Dealing w/ Death

A friend of mine died this week. It's been a very sad last few days. To me, it doesn't really matter how well you know a person to feel sad about things like this. What matters is that you knew the person at all. I got to know him over the last few years. Talk to him, share experiences w/ him, laugh, argue, share mutual friendships etc. earlier this week I went to his funeral and I was truly moved by how many people were there and how much physical love I could feel coming from everyone. Just like they say about tension, I could cut the love in the room w/ a knife. The sadness was there, but it was far outweighed by the love. There was such unity and it's a shame that these beautiful feelings were brought about by such tragic circumstances.

I don't like it, but I feel that reflecting on yourself is an inevitable part of death. You can't help but make the situation not just about how a person you know died. You ask questions like: How does this death affect ME? Or how could I have made things better? Or why not ME?

Why do we make it so personal when it's so obviously not? No one as young as him should die. I don't really believe in fate or things happening for a reason. What happened, happened. Though I wish it never did.

I'm still trying to make sense of everything. I've been talking to a lot of friends about it. I guess there will eventually be a time when I wake up and don't immediately think about it. Eventually everyone moves on. But that's part of what makes it so sad.

R.I.P Jon

RIP Ms. Kay

On Tuesday I found out that an English teacher from my high school had been beaten to death by her son Henry, and it has affected me more than I would have thought possible.  I cannot stop thinking about it.  I am lucky enough that I don't know many people who have died, but I specifically don't know many people who have died violently. The newspaper reports have been extremely graphic about what happened to her and the defense seems to be that Henry had a manic episode brought on as an unfortunate side effect from epilepsy medication.  I don't know if any of what has been reported is true and I am trying to remain objective, but I am disturbed regardless.  The fact that she had been murdered was scary enough, but on top of that she was murdered by her son, someone I know, albeit not well.

After I found out, I called my dad.  I just wanted to talk to a parent, partially to get an objective perspective on the event and partially to make sure they were okay.  When I started explaining what had happened I started crying.  I was freaked and I still am!  These were people I know!  People I could relate to!  I only had Ms. Kay as a teacher for a few days in junior year before the administration changed my schedule.  I remember her as being petite, enthusiastic, and somewhat intimidating.  Though I never had the full teacher experience with her, we all knew who she was.  She helped some of my really good friends put together a literary magazine, which I contributed illustrations to.  And she always walked down the halls looking somewhat out of place (she dressed a bit provocatively for her age).  She was a well liked teacher.  My friends and I met her son Henry one night at a restaurant on New Years Eve. We bonded over the fact that we were LaGuardia students and his mom was a LaGuardia faculty member.  We celebrated this fact with sake bombs and a series of photographs of us looking awkward and drunk.  And my first thought after the initial "HOLY SHIT!" was "Oh my god, I'm in a photo with a murderer."  It's a weird thought to have but it was there, and I think it solidifies the reason why I am so freaked out about what happened.  Henry was a nice young guy.  He was just like me.  What happened to Ms. Kay is horrible, and while I was originally freaked out by the fact that she had been murdered, the thing that is haunting me most now is Henry and how he must be dealing with everything.

I can't help but consistently put myself in his shoes.  If what they say happened really happened, then he must be so confused.  The defense has claimed that he has no memory of the incident and only realized what he had done after the fact.  If I were him I would be terrified and suicidal.  I keep getting flashes of 'Law & Order' style interrogations and arraignments and it makes me so sad.  There are photos of him online in court trying so hard not to cry and they kind of break my heart.  I can imagine it would be one thing to kill someone but a completely different thing to kill your own mother. And on top of that I keep thinking of how strange it must have been for Ms. Kay in her last moments, knowing that her son was hurting her and responsible for her death.  When she gave birth to him she probably never suspected that that person was going to be responsible for her demise.  And it makes me think of how scary it is that death can really be so unexpected and horrible.  The overall feeling I have is just immense sadness and my thoughts go out to everyone immediately affected by this tragedy, his family, the LaGuardia community etc.

I hope that things end up for the best, though I don't know how they possibly could in a situation such as this. 

I'M BACK!

After over a year of my blog hiatus, I am back!  And with a new layout.  I don't like posting my intimate thoughts or stories on Tumblr and I'm feeling real sappy and full of reflections these days.

Expect the worst.

Lack of Sleep

I love to sleep, but I don't get very much of it.  This is usually my own fault because I usually cannot fall asleep before 1am but feel guilty if I sleep any time past 12pm.   This is mostly due to more fun things I can be doing, like watching movies or eating. 

But the worst thing in the world is when I am tired and laying in bed and for some reason or another, I just cannot fall asleep.  I guess some would call this insomnia.  It happens to me very infrequently.  I am usually a champion sleeper, but last night I had the strangest fear induced insomnia.  It was like being a little kid all over again.  As soon as I turned out the lights I got all scared. Every terrible horror movie and terrifying scenario started to play itself in my head on a loop.  The comment that Adam made the other day about my ceiling having finger print marks and a weird red smear filled my imagination with images of ghosts and spirits throwing innocent people all over the room Freddy Krueger style.  Those Law and Order: SVU episodes where women are found battered and raped after having their apartments broken into play back.  That synthetic weave I found in the alley next to my house hinted at a buried dead body resurfacing.  I have a morbid imagination.  Every little itch I had or silence I heard was a ghost touching/creeping up on me.  I couldn't shut my mind off.  It was so infuriating because all I wanted to do was sleep but all I could do was think. 

It may have had something to do with the chocolate milk and oreos I ate at 10pm.  Or the caffienated beverages I had consumed earlier in the day.  Maybe my diet is to blame for my nightmarish insomnia.  All I know is, it needs to stop.  I hate being scared.  The number one memory I have from being a kid is just being terrified all the time.  My parents rarely censored me from scary movies, and I loved the thrill of being scared when I watched them, but when it came to turn the lights off at night, I was a nervous wreck.  For almost 10 years I refused to sleep in a room by myself, sometimes even a bed myself. 

I need to learn to sleep in a room by myself and not be terrified.

BEST FRIENDS VISIT!!!

Two of my best friends from home visited this weekend in honor of Mercedes' 21st bday (my 21st bday is in 21 days!!!!!).  It was so mch fun. 

I love those girls.  We just ate ridiculous food and laughed about ridiculoud things.  It's so easy to be around them and I always forget how much I miss them until I see them.  This summer I will be living in Philly and I am really excited about that, but I am also sad about not being able to see them all the time.  Hopefully I'll have a job and I can visit them a lot or they can visit me.

Dream Journal Entry#2

Had a weird dream that I went back to London to visit and eat a weird potato sausage dish at a cafe with my family...but, I also had a baby?  And the baby's name was Diana (Princess + London???) and for some reason this random guy with curly blonde hair decided he wanted to use me as a bomb so he built a bomb into the skin in my back and it kind of looked like Iron Man's reactor arc thing and I couldn't touch it or move fast or it would go off and no one would take my baby and he wanted me to blow up some mall in the US where I worked in the Victoria's Secret, but I tried to save lives by going to some field and then it was really sad because I kept trying to call my family to tell them I loved them but my phone wouldn't dial the numbers correctly and then my mom's ex-bf called me and I remembered he was really good at technology so I asked him to come get me and diffuse the bomb and my dad and Quinn showed up and we had to steal a car.  Meanwhile, baby Princess Diana was in a paper bag with blankets, much like a wallaby, the whole time and it was really freaky.  In the end, they somehow remove the bomb, but I had a big chunk of flesh that was taken out of my back.  Gross. 

I don't even have an analysis for this.

Bad at Blogging

I've been so bad at blogging lately.  At first it was because I was uninspired but now that I actually have things to write about I feel lazy and also like I want to give my blog a makeover, but the template designer isn't really working for me right now.  In the mean time, I am going to try and blog a bit more now.