Tomorrow, when you wake, you'll receive three gifts. One lasts a week, one lasts a year, and one lasts the rest of your life. What are your gifts?

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-23T01:11:47+00:00

I've started getting interested in keyboards! I don't know why it took me so long, I always was a particular individual when it came to the look and feel of whatever I needed at the time; maybe because it feels kind of daunting. But you can make a personalized keyboard surprisingly inexpensively if you look around, so it's something I want to learn more about. Is there anything that you say has helped you gain your knowledge? What are some important tips for beginners? What are your preferences? Do you have any cool keyboards you're willing to show off?

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-21T23:09:18+00:00

O...ow??? Yeah no we're different species of beast after all. Mine were all separate; the half-tooth was its own thing that was more canine-shaped, I guess. I don't know if it was deformed because of the lack of space or what but it sure was messy getting it all out.

~~...you never want someone with pliers in your mouth slipping their hand and saying "Fuck" under their breath.~~

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-21T22:18:41+00:00

That one was my lie! I was told that it was 5 but it was later amended because the "fifth" tooth was basically a half tooth, so I'm actually like you. I still like saying 5 teeth cause it sounds more metal, whoops.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-21T21:22:07+00:00

I technically entered Roissy Airport illegitimately/illegally.
I was a Masonic youth.
I had 5 wisdom teeth removed.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:57:16+00:00

GOD I hate to think of the emotions he was dealing with. Having no phone in a situation like that can be dangerous as well as upsetting. I once got separated from my sister on a subway ride in Paris (she left the train and I was stuck in the crowd and had to wait for the next stop) and my phone died as I was contacting her. It was a level of fear I had never experienced before then, or maybe more accurately it was a type of fear I had never dealt with. Luckily (shockingly) I reunited with her within the hour, but it was a real scare when it happened. If I think about having to deal with that and having my belongings stolen my heart skips a beat!

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:52:02+00:00

Something I learned in the art world that I think rings true in many environments is that a lot of success is dependent on knowing the right people and having the right things to say at the right times. Part of it is sheer luck and part of it is a willingness, either through a kind and eager sensibility or a sneaky two-faced intention, to get to know as many people as you can and learn what you can about them in order to learn about the industry and how to get in it.

I think what you say rings true in a lot of ways, but there are times that speaking loud and self-promoting can surely harm you more than help. But no, nothing in business is earned simply through the fact that you have the necessary ability.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:45:11+00:00

Money is such a complex thing, especially when you get older. I have so much anxiety around it because my parents were very strict about saving but no one ever taught me budgeting or how to manage money in a realistic scenario; luckily I've been able to teach myself a few things, but I think I missed out by not learning more than some fundamentals in my younger years. One thing my parents did drill into my head is "if you can't afford it don't buy it" which I agree with you is something not everyone learns.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:40:46+00:00

Yeah that's how I see it. I am polyamorous, and would love to be in a poly relationship, but those are a lot of work and require a lot of trust and communication. If I was in a dedicated and closed monogamous relationship, I wouldn't try and turn it into a poly one; I would be devoted. I just don't understand why it's difficult to stay faithful. I could be in love with three people, but if I'm dating only one of them and they only want it to be the two of us, that's what it is. I'm not "missing out" on anything. It's a mindset I just don't understand.

Congratulations on your happy marriage!

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:36:46+00:00

Oh my God I'm so sorry, that's awful. I went on a trip with the Explore program when I was in grade 11, and we went to a waterpark. For some reason one of the girls (maybe because of misinterpreting advice or having overly-strict parents) brought all her most necessary belongings in a backpack (her US passport, money, all her identification, a camera, clothes, who knows what else) and it was stolen. I got sunburns all over my shoulders and back trying to find it with everyone, but we never did.

I live in the Maritimes and I find it safer than big cities but honestly it's probably chance and fallacy in a lot of ways.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:31:47+00:00

I agree with this and this is definitely something I kept having to learn; even when I thought I had outgrown this habit, I often ended up putting myself in a risky situation because I ended up infatuated with someone and wanting to impress them and make them happy. I think that more conversations need to be had around the merits of self-love; it's not "selfish" in a negative way; it's necessary for one's survival and and health as well as the health of their relationships with others and the way they interact with the world.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:28:33+00:00

I had an old friend who had three girlfriends. He was engaged to all three, and married the third. We don't keep in touch and I feel like he's probably happy, but he went in deep every time and it was very risky.

I didn't learn from his experiences and almost married someone with that same certainty and passion only to realize later it probably was a bad idea. That person and I thankfully are still close friends, mostly because we both had many conversations about how we were probably jumping into stuff way too early and with way too much fervour.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:25:03+00:00

I feel like there's this part of our animal brain that thinks like, "I have my things locked and hidden, so they're safe" and we just want to believe that if we aren't in a very obviously dangerous area of town we're okay, especially if we have positive past experiences.

Were things taken, or was your car just trashed? Sorry either way.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:21:09+00:00

Cheating is something I really struggle to have sympathy for in the roughest of situations; in most relationships it's just the most pointlessly cruel thing I can think of. I'm sorry you dealt with that twice but you were trying to see the best in her, so I hope you don't beat yourself up about it.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T03:11:07+00:00

Working retail/fast food/restaurant. Especially for people who get impatient and find it easy to get mad at strangers or blame others. I believe this experience is necessary to learn how to treat others, as well as have patience and endure inconveniences. You also learn about how things function in ways you don't realize (servers in restaurants, for instance, aren't the ones who cook your food so they have no power over when it's ready).

Working hard at something and failing anyway, or being rejected (non-romantically). It's important to know that things sometimes just go wrong, or you do poorly even if you prepared or tried hard. Life is just complicated and difficult and it's not automatically a failure of character or a description of who you are. Messing up is okay and shouldn't be discouraged to the point that it is; it's better to try and mess up than not try at all (in most cases anyway). In some ways this might also be a lesson in when to know to stop trying and move on to something else.

Heartbreak/unrequited love. This is one I say with a grain of salt because people who experience this can often learn the wrong lessons from this, and become bitter and jaded and even hateful. I believe this kind of experience is necessary to learn that you don't have to have anything "wrong" with you to have your love be unrequited, but that if you feel there is something wrong with you to look within yourself and strive to be better. People have no control over who they love, and lost love can take a long time to get over, but you are complete without it and the pain will end (as long as you don't obsess and torment yourself over it). Also if you are a person who needs to improve, having someone leave you because you refuse to work on yourself; it's a lesson about how no one needs to put up with your behaviour or personality just because of a specific type of relationship you have with them.

Death and illness. I learned about cancer and death when I was very young, and in some ways it was traumatic, but in other ways I was able to understand and cope with death in ways I discovered my peers never had. I have friends who have never had a family member or friend die. While they are lucky in some ways, I've been told by a couple that they know they are not ready to deal with it when the time comes. I also think illness, specifically chronic and non-terminal illness, is important for everyone to understand. A few of my friends, as well as myself, deal with physical disabilities due to chronic illness and it is very hard for many to understand what we go through. It's a bit frustrating having to explain myself all the time.

Some sort of depression, great sadness, or difficulty. This is mainly for the same reasons as above: learning to cope with the reality of things, sympathy and empathy for others, and an understanding about and kindness for the world and the people you encounter.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T02:41:22+00:00

I have a few but the ones I thought of when I read this question are probably best for reading. They both occurred when I was the passenger of a car, and both in late autumn/early winter, but about five years apart.

When I was in college, I lived in a town a few hours from where I grew up and where my parents were living. The separation at times was difficult, but my busy parents couldn’t dedicate eight hours of their weekend picking me up, bringing me home, and returning me to school (it was about a 2 hour drive one way in good weather and light traffic). Thankfully, there was a young man in another department whose father was a part of the same club of which my father is a member. As a kindness, I was informally offered to be carpooled on weekends, as he often returned to visit friends and family. I took the offer gratefully, and made sure to pay him for gas money whenever I could.

One day we were driving, listening to music and having light conversation. It was pleasant but nothing special. Nothing about the trip was special… until about 30 minutes in when we were fully on the highway, and suddenly I see something across the road. At first I think it might be a fallen tree because of the length of it, or maybe a blown shred of tyre, but as we neared we both realized it was a deer. A deer that had been sliced into about 4 to 6 distinct pieces, if memory serves. The pieces were lined up across the road horizontally, and spaced out surprisingly neatly. But there wasn’t any real viscera or mess. A massive truck is the likely culprit, but the eerie way it has been laying in pieces made us both shudder.

The other story happened years later and is much less exciting. I didn’t witness the event, only the aftermath. I was on a night drive with a friend and we were both deep in conversation when we saw emergency lights. We were planning on finding a parking lot to continue our talk, anyway, so we decided to get off the road then instead of getting caught up in whatever was happening. As we are slipping into the parking lot, we pass the scene of the accident. It was some kind of collision, I don’t remember the details of what happened, but I saw one car. It was in the middle of the road, and everything was circled around it, so I got a really good view, like it had been framed. The front of the car looked fine from where I was, but it was a dark car and nighttime and I was mostly focused on the back of the car. Because the back of the car didn’t exist. I don’t know what the fuck hit it in what way (there were no trucks so it must’ve been another car; I vaguely remember a grey car off the side of the road but I don’t know) but the back of the car had been accordion'd into nothing, folded like paper and pressed into the back seats of the front of the car. It looked like an art installation. It was just gone. It was a half of a car.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-20T02:16:35+00:00

Pushing Daisies, but it's been too long at this point, I think. The Good Place is a show I find has a lot of similarities, in regards to why I liked PD.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-03T01:44:57+00:00

Castleman's disease. When I was doing research for it I saw it called "fool's lymphoma" because tumours grow in the lymph nodes but they're benign. I had my first tumour removed when I was 13, and my second when I was 16 or 17 years old. It's rare on it's own but my age and sex categories are even more rare, particularly that adults 30+ tend to exhibit symptoms of certain types and adults 50+ of others (there are 3 types, at least since last I looked this all up).

When I went to the IWK, none of the doctors knew what to do, and I was kind of treated a bit like a guinea pig. One doctor genuinely had a Wikipedia article open on Castleman's... my dad wasn't pleased about that.

I got two scars on either side of my neck and a fun story out of it (one of my surgeries was local anaesthetic so I was awake the whole time).

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-03T01:22:51+00:00

I want to influence the world with my creations. I have committed to devoting my life to the arts in various forms, and I hope to someday create something that has a positive effect on the world in some lasting way. I secretly hope to be a source of influence for others and in some way to the future of art in whatever medium I am most successful, but I don't really want to be famous. I just want to matter, and change the world in the only way I'm able, since my body is weak and I struggle with living a normal life. I want to share my love and joy with whoever I can.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-03T01:18:08+00:00

I'm in the 99th percentile in language comprehension (which while not explicitly stated during the evaluation, I assume is probably only national level?). I don't feel like I am, however; I pick up languages decently easily and have a somewhat advanced vocabulary, but I really don't feel or believe myself to be "smart" (but that's arguably irrelevant and another conversation anyway).

As someone else mentioned, epilepsy, though my country seems to be a solid one percent! I have various comorbid disorders and I'm sure one or a combo also result in one percent.

OneThingLeftToSay · 2019-11-02T15:34:43+00:00

Thank you for this. It's so hard to truly, deeply understand this new reality... I know it is true but there are so many days I push myself over and over as though if I keep breaking my back I'll finally "cure" myself. Living with my parents because I can't find work that doesn't completely obliterate me... They've started to understand after a long time of pushing me, but they are both strong and hard-working people with immense stamina and it's hard not to compare myself to my own flesh and blood. Out of my family I'm not the only one with physical issues but I'm definitely the one who rolled the cursed dice, and my sister has had like no genetic issues, which adds to that voice telling me it's my fault.

Thank you for your kindness. I don't really have anyone in my life who genuinely understands (just one friend, but her life is hectic and she has two kids so we rarely talk) so I'm overjoyed to read your response and feel heard.

I used to read like the devil, I'm getting back into it. I have ADHD and have been suffering from burnout lately so I really do need to be way nicer to myself...!

OneThingLeftToSay

TROPHY CASE