For a twenty year old, I think I've been through a lot. A lot of big stuff, I mean, which is essentially why I decided to start this blog. It's given me a unique perspective on life and on the people around me, making everything seem kind of unreal sometimes. I tend to get rather nihilistic because of everything that has happened. I think I'll take this time to get some things off of my mind and to explain some things, since it will help readers understand my need to write things down.
To start, I guess, was my mom. When I was sixteen, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. I remember when she told me. She sat me down in the living room, told me that there was something we needed to talk about. I was so young and so self-centered, I was so worried it was something I had done wrong. My mom told me that they had found a lump in her breast, and that it was cancerous, and that they had found traces of it in her lymph nodes, meaning that it had spread. I didn't process it; I remember saying that it wasn't a problem and that they could fix it all. I was right, but I didn't know that at the time. I cried, I hugged my mom. My mom is my best friend, then and now, and I just remember thinking, "I can't do this. I can't do this if my mom is gone, I can't, I can't." The next year and a half or so was so hard. My mom went through chemo. Since I didn't go to a very strict high school, I would bribe the attendance woman, a certain Mrs. D, to let me leave during lunch to go to my mom's treatments. It never felt right, seeing my mom in a hospital bed. I don't believe in God, but I am thankful every day that my mom got through it and that, a few years later, she is cancer free and almost technically "cured."
Some of my friends weren't so lucky. My junior year of high school, right around the time my mom was diagnosed with cancer, my best friend's mom died. It was so sudden, so freakish... we came home from a soccer game, and I was dropping her off at her house. We pulled up and their were ambulances outside. She ran inside and came back out, screaming. Her mother had fallen and hit her head, and she had died. The worst part was that she and her daughter fought all the time. Earlier that day, she'd been telling me of a stupid fight with her mother. I can't imagine that type of loss. Losing your mother is the worst thing that can happen to a girl, I think. I know that she's somewhere now, wherever it is that we go when we die, watching over us, but that doesn't always make it any easier down here. It thunderstormed during her funeral. It seemed so appropriate.
During my senior year of high school, a few months after my friend's mom passed, one of my close friends died. I've never felt pain like that. I was volunteering at a local film festival when I got the call. Well, text... I always find bad news out in a text. I couldn't comprehend it. I shook, I cried, I had to have my mother pick me up because I couldn't drive. I think the worst part is the guilt that comes with loss. When he passed away, all I could think of was the last phone call I never returned. And how we never got to have our beach day we'd been planning because I was too busy. You can't think that way, of course, but that doesn't make it any easier to stop. I always had a little crush on him. I think about him everyday. After he passed, I dreamed that we were talking. I hope that was a sign, and that he's out there, somewhere, and that he still keeps an eye on all of us down here.
I think the worst thing is when this type of tragedy becomes normal. Just over a year and a half ago, we lost two more from my high school class, one of whom was a childhood friend and the other who was someone I was always close with. I can't even cover his name here for the purpose of anonymity; his name was Justin. God, I'd had a secret crush on him since our freshman year of high school. We spent hours discussing the "pregnant man" scenario, and on the night of our graduation, we got drunk off of cheap beer and Captain Morgan and he told me I had the best boobs in our entire high school. I don't know if that's a compliment or not, but I loved this kid. Not like I love my boyfriend, but like you love a friend. Like you love a good person. It stormed during his viewing, too. I hope that's a sign that all the people we love and miss are there somewhere, and a thunderstorm is their way of showing us they are still there. Letting us feel them and hear them again.
To those we've lost, you're missed and loved. Among other things, these events have made me who I am. I hope I'm doing ok. It's so easy to spill your heart out when you're anonymous. I wish I could've told you all this sooner.
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