Life is a Flicker

I don't really know why I'm randomly updating here. I guess because I have limited other options for sharing thoughts like this that I don't want all of Facebook to know.

I got a message today from one of my best friends. Apparently she and her friend got into a car wreck today. She survived thanks to the airbags with only a few busted ribs, bruises, and a gash on her forehead.

She could have died.

That's what I can't get past. I keep getting hung up on that thought. But for the grace of God, she could have died.

The idea terrifies me. I mean, I know that she would be in a better place, but... the idea of this world without her is unfathomable. I've never had someone close to me die. Even my Grandmother didn't have that much of an impact on my life when she died when I was 11.

But someone young, younger than me. Someone so full of life and joy, who makes me smile a hundred times a day... the idea of them being gone--erased from the world in an instant without me ever getting to say goodbye or let them know how much I love them one last time--is numbing. Chilling. I literally couldn't breath when the idea first hit me.

She could be dead right now. That text I got from her on Tuesday could have been the last thing I ever heard from her.

I know that's not how I should be thinking. I should be singing, dancing, rejoicing, and praising God that she's alive and okay. And, in a way, I am.

But I suppose I'm in shock. I've lived a golden life, in a lot of ways. While bad stuff has happened, I've never lost someone very, very important to me in a permanent way. The idea of it stuns me. I don't know how to deal with it.

If my brain wasn't so dead from exhaustion and cram studying, it might be easier to think through everything, but as it is I think the next few days need to be filled with a few long, very specific prayer sessions to sort through all of these thoughts and emotions.

So that was my random, long overdue update.

Until next time, when it's hopefully not 2:30 and I'm looking at four hours of sleep before my exam.

No galu govad gen.

It's ridiculous how lonely I am. It makes me sick to my stomach. It keeps me perpetually on the verge of tears. I feel like there's a huge wall or a deep crevice separating me from the rest of the world. And it's cold and lonely.

I have friends, I won't try to say that I don't. But, lately, I don't have anyone that I can talk to. Either timing, distance, or a number of other factors places a barrier between my heart and head and everyone else. There's so much inside of me that there is no room for me. The noise inside is swallowing me. The real me. Actually, I don't even remember who or what that is anymore. I just feel it missing. Is it weird that I'm lonely for myself as well?

It's like there's this emptiness. Surrounding me, filling me. It's swallowing my world and leaving little pieces of me floating around in the void that remains. It's lonely. Heartbreakingly lonely. It's rather like the feeling of being homesick, but I'm already home. I'm sitting in my living room right now as I type this.

I look at the people I know, at their facebooks, at their faces, at their phone numbers. Sometimes I even get to the point of opening a message window or readying a call. But then I realize I don't even know what I would say or how I would keep up the communication. In my loneliness, I've lost my voice.

I'm so tired all of the time. And that's when it hits me the hardest. When I'm worn out and worn down and I just want to turn to someone and say, "I can't do it anymore. Let's take a break. Make me smile," and there's no one for me to go to. When I just need to talk to someone, anyone, but there's not a single number that I know I can dial at two am.

I'm forgetting what it's like to be friends with people. Not what it's like to have friends. Just what it's like to be friends. To talk for hours about nothing and everything. To drop a random note and have it turn into a conversation you have to be dragged away from. To laugh so hard you're not sure you'll ever breathe again. I miss it, but I'm forgetting what it is that I miss.

It's lonely when you've forgotten how to live. When every day is just about surviving until you fall asleep and then starting it all over again. It's lonely when you can't be your real self to anyone. It's lonely when you forget who you are.

Scoop of Life, Feb 9

"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell. I know right now you can't tell."

This is going to be it for now. I feel I should make a general warning. From now on, all of my overflows of thoughts that I can't keep inside anymore will be ending up here where they don't take up anyone's time and people can ignore them. I don't want to be selfish more than I can help, so I've decided to quite dumping on people. I'll let this blog catch the overflow, and any readers out there can just ignore it. So there.

Not on an emotional note: I've been teaching myself Russian the past few days. I realized a little under a week ago that Russia and Russian have always fascinated me, and I never realized it. So now I'm making plans to take Russian at uni and make a stop in the lovely country during my visit to Europe. I'm also writing a paper on Russia. And I feel more alive than I have in some time. Learning languages and forming dreams do that for me. It's just a matter of keeping them from getting crushed. Which is why I try not to talk about them in depth. Particularly to certain people. That way, I can keep right on dreaming.

I've also been spending time looking at European street styles and redesigning my look. I wore a new combination of clothes from my closet to classes on Tuesday and got tons of compliments. I felt fantastic all day. I felt like who I want to be and who I am inside. And I felt classy. It was lovely.

I also went to a Bible meeting thingy at my school Tuesday evening. Apparently students from a nearby church meet there every week to have a little service thing. It was kind of nice. The other girls in particular were friendly, and the atmosphere was comfortable. I'm still wary, though. I've had so many bad experiences with church groups that I've become quite the coward. And I'm really curious about some of their theology and beliefs--things that would determine my willingness to stick with it.

I got a new phone recently. It's an android and it's ever so exciting to have it. I feel cool. And it's really handy to have. Especially since my computer battery is corrupted making it impossible to use unless it's plugged in. The phone works as a decent substitute for most things.

School has been going alright. I don't love any of my classes, but I don't hate any of them either. They're all rather easy and boring. I really wish I was taking a foreign language class this year. It would make things much more interesting. At least my English class is decent, though.

Lately I've been rather odd about music. I've been getting randomly sick of certain songs that I typically love, and then I'll just get sick of all music whatsoever. It's very strange for me. I guess I get bored of it. Which would also probably explain my tendency to go for rap/hip-hop and more hardcore music in those moods. Not styles I like much at other times.

Someday soon I'm going to get started on filming stuff. I have an idea for a music video I want to do, and I'm tossing around a couple ideas for a web series or short film. It could be fun. I just wish I had more people to work with and proper equipment. But you do with what you can. C'est la vie.

And I think that's about all. I really do write the lamest blog posts. Maybe they would be better if I actually kept up with it.

Lack of honesty

Today I had something I really wanted to say, but after having to revise it multiple times, and eventually giving up and not saying it at all, I was reminded that I can't really be honest or open with anyone. All my communications go through a filter. I don't think there's ever been anyone who knew what was really going on inside of me at a particular moment. Even when I want to tell people things, I can't. There are so many reasons why I can't confide in people. For this individual it's such-and-such a reason. For this group, it's because of so-and-so.

I can't confide in anyone but God, and it gets a little hard just whispering my thoughts and feelings to a seemingly empty sky. I mean, I know He's there, but when I don't feel him and I don't get a response, it can be a bit hard. Especially about certain things. Things where I need advice. Where I'm feeling lost without someone to help me work through things. In those cases, I wish I had someone I could talk to.

Even this post is going outside my comfort zone. And I already did that once today with negative results. I just wish sometimes that we never had to change. That we could find our comfort zones and never budge. Sure, it may still be lonely, but at least it's not painful too.

3 am

It’s always three am when it hits her hardest. The depression, the loneliness, the uncertainty. It’s the time when she might once have prayed or cried, but she’s forgotten how to do both. Prayers and tears are reserved for special occasions. They don’t mean an awful lot anymore. Three am is almost a ritual by now. When she’s sleeping it’s not nearly as bad, but she’s hardly ever sleeping by then now.

She thinks while she waits for sleep. Tangled threads of shadowed half-thoughts. Rarely words, just feelings and cold. She knows she’s missing something, but she can’t think of what. She knows something’s wrong, but she can’t find the problem. Perhaps everything is problem, the forest hiding in the trees.

Sometimes she thinks of music, words floating though her head in a mismatched melody. Lyrics that tell a story until her heart threatens to stop and her thoughts run away from a note too close to home. She forgets what the words said. She always forgets.

Sometimes she thinks in words, disjointed phrases that lead her in dizzying circles of rational. Sometimes her words spill out in the dim glow of a monitor or whispered pleas for something, anything to change this. She thinks she prays sometimes, but the words feel all wrong and her thoughts run away from that as well. Praying makes her feel too empty, too alone. She doesn’t like the emptiness. It hurts more than numbness.

Sometimes she thinks about him. Her half-formed wish. Her thoughts turn to dreams and she smiles. But only on the good nights. Other nights she thinks of him and her hollow chest stabs her throat. She knows better than to believe in dreams. She wishes she could make that fluttering in her stomach when she sees him understand.

Once in a while a tear wets her eye lashes. It’s the most she cries at three am. She lets the moisture dry in the air. It makes her feel alive, human. She wishes she could remember how to sob. The cavity in her chest seems filled with oceans. But tears don’t fall for depression, or loneliness, or uncertainty. Tears fall when she thinks of her siblings. Tears fall for her family.

She cried at midnight on her nineteenth birthday. She sobbed for hours, away from home, in another’s room. She sobbed for her sister and her brothers, for her parents, and the home she couldn’t wait to escape. She sobbed for the years slipping away and the years yet remaining. Since then she spends more time at home. Since then she cares more about birthdays.

At three am she lies awake and tries to breathe evenly. She holds still despite the tumult of her mind. She tries not to wake the girl in the next bed. At three am she stares at the cold digits and waits for her mind to slow. For the tangled threads to twist into dreams. At three am she sits in the glow of the monitor and does not cry.

I checked and it's impossible. I can't remember the last time I wanted to cry so much.

I can't wait till Mar gets here in an hour. It'll help. But this next week is still going to be one of the hardest of my life.

And I'm glad no one really reads this blog. I feel so pathetic complaining about things like this. But at least no one will be irritated by it.

This next week is going to be one of the hardest of my life. I'm already on the verge of constant tears. It feels so wrong not to be packing and bustling and trying to get ready. It's almost unbearable to think that I won't get to see everyone, laugh with everyone, write with everyone. My eyes ache to see mountains again. I feel like Bilbo. I long for the adventures I've grown to rely on. Moot has gotten me through two years. Now I'm in the midst of one of the craziest and most difficult in many ways and I'm stuck here without it. What am I supposed to do? I feel so alone and, I hate to admit it, forgotten. I feel as if it was only through Moot that I could really bond with those I love and now, without being there, I know others will become close with each other and I'll be left out of the mix, the jokes, and the stories. I already find it hard enough to talk to people online. Now, missing Moot, it's inevitable that before long I'll lose my place among CPers altogether.

I'm with people all the time now a days. I see people on a regular basis, I go to the mall, I hang out and see films. I have a social life that I never had before. And yet I feel as lonely as I ever did. I miss the relationships I used to have. I miss the way things used to be. And I don't know how to go back to that from a distance. I don't know how to fix things apart from face-to-face.

I needed Moot this year. I was so sure I would be going. I felt in my heart that God would work things out. I thought I felt Him telling me so. But it's not happening. And now I don't know what to do.

I just want to curl up and cry... I feel so pathetic.