I have stopped wearing grunge plaid, eating bottomless bowls of instant ramen noodles, and I have exchanged my Backstreet Boys CD for an endless loop of "Everything Is Awesome" on my iPhone.
But for everything that has changed, one thing is the same.
When I was sixteen, I had surgery to correct a heart condition known as SVT (super ventricular tachycardia), a super-rapid heart arrhythmia. But before I could be cleared for the procedure, I had to wear an event monitor day and night to try and capture an episode. At the time, I found the experience more embarrassing than the butterfly clips in my hair or my excessive spritzing of Curve perfume, but I got through it and came out on the other side healthier and back to normal, save for three large adhesive marks on my chest from the electrode stickers which served as a very unique accessory to my prom dress.
But as I mentioned in the beginning, history has repeated itself.
The beta blockers I have been prescribed are helping, and there is no concern that this is a threatening condition, but I am left to deal with this awkward and uncomfortable monitor for two weeks. And while I may not have prom coming up, I do have three boys that like to ask me questions about it all the time.
"Does that thing shock you?"
"Can I use some of those stickers to put my dinosaur picture on the fridge?"
"Are you a robot now?"
Because I'm so busy counting down the days until I go wireless again, I hope you'll forgive me if my brain drifts back to 1999 and you catch me in a pair of clunky Doc Martins, illegally downloading music on Napster, or playing snake on my Nokia cell phone.
Thank you in advance for not eying me like I'm wired to explode. You're "the bomb". And here's to partying like it's 1999.
Prince would be so proud.
