This past weekend I traveled back home to El Paso with my best friend. Her brother is stationed at Ft. Bliss and she was kind enough to let me tag along so I could see my family. Although I had planned the trip prior, this past weekend it seemed like I was in town for only one reason. In the very early hours of Sunday, the 19th, my Tia Julie took her last breath. Her funeral was scheduled for last weekend. As soon as I reached El Paso, my cousin Frank picked me up and drove me to the funeral home to view my Tia. I arrived a little before eight, and the rest of my family had been there since three. Seeing my aunt, and listening to my family say things about the person that she was hit me extremely hard. Up until then I had held myself together fairly well, but in the presence of my family I broke down. Frank held me while we both cried together and mourned the loss of our great aunt.
The next morning was her funeral and I was told to ride the limo with my aunts and grandma. As I sat in the limo with them I couldn't help but feel out of place. Riding to the funeral home, then the church and the cemetery I was just racked with guilt and sorrow. For years now my Tia Julie had lived in a nursing home and not once had I visited her. True, I live in a different state but the few times over the years that I have gone to El Paso I should have taken the time to see her. She suffered from Alzheimer disease and hasn't known me since I was a child but that should not have stopped me. My previous "out of sight, out of mind" mentality crippled me with even more grief and I had a difficult time composing myself throughout the entire day. To make matters worse, my thoughts kept consuming me with countless other things and severely spiraled me into a depression. Still, now back at home, I'm haunted by many things.
My Tia Julie was a wonderful woman. She took care of everyone. Her heart was enormous and although you never wanted to be on her bad side, she was someone you knew cared deeply about your well-being. She was stricken for so many years by a terrible disease. My only comfort now is that she is in a better place and no longer handicapped by the deterioration of her mind.
I hope she can see me now and know I loved her.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Party of One
I've always kept to myself. I'm not a party person, or a social butterfly. In fact of all things, I'm a wallflower. I sit back and observe while the world does its merry little spin. That isn't to say I don't associate with anyone, but for the most part it's just me.
Just me. That hasn't hit home so much like it did today.
It's such a huge deal if I open up to you. If I go more into my usual "I'm okay" and tell you how I feel. I don't just go spilling my guts to anyone. And even when I do confide, I'm so guarded. So careful about everything I say. My emotions are raw and my thoughts complex. I'll be too vulnerable to just let go.
Today I learned a few things. Number one, my friends are less than imagined. People who I thought I could have a moment with simply took one incidence and spun everything I said. It was useless to speak and I should have known. Number two, there are those who keep a tally of my mistakes and like to exploit them at every given opportunity. Number three, in the end it really is just me.
Perhaps this is not the best format for certain things but the pain is mounting. At times I can't breathe with the enormity of it. The fact that I disappointed you was hard enough. Yet to know you won't be there for that day in my distant (or not so) future. The fact that I went to you in confidence and there was no support or even close to it there. The fact that all promises were seemingly ignored, words forgotten. To know that you were just like everyone else.
In the heat of the night much more was stolen than what was intended. The strain it has caused is just another thing I lose sleep over. I feel like the world in which I live in just became even more dull.
I will start the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 alone.
It wasn't enough time and it didn't turn out how it should have. Thus is life.
The hum of the fan and the typing of my keys are my only companions tonight. Not even my darling puppy is here to offer the comfort I desperately need.
Sometimes, I just want to disappear. Tell me when someone notices.
Just me. That hasn't hit home so much like it did today.
It's such a huge deal if I open up to you. If I go more into my usual "I'm okay" and tell you how I feel. I don't just go spilling my guts to anyone. And even when I do confide, I'm so guarded. So careful about everything I say. My emotions are raw and my thoughts complex. I'll be too vulnerable to just let go.
Today I learned a few things. Number one, my friends are less than imagined. People who I thought I could have a moment with simply took one incidence and spun everything I said. It was useless to speak and I should have known. Number two, there are those who keep a tally of my mistakes and like to exploit them at every given opportunity. Number three, in the end it really is just me.
Perhaps this is not the best format for certain things but the pain is mounting. At times I can't breathe with the enormity of it. The fact that I disappointed you was hard enough. Yet to know you won't be there for that day in my distant (or not so) future. The fact that I went to you in confidence and there was no support or even close to it there. The fact that all promises were seemingly ignored, words forgotten. To know that you were just like everyone else.
In the heat of the night much more was stolen than what was intended. The strain it has caused is just another thing I lose sleep over. I feel like the world in which I live in just became even more dull.
I will start the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 alone.
It wasn't enough time and it didn't turn out how it should have. Thus is life.
The hum of the fan and the typing of my keys are my only companions tonight. Not even my darling puppy is here to offer the comfort I desperately need.
Sometimes, I just want to disappear. Tell me when someone notices.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
"Cause these things will change..."
"...can you feel it now?"
I believe that there are some people in this world who are literally thrown into it. There is no preparation, no warning. Suddenly you have to leave all childish things and be someone years were supposed to shape but life simply couldn't wait for. It's now or never with never not even being an option. It's simply now.
I missed out on a lot of things as a child and a teenager. I never fully fit in, even in the days at Edgemere when everyone knew my name. I will never say I was smarter than my peers but I was different from them. I was more experienced. Life had taken it's grip on me faster. I didn't have that carefree innocence a child should have. Instead I spent the majority of the days sitting in a tree or riding my bike around town mulling over this or that. I had taken upon responsibility that shouldn't have ever been mine, yet even so was handed to me freely. I never complained because I simply knew nothing else. As the years progressed however my distance from my peers grew and grew. In junior high and high school I never understood the activities that everyone deemed so fun. I didn't understand their dialogue or their way of disrespecting virtually everyone. Therefore I spent my time alone, watching and analyzing them trying to figure out their immaturity and always wondering why I was so different.
As it would be, I am socially awkward as a 22 year old adult. I've always been socially awkward. Between simply my quiet and shy personality to not having any common ground other than age to my classmates I didn't get much in the way of social skills. Sure, I can carry a conversation and I'm friendly when spoken to and I can get along with anyone but there has always been this wall right in front of me. I've often wondered who put it there. Was it me, was it them or did life simply throw it there.
I think I had a tendency to rush through life for one particular reason. Simply, I wanted my age and social status to catch up with my heart and soul. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, they both age and there is always that distance. But then there came a point in my life where I broke down. When the resilience of my soul failed and I needed some major time to repair. Funny thing is, life waits for no one. So in about two years I went from having everything and being on the top of my game to knowing nothing and feeling like I'm wandering aimlessly praying I find the path that so much dust covered in that violent storm.
Life is asking me to stop being idle. Stop being crippled by the past, by my former illness, by my heartache. It's screaming at me to be...well me. But that scares me because I'm afraid of leaving everyone behind in the process. It's my change, not theirs. I have to adapt and live accordingly and well, they just live.
I believe that there are some people in this world who are literally thrown into it. There is no preparation, no warning. Suddenly you have to leave all childish things and be someone years were supposed to shape but life simply couldn't wait for. It's now or never with never not even being an option. It's simply now.
I missed out on a lot of things as a child and a teenager. I never fully fit in, even in the days at Edgemere when everyone knew my name. I will never say I was smarter than my peers but I was different from them. I was more experienced. Life had taken it's grip on me faster. I didn't have that carefree innocence a child should have. Instead I spent the majority of the days sitting in a tree or riding my bike around town mulling over this or that. I had taken upon responsibility that shouldn't have ever been mine, yet even so was handed to me freely. I never complained because I simply knew nothing else. As the years progressed however my distance from my peers grew and grew. In junior high and high school I never understood the activities that everyone deemed so fun. I didn't understand their dialogue or their way of disrespecting virtually everyone. Therefore I spent my time alone, watching and analyzing them trying to figure out their immaturity and always wondering why I was so different.
As it would be, I am socially awkward as a 22 year old adult. I've always been socially awkward. Between simply my quiet and shy personality to not having any common ground other than age to my classmates I didn't get much in the way of social skills. Sure, I can carry a conversation and I'm friendly when spoken to and I can get along with anyone but there has always been this wall right in front of me. I've often wondered who put it there. Was it me, was it them or did life simply throw it there.
I think I had a tendency to rush through life for one particular reason. Simply, I wanted my age and social status to catch up with my heart and soul. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, they both age and there is always that distance. But then there came a point in my life where I broke down. When the resilience of my soul failed and I needed some major time to repair. Funny thing is, life waits for no one. So in about two years I went from having everything and being on the top of my game to knowing nothing and feeling like I'm wandering aimlessly praying I find the path that so much dust covered in that violent storm.
Life is asking me to stop being idle. Stop being crippled by the past, by my former illness, by my heartache. It's screaming at me to be...well me. But that scares me because I'm afraid of leaving everyone behind in the process. It's my change, not theirs. I have to adapt and live accordingly and well, they just live.
And it's a sad picture, the final blow hits you
Somebody else gets what you wanted again
You know it's all the same, another time and place
Repeating history and you're getting sick of it
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