"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you" -Maya Angelou
I know that somewhere along the way, we realized how much we were preserving our memories and our growth process in our Livejournal adventures. We talked about it. Which is funny because it is rare to realize how much something will impact your future while you are still dealing with it in the present.
First of all, the depth to which we shared ourselves with each other without pretense is astonishing to me. I have never ceased to be amazed by the intelligence and strength and maturity of you, my friends. But when I read over the things that we talked about, pondered, discussed, philosophized, debated, and argued over...I suppose I realize that we were always meant to be here. We were always destined to come back to each other.
Of course none of us could have known how this journey would get us to where we are today. Planning another one of our family Christmas dinners, without Bobby. We could never have known that while we wrote our youthful ramblings and comments, fulfilling our collective need to express, that it would tie us forever to the wisdoms and charismatic ponderings of Bobby once he moved on to his next existence.
He wrote more than once about the impact of death on the people who are left behind. If I have ever been sure of anything so unsure in the my life, it is that Bobby's soul was preparing to leave us behind long before we even knew him. It's so bizarre to read his entries and his comments, and to piece together the way his life culminated toward his death.
Death seems like the wrong word. Not for any flowery, poetic reason about the afterlife. It seems like the wrong word because death is final. Death is ending. Death is deadness. Maybe some people die. I don't know. Maybe some people's magnetic energy, their soul, their intangible presence is too weak or undefined to sustain itself outside of the corporal body. I don't know. I'd like to think that's not the case, but doesn't it kind of make sense? I feel like some people are just on the last leg of their soul, like it's some wispy strand of energy that is ready to just move on to become a part of something else.
But that's not Bobby. Bobby is powerful where he is right now. My Mom told me his power and presence in that dimension is palpable; that she has never felt anything like it. She said is very influential where he is now. I remembering telling someone that I believe that Bobby's soul is very very old, and instead of wisping away, has grown and collected the energy of the people across his many lifetimes that he has affected. I have lost so many beloved people in my life, but I have never felt so fully and completely enveloped in someone's presence as I am in his. He is a big deal. For real.
I had to leave my desk and go outside the other day, I all of the sudden felt very overwhelmed by the realization I came to while thinking about him and feeling him and reading his Livejournal. I breathed in a lot of the fresh cold air, willing myself not to burst out crying. I wasn't going to cry because I was sad, I just had no other way to physically manifest the powerful emotion that was occurring inside me.
My realization was that Bobby knows and loves me more now that he ever did when he was here in his body. He gets the chance to listen to me think in my time alone, and he sees me frustrated and happy and angry about thing he never knew made me feel those ways. Think about how hard you love the people in your life, then imagine that you have the opportunity to watch over them as they fight and enjoy their way through their human struggles. Think about how much you would want to embrace them and encourage them and listen to them.
That is what Bobby is doing. He loves me and understands me the way nobody "alive" really can. Better than anyone. Better even than my Mom. Better than the others that have past. Because he was my contemporary. He does not look over me to protect my as a child or a grandchild. He is protecting me I believe, but more than that he is actually trying to be there for me in a way that a best friend wants to be there, but just never can because they can't carry you through you're life as they are living their own. He CAN though. He can be that friend that we all wish we could be to each other. He can experience things with us, rather than in front of us or near us. That's intense.
When he crossed over, he told my Mom to tell me not to be so serious, everything is already planned out. I believe him. There is not a doubt in my mind that we were left with our LJ recollections as a way to understand the transcendence of our union as friends beyond just the high school experience. II also believe it helped us learn tolerance, peace and acceptance. I know that I can read my livejournal from 2004 and watch as the judgmental, hard-headed intolerant teenager grew into a woman that wanted to escape the confines of her own predispositions. You guys helped me do that. Tam, Bobby, Alicia, Dani, Lindsay, Patty, Todd, Shaun, and all the others along the way. Obviously I had life experiences that shaped the person I was forming into, but having a forum in which people openly expressed themselves the way we did....that was unique, I think.
I think that Bobby's pumpkin dance in the kitchen before his funeral was so perfect. He is happy. He loves us 1,000 times more than we love each other or ourselves because he can just know us now. I do not wish him back, because whatever he is doing in that place that he is... it's so important and omnipresent and pervasive.
He is right where he belongs... he's with us.
First of all, the depth to which we shared ourselves with each other without pretense is astonishing to me. I have never ceased to be amazed by the intelligence and strength and maturity of you, my friends. But when I read over the things that we talked about, pondered, discussed, philosophized, debated, and argued over...I suppose I realize that we were always meant to be here. We were always destined to come back to each other.
Of course none of us could have known how this journey would get us to where we are today. Planning another one of our family Christmas dinners, without Bobby. We could never have known that while we wrote our youthful ramblings and comments, fulfilling our collective need to express, that it would tie us forever to the wisdoms and charismatic ponderings of Bobby once he moved on to his next existence.
He wrote more than once about the impact of death on the people who are left behind. If I have ever been sure of anything so unsure in the my life, it is that Bobby's soul was preparing to leave us behind long before we even knew him. It's so bizarre to read his entries and his comments, and to piece together the way his life culminated toward his death.
Death seems like the wrong word. Not for any flowery, poetic reason about the afterlife. It seems like the wrong word because death is final. Death is ending. Death is deadness. Maybe some people die. I don't know. Maybe some people's magnetic energy, their soul, their intangible presence is too weak or undefined to sustain itself outside of the corporal body. I don't know. I'd like to think that's not the case, but doesn't it kind of make sense? I feel like some people are just on the last leg of their soul, like it's some wispy strand of energy that is ready to just move on to become a part of something else.
But that's not Bobby. Bobby is powerful where he is right now. My Mom told me his power and presence in that dimension is palpable; that she has never felt anything like it. She said is very influential where he is now. I remembering telling someone that I believe that Bobby's soul is very very old, and instead of wisping away, has grown and collected the energy of the people across his many lifetimes that he has affected. I have lost so many beloved people in my life, but I have never felt so fully and completely enveloped in someone's presence as I am in his. He is a big deal. For real.
I had to leave my desk and go outside the other day, I all of the sudden felt very overwhelmed by the realization I came to while thinking about him and feeling him and reading his Livejournal. I breathed in a lot of the fresh cold air, willing myself not to burst out crying. I wasn't going to cry because I was sad, I just had no other way to physically manifest the powerful emotion that was occurring inside me.
My realization was that Bobby knows and loves me more now that he ever did when he was here in his body. He gets the chance to listen to me think in my time alone, and he sees me frustrated and happy and angry about thing he never knew made me feel those ways. Think about how hard you love the people in your life, then imagine that you have the opportunity to watch over them as they fight and enjoy their way through their human struggles. Think about how much you would want to embrace them and encourage them and listen to them.
That is what Bobby is doing. He loves me and understands me the way nobody "alive" really can. Better than anyone. Better even than my Mom. Better than the others that have past. Because he was my contemporary. He does not look over me to protect my as a child or a grandchild. He is protecting me I believe, but more than that he is actually trying to be there for me in a way that a best friend wants to be there, but just never can because they can't carry you through you're life as they are living their own. He CAN though. He can be that friend that we all wish we could be to each other. He can experience things with us, rather than in front of us or near us. That's intense.
When he crossed over, he told my Mom to tell me not to be so serious, everything is already planned out. I believe him. There is not a doubt in my mind that we were left with our LJ recollections as a way to understand the transcendence of our union as friends beyond just the high school experience. II also believe it helped us learn tolerance, peace and acceptance. I know that I can read my livejournal from 2004 and watch as the judgmental, hard-headed intolerant teenager grew into a woman that wanted to escape the confines of her own predispositions. You guys helped me do that. Tam, Bobby, Alicia, Dani, Lindsay, Patty, Todd, Shaun, and all the others along the way. Obviously I had life experiences that shaped the person I was forming into, but having a forum in which people openly expressed themselves the way we did....that was unique, I think.
I think that Bobby's pumpkin dance in the kitchen before his funeral was so perfect. He is happy. He loves us 1,000 times more than we love each other or ourselves because he can just know us now. I do not wish him back, because whatever he is doing in that place that he is... it's so important and omnipresent and pervasive.
He is right where he belongs... he's with us.