It’s been a while since I’ve posted any of my own creative writing. In the last month or so I’ve thought a lot about my own writing and where I want to go with it. I was also lucky enough to be told I’ll be published in 2018 which gave me a great confidence boost!
I wrote the following poem when I didn’t have that when I was just coming out of a pretty lonely and dark period of my life. The thing is, hope is important, but it’s not always at the front of your mind. When it does start to appear you need to grab it with both hands and try and hold on. I hope you enjoy this poem. – Chloe Metzger.
Getting towards the end of last year I was nervous, I didn’t know what 2018 was going to bring and I was a little scared. I had a really shitty time last year and I didn’t know how much more I could deal with. So, how’s 2018 been so far? 3 weeks in.
In the last 3 weeks, I’ve started to feel something that I haven’t in a long time, and if I’m honest I’m almost afraid to say it, but I’m feeling hopeful. That’s not to say I’ve gotten into a ‘new me’ phase, I certainly haven’t, I have just carried on living my life as it is but it’s been ok.
So far I’ve already seen positive steps in where I want my career to go. I’ve been working on my blog and thinking about what I want to do and where I want to go with it. I’ve had conversations about the future. Am I optimistic? I guess, but I’m more cautiously optimistic than anything. I’m just working my hardest and hoping that it’ll get me where I want to go this year.
As my readers know, I set goals at the beginning of the year and I’m working towards them in a chilled out way. I’ve been working on my goal of getting to 5000 Twitter followers this year and I’m already a quarter of the way there (you can follow me here). I’ve noted down a few ideas towards my novel and I am working my ass off.
I don’t know if this year will be better or not. I don’t know if this is a great start leading to an even better year. For me though, having hope after a really tough year is a great thing. I’m moving forward and I have a game plan, so 3 weeks in I’m happy and hopeful.
How has 2018 been for you? What are your goals? Let me know in the comments below!
Depending on how long you’ve been reading my blog/following me on Twitter you may or may not know that back in 2015 I fell off a horse and broke part of my spine (vertebrae T12 to be exact) and damaged other parts of it. It’s been a long 18 months with a lot of pain, scans, x-rays, physiotherapy, wheelchairs, crutches and walking very, very slowly. There wasn’t any part of my life that wasn’t impacted by the accident, I spent a lot of time (longer than I should have been) on maximum strength painkillers and spent almost 2 months in this wonderful contraption…
I documented on here and on Twitter whenever I could what it was like living with my spinal injury. I learnt a lot from it and it gave me a bigger appreciation for not only being able to walk but life in general. That said, it is frustrating and the pain was indescribable and is still a huge part of my life today. BUT! I finally have some good news to share.
Last week I attended a clinic called Hampshire Backs to see a back specialist. I’d waited since September for this appointment and had an MRI (I was stuck in the machine for an hour!) determined that something would happen this time after seeing endless doctors, consultants and surgeons only for them to shrug their shoulders. My new consultant is brilliant, I’ve seen the scans and my break is fully healed, as is the damage to other parts of my spine, my nerves are clear of disruption and my spinal chord is good. All the majors were ok! We then went to on a physical examination, one that’s almost routine to me now, it took him a small amount of time to work out what was going on.
Due to the fact I’ve tried almost all the options that I have been able to at this point, including a year of physiotherapy, we were going to the next step. At some point next year I’m going into hospital to have a procedure, during which I’ll be asleep while a mix of steroids and anaesthetic will be placed in to the joints in the base of my spine. The hope is that this will give me relief, meaning I can build up muscle before it wears off and hopefully that will help the pain. IF this works then there will be talk of further procedures, if not…well we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
I won’t lie to you, I’m terrified of going to sleep and having people stick things into my spine but I also have a new found hope. This could be the start of me not living in constant pain and worry. I’m going forward and trying to be positive about this.
You might not know me, you might not read my blog but watching the election results come in this morning left me with a sick, sinking feeling in my stomach. I’m not American, but I am human and I know what it feels like to get a result that you think is wrong and dangerous. My country voted for Brexit, and in the process, we got a Prime Minister we didn’t vote for. I know that there are so many of you who are scared, confused and angry. That you now have a man that uses division, hatred, racism, and misogyny to get to where he is today. You’re right to be scared, most intelligent people would be and, like Brexit, I have no idea how this happened.
It’s not that I’m going to tell you to get over it and just feel better. There’s a lot of uncertainty, a lot of fear about the future, as there is here. What I am going to say though is that you are not alone in this. There is anger, disbelief ,and shock around the world that lies have won this election. But, most of us know that this doesn’t represent the good of America. There are so many incredible people that I have personally met and he doesn’t represent you as the people you are.
To every woman, every ethnic minority, every disabled person, every LGBTQ person everyone he and his campaign have offended you are not alone. It may feel that way right now, that you don’t know who to trust or what’s to come, but stay strong. The rest of the world understand your feelings of loss and pain and we won’t forget about you. It might feel like your country is against you, but the rest of the world are not.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on my spine. For some of my most recent followers (there are now 400 of you who receive emails from me!!), you may not know what I’m talking about or why my spine is so important. Back in April 2015 I took a tumble off of a friends horse and long story short I ended up a compression fracture (think a crumble) of one of vertebrae and possible damage to three others. The treatment I received wasn’t great, particularly from the emergency team when I was bought in in the ambulance, who also didn’t find the fracture for 2 weeks, meaning in that time I could hve easily done more damage and been paralysed. Fun. So I’ve been in spine recovery since then and had multiple appointments, doctors and 5 different hospitals in London, it’s all gotten pretty normal to me.
Tonight, however, I got to meet my first GP for the first time. The pain in my spine has been particularly unbearable in the past few months because I’m now working full time and commuting, meaning I can’t take super strong medication. I knew something wasn’t right so off to the doctor I went. I’m used to it being passed off, ignored or being given ANOTHER stack of medication to try, although I was pleasantly surprised. She was brilliant and took it incredibly seriously listening to my concerns and what I would like done. I’m now on medication that is better for me in the long run, am booked into an x-ray tomorrow and will be sent to a specialist back clinic to see where to go from there. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so optimistic about my back.
As always I’ll keep you all updated about anything that’s going to be done/is discovered. For everyone that has sent me messages or commented thank you so much, those messages keep me going on bad pain days!
Every now and again, when I’m having a low day I start to think about where it all started, the first time I remember feeling depressed. While I was browsing online tonight I found an article on the BBC claiming research states that people who are considered Goths are more likely to become depressed and self harm. To say it made me angry was an understatement, but actually it upset me more than anything. I didn’t identify as a Goth as a teenager but I was well known as one of the ’emo’ kids at school and took a lot of shit for it. While other girls go into fashion I would resist shopping as much as possible unless it was for black clothes and anything with a guitar or skull on it, my parents did think I was a goth.
Throughout my teenage years I was constantly pissed off by the media saying that the music I listened to made people kill themselves, made people violent, made us all antisocial weirdos. I also remember the death of Sophie Lancaster and the stir it caused that she was murdered merely for the way she chose to dress, when the rockers, the goths and the emos all stood together in grief. You see if you’re involved in it you know that we’re not ‘freaks’ or ‘weirdos’ we’re people just like everyone else.
Now looking through my instagram feed nowadays most people can’t believe that I used to wear black constantly, love eyeliner and hate anything remotely feminine. I’m different to how I used to be but that teenagers still there, I love eyeliner, I swapped wrist bands for tattoos and there is nothing better than having My Chemical Romance on full blast, but there is one crucial difference, music is no longer my only saviour.
Like I said at the beginning I will think about my depression and my teenage years, there’s no doubt I was sick. The thing is I didn’t get sick because of the music I listened to, in fact it was the opposite, it kept me going. I found in these lyrics someone who understood, someone who got the stuff going on in my head and the desperate loneliness I had. The music made me feel like I wasn’t a freak like people said I was and it introduced me to some of the greatest people in my life as well as influencing my own music.
Me aged 13, just getting into the scene
I put the song Famous Last Words in this post because more than any song I associate this with trying to carry on. On more nights than I could count I would lay in bed wishing I could sleep and crying, for no reason and every reason. I was miserable with my life at school at couldn’t see the point of anything but My Chem saved me, say what you want about cliche I don’t care. I would like there and repeat the lyrics while I was crying:
‘I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone.. Honey if you stay I’ll be forgiven, nothing you can say can stop me going home’
I sang those lyrics over and over again to give me strength, to tell myself not to give up on living. As you can see I’m here, so it must have worked. This music and these lyrics gave me something that I couldn’t even give myself at that point in time, hope and reason to carry on. I’m not writing this for pity or for people to tell me ‘how brave I am’, I’m writing this because like thousands of other kids rock music changed my life for the better and I’m pretty sure it saved my life.
I didn’t get depressed because of the music I listened to, in fact I’m pretty sure if we’re going that far back you’ll have to take into account all the pop music I listened to at 11 years old when it initially reared it’s ugly head after I was beaten up almost every day. I don’t think many people would blame kid friendly pop, right?
I know a lot of people who love the music I do and they don’t have a mental illness. I do and I do because of what I’ve been through in my life, not my musical choices.
Tonight was my first teacher training session. I was pretty nervous when I turned up, I had no idea what to expect and I wasn’t sure I would know anyone who got through. My nerve calmed down a fair bit after a surprise visit from Ali, not because of any romantic gesture just to borrow my tape measure but either way it was nice to see him. I got there about 20 minutes early (talk about over eager) but thankfully I wasn’t the only one I started chatting to some of the other girls and found out I wasn’t the only first year on the scheme. As Kingston is so good to us we were all offered a hot drink and biscuits.
The session was 3 hours long but it was interesting. Within the first 15 minutes our confidence was already being build up by the team we were working with and started making jokes where we could. I was pleasantly surprised to recognise some people I already knew as well as some people I had been interviewed with. The evening overall was fun and I was pleased that we learnt about so many different factors in educating children and I learnt new things.
Throughout the session though I was fighting with myself. For this scheme I’ll be teaching in a secondary school, somewhere I vowed not to go back to. I had more than a pretty rough time at school and tonight I felt some powerful emotions, even if I didn’t let it school. After going over policies and responsibilities schools have towards students I was slightly shocked to realise just how wrong my school were. The lack of support I had throughout my education I assumed had been normal but now I see that it’s not. The senior staff had a duty of care and they obviously didn’t fulfil what they should have. As I sunk into a deeper state they all looked the other way, done the bare minimum and left me to it. There were a handful of members of staff who cared enough to get me through, I still try and visit the LSU (learning support unit) sometimes to let them know how I’m doing and say thanks, they cared and they didn’t have to. If I see some of my old teachers in town I’ll say hello and just let them know they made a difference. As for the others? I’d love to prove them wrong, I’ll got back with my degree and just say ‘see I wasn’t as useless as you made me out to be!’.
I guess what I’m getting at is that tonight made me realise I was failed and I want to make a change. I might not end up becing a secondary school teacher but I want to do something to change the lives of young people. I don’t know how yet, teaching?, writing?, performing? I have no idea yet but I think this is going to be good for me, maybe in those 15 days I’ll make some kind of difference.
Chloe Metzger 