Bad.
I started typing this on September 4th. I am two days since my father’s death and two days before his funeral service.
I am keeping several journals; one, documenting all of the incredible positive things that are happening; the other- this one- documenting the negative things as they come, so that I can better understand them through organization of my complicated feelings.
To begin this very negatively-toned essay, I have learned something about myself: I literally do not know how to mourn (I barely know HOW to cry). I have never suffered; almost literally, not a day in my life. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve had plenty of hardships, but I have always considered it a sign of weakness to allow anything to slow me down; I actually turned this into an incredibly healthy state of mind. I was very frequently verbally bullied as a pre-teen (Well, come on, I deserved it- I was fat, smart, and had stupid frizzy red hair), and those few years of frustration and social difficulty forced me to grow up past my numbered age, as a very young teenager- but, this maturity has allowed me to achieve incredible things.
Take, for instance, the MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE UNIVERSE OH MY GOSH: boyfriends. Relationships. Do you guys have any idea how many times I’ve been dumped? A lot. Oh, my gosh. I’ve been rejected by all kinds of boys honestly probably close to thirty times between 2004 and 2010. Boyfriends that I actually did snag usually dumped me within four months or so. But, my life has a pattern: I am fundamentally a tremendously arrogant woman when it comes to relationships (but, I promise, only when it comes to relationships!), and even now I laugh behind the backs of boys who have dared to dump me in the past. In high school, I had a boyfriend for a little while, and then he dumped me; I got pissed off at him and, to get revenge on him, became a finalist in a beauty pageant. With another boy, about six days after he halfway broke up with me (it was stupidly complicated), I was so heartbroken, devastated and distressed that I won a national speech competition and got a trophy that’s a couple of feet tall and made of gold and marble. Oh yeah. I was just so, so hurt over …um, I think the first guy’s name was Greg, and the other was Jim
My point is that crying is something that stupid idiot girls do when OH THEIR BOOOOYFRIEND WHO THEY LOOOOVED left them. Those are the girls who don’t have close to 50 speech-related trophies, straight As, a beauty-pageant sash, multiple memberships in scholastic honor societies, internships that let them appear on television, and close to $30,000 in completely free scholarship money. Whenever something “bad” happened to me- like, losing a boyfriend; having a friend fight with me; etc, I, frankly, honestly believed in my heart that I had better things to do. I was in a drama-free zone and I merely completely ignored people who attempted to start it with me; and, I had nothing else in the universe to stress over: I actually downright enjoyed writing horrible term papers and doing homework because I worked out a flawless method of making every single assignment about Luigi. I should show you guys some of my essays from high school and college; they’re actually quite hilarious.
I also have never had any family problems. My dad set an unbelievably good example for me: he and my mom married when they were 26 and 28 (and had stable jobs- my dad refused to get married until he had completed his law degree)- and were, therefore, rich when they were married- then, they were married for nine years and did amazing fun freaking young-people stuff (because they were rich and had fun and went to Italy and skydived) before they had me, their first child (and were tremendously mature- and, pretty damn rich by this time, in 1990)- and were more than ready for every aspect of raising a child in a tremendously stable environment. When they had their second child in late 1993, they were very well aware of what sort of responsibility raising a child required, and they handled it flawlessly. My parents never argued; they never had any financial trouble… we literally had no problems because they only ever made tremendously smart decisions. My parents stayed away from alcohol and they stayed away from cigarettes and other drugs; I think my dad maybe had a beer here and there in the evenings, and when there was a football game, and when my uncle came over... I digress, everyone in my family was nothing but a positive, encouraging, supportive force. I think I have never fought with anyone other than my brother, and that was in 1994, when he tried to eat the shoes off of my redheaded Barbie (what was her name? Midge? What a stupid freaking name. But, I didn’t have that many redheaded heroes in 1994, so she had to do).
I digress; my life is flawless, and on Monday, August 30th, I was most likely the happiest person alive. I think that you guys watch what I do because I’m always in a good mood- I’m that Reporter Kaiba who loves brownies and cupcakes and sugar and who twirls and sings a lot. My grandmother died before I was born; meaning, I have three surviving grandparents, now, who are all very involved in my life and are very positive forces. I have lost aunts and uncles, and have been very, very sad at their funerals- but, even those funerals were marked with twinges of happiness, because those aunts and uncles had suffered with illnesses for a while, and had been prepared and freed from their sufferings.
That’s my life. That’s how it’s always been, and I had absolutely no reason to believe that it would ever change. As of Thursday, the situation that I was violently tossed into doesn’t fit any form that any event in my life has even begun to prepare me for. Therefore, I literally do not know how to mourn. I feared what this process will be like; I haven’t ever seen my mother or brother cry. I don’t know how to watch them suffer; I don’t know how I can allow them to watch me suffer. I’m not troubled by many things: pretty much, I’ve only ever been truly afraid of needles, house fires and burglars- but, I don’t think I’ve ever feared anything more than I fear September 6th, 2010.
I have learned one thing: it’s incredible how something like crying- a supposedly-cathartic physical response- brings physical pain after lengthy periods of performing it. Perhaps I am unused to using the physical effort that crying requires; nevertheless, my stomach muscles ache. I haven’t slept in three days; I did keep my appetite fairly normally, but I’ve reached a point where I’m so exhausted that I cannot keep my eyes open; however, my body has always played back-seat to my mind; and, my mind does not want to stop thinking. This is the first time in my life that I have suffered because I have never wanted to pay attention to the idiot requests of my unimportant body- therefore, never learned how. My unimportant body is a wreck; I’m most likely dehydrated and the lack of sleep keeps my steps shaky. On Monday, I was in the best shape that I’ve ever been in- 118 pounds of a fair amount of muscle; now, I have gained possibly close to three or four pounds of what I think may be water retention because I seem to be crying water more quickly than I can drink it.
I woke up this morning (if you could call what I had been doing sleeping) to find my mother at the table, writing the obituary notice that will appear in tomorrow’s newspaper. My brother stumbles into the room, and my mom muttered, “I poured two mugs of coffee this morning; then I remembered that nobody would drink the other one.”
I drank the other one. It was hard to drink, even though it was possibly very delicious; it’s hard to taste too well when most of the drink ends up on the floor and on your arms because your hands are shaking so badly.
I’m mourning in steps. Drew and Lauren, 2/3 of my best friends, took me out to dinner on Friday night, and at the end of what was otherwise a pleasant dinner, I out of nowhere started remembering the last moments that I was in the hospital on Thursday. At 2:30p, my exhausted brother said, “I haven’t been home in three days. Is it okay if you take me home?” My mom said that this would be okay, and so I went to my dad’s bedside and said, “Nicky and I are going to leave now, but we will be back. Someone will always be with you, okay?”
Nick noticed that there was a little bit of blood near his nose. He said, “Can we clean that up?” the doctors allowed this, but then Nick said to me, “You do it.” I picked up a nearby towel, dabbed his nose, and asked, “Does that feel better?” Then, I said, “We’ll be back. Everyone is with you.” Nick and I left the hospital. My father died quickly (painlessly, we believe) in front of his wife, younger brother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and pastor- not his children- at around 4:00p.
Drew and Lauren held me as we walked down St. Johns Avenue in the Avondale area of Jacksonville, back towards Lauren’s car. This is where I learned firsthand that it is possible for friends to literally suck pain out of your heart and into theirs so that you feel a little bit less of it.
Going back to the idea that under normal circumstances, I’m a somewhat-unreasonably self-confident person who laughs at/completely ignores/considers to be several levels below me/etc anyone who tries to insult me… On the early afternoon of Thursday, September 2nd, I was insulted on my deviantArt profile. A user by the screen name “cosplaysucks” posted on my profile (and the profile of Birdewilliams and Malindachan, among other cosplayers whom I talk to) the phrase “You are stupid!” I took this to understand that this was not meant as a lighthearted joke- that this person was attempting to stir up anger or drama in the cosplay community, most likely; perhaps to make a point, perhaps to spread their opinion that cosplayers have too much free time on their hands- whatever their attempt, they targeted several of us.
This person sent me a negative message as I was driving in the fast lane on the highway that separates my hometown and my college town by 200 miles. I received a negative message during a period of time when I was completely alone for two and a half hours; I received a negative message during a period of time when I was begging, begging, begging God to not let September 2nd, 2010 be the worst day of my life. If this person had sent me a negative message on Wednesday, September 1st, I likely would have said, “I pity you tremendously. I hope that you understand the hypocrisy behind accusing someone else of having too much free time.” I probably would have used some ridiculously big words to prove that I am, for many intents and purposes, not stupid- I probably would have flaunted my 150 IQ and laughed and then painted my toenails as I read over some of the positive comments that I’d received on dA earlier that day.
But, I received that negative comment on a day when the negative was already sucking me into a suffering that was inexorable. I suppose that at this point I can only hope that this person understands the astonishing horror that they caused me at that moment, when I had so very little to hang onto- I hope that this was not the reaction that they sought to receive; if their intentions were fulfilled, then, Birde and Malinda- we were contacted by a monster.