Try not to worry

I really, really appreciate all the kind words. If I may be so selfish, keep 'em coming. They help. But also, I'm ok. As I've been telling people face to face - things still suck, but they've levelled off to the least amount of suck they're going to be for a while. I don't mean to be vague, but it's not my story to tell. And it's also just an unfortunate confluence of crap. When it rains it pours.

But today is much better. Today I spent 5 hours outside in the sun, grilling and playing kickball (and made some kick ass doubles, by the way). That helps.

What probably doesn't help is reliving my adolescence thanks to netflix. I've been re-watching Party of Five, and good grief is that show depressing! (I know, I know, I should be pop culturally embarrassed, but whatever) Anyway, I watched that show from age 13 to 19 (that can't be right. I don't remember watching it in college, and yet I know how it ends...) and it's funny for me to notice which storylines I still remember vividly and which I have no recollection of at all. For example, I remember Bailey's girlfriend OD-ing, Julia working underage as a waitress at a bar, and Claudia stuffing her bra. I have no memory of Julia's HIV positive friend or Charlie's ex-girlfriend coming out of the woodwork claiming to have his kid. I'm sure none of it is actually this meaningful, but I like to think the contrast between remembered and not remembered is actually a peek into my adolescent psyche and the things that resonated with me then.

Tired and sad

and feeling like my heart is trying to thumpety-thump-thump right out of my chest. I hate feeling like I can't do anything. I hate knowing that what I need is to curl up and weep for a while but instead being stuck at school and so my chest just gets tighter and tighter and tighter. I hate telling people over and over that I'm sad, hoping that if I keep saying it I can quit feeling it.

I like looking forward to my kickball game tomorrow. I like looking forward to the possibility of a date on Sunday. I like looking forward to curling up on the couch with a friend's puppy and indulging in a great bit of nothing in front of a big screen tv.

This post isn't about anything. Just trying to make myself feel a bit better.

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much."
Mother Teresa

The past week has felt like that. Something desperately sad happened to a very close friend and I just feel so helpless. And it all went down about two hours before I left for FL, so I started up the friend phone tree before hitting the road, then spent half the drive contemplating turning around and staying in ATL. In the end, I'm glad I went, but Florida was also a full weekend of tension and depression. Who knows what will happen, but chances are this was the trip to say goodbye to my grandfather. Really, I said bye years ago, because the man I visited wasn't him. After spending full days hovering over him because he might fall at any minute, listening to him call to his grown children for help because he can't manage to dress himself anymore, and awkwardly trying to remind him who I am (he kept confusing me with my mother and my aunt) I'd return to the hotel with Dad, where I'd try to reassure him that that isn't necessarily his future.

13. "So it goes."

Unlike many of these quotes, the repeated refrain from Vonnegut's classic Slaughterhouse-Five isn't notable for its unique wording so much as for how much emotion—and dismissal of emotion—it packs into three simple, world-weary words that simultaneously accept and dismiss everything. There's a reason this quote graced practically every elegy written for Vonnegut over the past two weeks (yes, including ours): It neatly encompasses a whole way of life. More crudely put: "Shit happens, and it's awful, but it's also okay. We deal with it because we have to."

It's been a shitty past few days, and these Vonnegut quotes hit the spot. I'd also like to add:

I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please--a little less love, and a little more common decency.'"
Amen.