Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Something None of Us Want to Talk About

I never write when I am feeling 100% myself.  I have been listening to Lord Huron- The Night We Met on repeat.  So if you would like to get the full experience, go ahead and turn it on.
It's a good song.  I mean I wouldn't turn it on right now, but it is on currently, so I guess that's a lie.

Why would I be 100% when I write.  It's like a journal.  It's a way to organize my thoughts and fill my desolation.

A sense of normalcy that I crave.

I know that I am tired.  I decided my usual cocktail of 5 benadryl and sleeping pills was not meant for last night.  I decided to watch 13 Reasons Why.
The reason for myself is why.

I knew it was going to be something.  I just didn't realize what.
And in my addictive mind I knew I shouldn't, but I, also, knew sleep wasn't going to find me; the jetting pain in my side found me instead.

So with heating pad and a glass of water, I plunged into a series that I really wasn't ready for.

I know it's so silly that I am even bringing this up.  But it shook me to my core.

Now before we get started, I am not suicidal..  I was once.
But not in a plan it out way.  It was more of a "would-this-be-better".  Would it make everything go away.
It was 7 years ago.
I obviously wasn't serious.  I didn't even have a plan.

So you probably don't know what I am talking about when I talk about this series.

But basically very rough synopsis is, it's about a girl name Hannah Baker, who committed suicide and she left a series of tapes for each person who had "something to do with it", a series of stories and secrets that left her so empty and proved to her that her life wasn't important.

Reminder...me..... not suicidal.

We have all felt low.  We all have a story that no one knows about.  We all have skeletons.  We have all done things we aren't proud of. We have all lost someone.
We have.
It's apart of life.

My first real loss was in the 6th grade.  Vivian Staggs.  We were stationed in Germany at the time.  It was 2002.  And being on one of the biggest overseas bases meant most all the moms and dads were deployed, and that was no exception for Vivian or I.

We were 12.  Vivian and I met in counseling.  Ms. Hinson.
We went every single day for lunch.  I wore my father's Creighton sweatshirt every single day and Vivian would be there. We opened up to each other.  Her dad had been gone a lot longer than mine.  He was enlisted.  I remember Vivian's grades were slipping, and we would work on it together.  She wasn't the most popular.  She was kind of a nobody.  I don't actually remember her hanging out with anyone other than me.
The last time I remember seeing her was the end of the year ceremony at school.  She had received one of RAMS Best.  She was the most improved.  I remember her large lenses and her smile when she went up on stage to receive that award.  Her father was coming home in the next 2 weeks.  School was ending and my family was PCSing back to the states.
I knew, I was probably never going to see her again. I just didn't realize that never, really meant never.

We got the help we needed through the school, but Vivian's stepmom didn't.

Vivian's sister was suffocated.
She was 3.
Vivian...
Vivian was stabbed to death.
In the woods.
That's where they found them.
10 miles outside of the base.
She was 12.  
Her stepmom killed herself.
They had been missing for 3 days.

https://www.stripes.com/news/autopsy-reveals-airman-s-wife-suffocated-one-daughter-stabbed-other-1.10033#.WOQjSjvyu00


How does it get that bad.

It can.

I don't think I have ever stopped thinking about the person she was going to be or could have been.
It was 14 years ago. And I can still see her face.

Have you turned off Lord Huron's, The Night We Met...  
I haven't. Not yet. 

Like I said before.
The series was really good, and paints a picture that people don't want to talk about, or want to cover up, or not cover up.
And maybe you will get justice, or maybe you won't.  Maybe you feel guilt. Maybe you will try to forget.  Maybe if you don't worry about it or pretend it didn't happen, then it didn't.
Maybe people will make jokes and not realize.  And you laugh it off because you don't want them to know. Because you were only 19, and you shouldn't have been there anyways. And you fight with yourself and you drink too much and you start failing school because you trusted your professor and you had to move away but couldn't tell anyone why because you shouldn't have been at that party. You don't really remember.  It's all hypothetical, right.

Everyone has been through something.  You have to chose to make it through.

I have been hiding lately because things are bad.  I was let go from my job, dumped, lost my insurance, been to many many interviews with no leads, I can't sleep, I can barely eat.  I have felt like nothing. Like a burden.  But if I made it through 2003,  2010, 2013, and 2016; I can make it through 2017.


Just another bump in the road.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?
I'm not dead.