badstar

So I was just cleaning some stuff up in the living room, and I grabbed a few things to stick in a box...and I found a little silver jewelery gift box.

I couldn't remember what was in it, so I opened it. I found a bracelet that Chelle gave me years ago that I never wear, a little silver and abalone shell sailboat pendant, a plain gold chain...and a pair of earrings that Alex gave me oh geez, in 11th grade? For Christmas. she made them, I never wore them (didn't like them), felt a little guilty about it but never sweated it too much, it wouldn't have been a big insult to her, Alex never got too bent out of shape about things like that. But I never got rid of them, especially after she died, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Just like I could never get rid of the copy of The Client that she lent me, I tried to read but could never get past the first few pages, it was just so boring, but I never managed to give back to her. I still have it. I still have a copy of her obituary, wrapped around her 11th grade school photo, and a little string bracelet that she made for me.

It's occurred to me a few times in the last several months that I've not thought of her nearly so much as I used to since...well, I don't really want to say since when. I've had a theory for a while now about why, twelve years later, I still have an unreasonably hard time with her death, beyond the fact that she was only eighteen and that she was my best friend and that I didn't see her for the last month before she died, and I didn't get to say goodbye and that the last time I talked to her, the only thing we really talked about was the fact that I was accepted to the University of Alabama- we didn't get to talk long, she was too weak to talk for more than a few minutes, and all I can really think right now is that she never got to know that I got accepted to Southern Methodist University (She died at the end of January, I didn't get accepted til May- I ended up sending in my application a little late.)...gods, it's such a stupid thing to latch onto....and there's also the fact that we were so much alike that it was scary, other than a few minor details, in a lot of ways it almost seemed like we were practically the same person in two different-looking bodies, and when she died, it was like an unreasonably large part of me also died. We went beyond finishing each other's sentences, we could carry a conversation both talking nonstop at the same time and never get lost. Other people would just look at us in disbelief. Both her mom and mine said they had never seen anything like it. Or the fact that it was pretty obvious that we were meant to be best friends within minutes of meeting.

No, there's another reason that I think, other than that and well...I don't feel like discussing it, but it makes sense to me. I wish I could go back and access my brain as it was during my sophomore, junior and senior years of high school, I'd probably have a much better idea of whether I'm just smoking crack on this one or not.

I just wish I knew how to make it not sometimes feel like her funeral is tomorrow instead of twelve years ago. It's so weird. I can't remember the dates exactly, but I remember everything that happened that week. I remember coming home from the funeral and Kathy dropping me off. My parents were at home and Frank had come from Massachusetts to visit (Frank...another person that I miss. Dammit.) and it was pretty late- Kathy and I had gone out wandering around to various places post-funeral, neither of us wanted to be at home. And i remember sitting in the kitchen for a few hours, mindlessly playing computer solitaire while Mom, Mike and Frank sat around the dining room table talking about whatever it is that adults talk about when they get together after they haven't seen each other in a while. After a while, Mike and Frank started insisting that I go to bed. I didn't want to go to bed, I was too tired and exhausted and depressed to sleep, and the possibility of dreaming was worse than anything on my conscious mind. The endless computer solitaire was helping to numb it somewhat. Oh yeah and I was eighteen and didn't have a bed time, dammit. But they kept insisting and I kept saying I wasn't tired and I finally got the "well you;re a kid and we want to discuss things without kids being around." I was pissed. I tried pleading with my mom but she was no help. More than anything, I didn't want to be alone. For some reason, them being in the next room was mildly comforting. But I didn't want to say that I didn't want to be alone, I didn't want to talk about it. One of the few times I would allow myself to feel the need to have someone there and I just couldn't say that. The night of my best friend's funeral and I was being told to go away. I don't know if it would have made a difference if I had said something. I didn't try. I went to my room and cried myself to sleep. I don't remember anymore if I dreamed or just slept a dead sleep. It doesn't matter.

And right now I feel like I just lost her all over again.


I had a dream I was in school
reading your autograph
pages of green in seventh grade
now like an epitaph
alone in your room
with and artist inside of you
you died way too soon
but I still can feel you
warm in a circle of friends
how have you all been
we'd never die just go through hell
and re group again
so button it down
so the wind won't blow it all away
and pass it around
like champagne on a holiday
pass it around
there's a lot of that to go around

-Shawn Mullins


I wish I could numb myself to this. I wish I could stop having dreams about her. I wish it would just stop.

Inspired by the periodic dreams about Alex (And mostly the one I had during my freshman year in college where we were on a plane and she wouldn't talk to me). I haven't had any lately, thank goodness...unfortunately they've been in my mind a lot though.


Three rows behind me
on a plane to chicago
why won't you talk to me?
where did you go?

why would you leave me
wrecked and abandoned?

why do you always come back,
but tell me to stay away?

Where are you now,
at home or in heaven?
Where do you go whenever you're gone?

One of these days,
the dreams will stop coming.
Ten years have passed
It's been a long time.

One of these days...
Maybe someday I'll see you in a dream,
and you won't tell me to pretend you're still gone.

Maybe someday I'll see you in a dream
And I'll know it's just a dream,
and I'll wake up and I won't feel like
I just lost you all over again.

Where are you now,
at home or in heaven?
Where do you go whenever you're gone?

Ten years have passed, it's been a while now.

Maybe someday the dreams will stop.