It's funny the things that remind you life is short. Not funny ha ha. I found out tonight that an acquaintance of mine died last night in a car accident while she was driving home from college for the summer. She was 20 years old. 20... how can that even be?
I didn't know her very well, but am good friends with some people who did and I am most concerned about them. One of them is her best friend. I was fortunate to get to know Emily while working on a play together and my heart just goes out to her. She's in Senegal for her SST right now and this is where she will receive the news of the loss of her best friend. I can't even imagine what she is feeling, I don't even know if she knows yet. I wish I were independently wealthy so I could go to her and bring her home.
Life is short... such a cliché, but it's so true. We get hung up in the everyday things of life. Small, insignificant things when you consider how they fit into the bigger picture. Why? It doesn't make any sense. I didn't know her well, but what I knew of her... she was an amazingly vibrant, energetic, beautiful, gifted person and now, just like that, she's gone. It's just so unfair.
So there's supposedly a god out there somewhere. There's supposed to be something watching over us, caring for us. That's what I learned in Sunday school growing up. Then things like this happen and I just can't see it. How can something like this happen?
And now I sit and think about my life. The struggles I have. My rocky relationship with my dad, my struggle with depression, trying to figure out what I want out of life. No one ever thinks it can happen to them. Certainly Deanne didn't think that while driving home. So what to do with these feelings? I want things to be fine with my dad, I want to just know what I want out of life. I want to be able to be happy with who I am. I'm finding these things, slowly, but now I feel like there is some urgency to finding the answers. Is it even possible to find answers, or do we just have to stumble through life, never finding anything concrete? I don't know.
Tonight started as an evening of fun with friends around a fire, darts at the bar, joking and laughing and then turned rather drastically. If I were to die tomorrow, what regrets would there be in my life? I need to figure those things out and deal with them. Don't put off till tomorrow what can be done today.... because you just never know.
amor y paz,
me
Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
No clever title today
So supposedly those things that are hardest for us to do in life are the exact same things that "make us stronger." Some days I think I'd just prefer to be a wimp.
Today was a hard day... a very hard day. And I'm sure ultimately I'll be a better person for it, but it brings me little comfort now. When you've cried so much your entire face aches and your brain is like a giant ball of cotton, it's hard to think that anything positive can come from that.
Empty and alone, that's how I feel today. Drained and deflated.
amor y paz,
me
Today was a hard day... a very hard day. And I'm sure ultimately I'll be a better person for it, but it brings me little comfort now. When you've cried so much your entire face aches and your brain is like a giant ball of cotton, it's hard to think that anything positive can come from that.
Empty and alone, that's how I feel today. Drained and deflated.
amor y paz,
me
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Today could have been
A horrible, gloomy, depressing day. It's colder than yesterday, overcast and rainy, but what could have turned out to be an awful day, was one of the best days I've had in a long time. It's so easy to get caught up in the demons of life, to move past them and realize that somewhere among the demons are things that we've learned about ourselves and things that have made us stronger.
The past year and a half has been composed a lot of personal demons for me. A lot of the time I feel overwhelmed and barely above water. Outwardly I appear to be a pretty together person, but inwardly I feel like I'm hardly functioning. I know inside me somewhere is a free-spirited, fun-loving person, but she's been lost for a long time. Somewhere along the way I've let the heaviness of responsibility and expectations hide her and I've been really, really miserable. I can't even recognize this person that I've become, it's not who I am nor who I want to be, but the ability to regain the person I am has eluded me.
And so I've become this shell of a person, a zombie going through the motions of my life. That's no way to live. So today, it's raining and it's a little chilly, but last night I made the decision that unless it was stormy weather today, I was going to go to the river preserve and just be in nature. To think about my demons and what I need to do to try to find myself again.
As I stood in the woods and listened to the woodpecker and watched the mallard swimming and listened to the start of rain, I wasn't sure what exactly I was doing. I'm not necessarily the most outdoorsy person in the world, but it felt right to be there. And as it began to rain harder, my hair was soaked, my bangs were dripping into my eyes, and I felt fabulous. My sandals were sinking into the mud and it was wonderful. I took off my sandals and decided to walk further into the woods. As I walked, my feet sank into the slimy mud. It squished between my toes and felt disgusting and amazing all at the same time.
I walked across a log, I sank into deeper mud, I was drenched to the bone and incredibly happy. I felt like a kid. I walked and walked until I got back to the road. As I walked to the car and got progressively more wet, I felt better and better. By the time I got to my car, I was thoroughly drenched. My eyes were stinging from all of the rain in them, I was shivering and I was elated.
Somewhere in that woods was the girl that loves life, that wants to just let go and to do whatever. To love life, to take it by the hand and experience it. Today I feel like that person again. It's not to say that the shell isn't still hovering right on the edge, but now I know that the person I thought was gone is still inside me, just waiting for the opportunity to remind me who I am.
amor y paz,
me
The past year and a half has been composed a lot of personal demons for me. A lot of the time I feel overwhelmed and barely above water. Outwardly I appear to be a pretty together person, but inwardly I feel like I'm hardly functioning. I know inside me somewhere is a free-spirited, fun-loving person, but she's been lost for a long time. Somewhere along the way I've let the heaviness of responsibility and expectations hide her and I've been really, really miserable. I can't even recognize this person that I've become, it's not who I am nor who I want to be, but the ability to regain the person I am has eluded me.
And so I've become this shell of a person, a zombie going through the motions of my life. That's no way to live. So today, it's raining and it's a little chilly, but last night I made the decision that unless it was stormy weather today, I was going to go to the river preserve and just be in nature. To think about my demons and what I need to do to try to find myself again.
As I stood in the woods and listened to the woodpecker and watched the mallard swimming and listened to the start of rain, I wasn't sure what exactly I was doing. I'm not necessarily the most outdoorsy person in the world, but it felt right to be there. And as it began to rain harder, my hair was soaked, my bangs were dripping into my eyes, and I felt fabulous. My sandals were sinking into the mud and it was wonderful. I took off my sandals and decided to walk further into the woods. As I walked, my feet sank into the slimy mud. It squished between my toes and felt disgusting and amazing all at the same time.
I walked across a log, I sank into deeper mud, I was drenched to the bone and incredibly happy. I felt like a kid. I walked and walked until I got back to the road. As I walked to the car and got progressively more wet, I felt better and better. By the time I got to my car, I was thoroughly drenched. My eyes were stinging from all of the rain in them, I was shivering and I was elated.
Somewhere in that woods was the girl that loves life, that wants to just let go and to do whatever. To love life, to take it by the hand and experience it. Today I feel like that person again. It's not to say that the shell isn't still hovering right on the edge, but now I know that the person I thought was gone is still inside me, just waiting for the opportunity to remind me who I am.
amor y paz,
me
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