things of the world. I don’t know why I washed upon this shore but I am happy here.. actually from what I’ve been told about my infection I should be happy just to be alive.




Lopi of the fire people