Better now than later
Jun. 19th, 2003 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteI wrote this in July of 2002, when I was in summer school for flunking American Lit (go figure). Eva found a copy after I lost mine (or it got corrupted) and now... well, I want to put it here, so I have a place that I know it will positively be in when I want to print it out for my scrapbook or whatnot.
The whole message I had about appreciating people-- this is where that comes from. Even before I wrote this though, and even before I had this copy that Eva so graciously gave me. So. Here it is, and I hope you understand.
=-=
AMLIT2 7/11/02
Taking For Granted
People have said that you never know how much something means to you until it’s gone. I never paid much attention to little morals like that, and so I had to learn the hard way, one hot July day in 1996. I was supposed to spend that Saturday with my father, who had custody over me during the weekends, while my mother was at work, and my half-sister Michelle was going to go hiking with one of her friends. When my father came to pick me up for the drive to Petaluma, I left so hastily that I barely remember saying “goodbye,” to my sister, let alone smiling, or saying “Sis, I love you.” Now, as I look back, I wished I could have said something –anything– that would have made me feel better about what happened later that afternoon.
The first half of the afternoon is still hazy to me- I hardly remember what I’d been doing up until the point when my father, his girlfriend, and I had returned from wherever we’d been. Upon checking the answering machine, we heard my mother’s hysterical and unintelligible sobs, breaking the uneasy silence we hadn’t known had formed.
Before I knew what was happening, I’d been ushered out of the house by my father, insisting to his girlfriend Melissa that I be anywhere but inside the house while he made an important call. At the time, my mind was on anything besides my sister—even though we’d had a fight the previous evening, and I hadn’t yet apologized. I figured that I would get around to it when I got home Sunday evening, never realizing that I’d never get that chance.
My father called Melissa and I in a few moments later, a strange expression on his face. I sat down on the couch, sandwiched between the two of them, looking about bewilderedly. Everything was so quiet, it was uncomfortable, and I’d started fidgeting. The first words out of my father’s mouth were something like “I’m sorry, but something’s happened to Michelle.”
I vaguely remembered that she was supposed to go hiking that day, and as my vision blanked out, I saw a valley of green leaves and trees—with a biking path not twenty feet above it, and my sister tumbling down, nursing a sore ankle. I shook my head to clear the vision away, wishing it could only be as simple as a broken leg. But my dad choked the next words out, and then my world collapsed around me: “Your sister’s dead.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was feeling or thinking at the time, only knowing that I was being rushed back to San Francisco to be at my mother’s side. It all seemed so unreal to me, I had asked my father if he thought this was funny—as if it were all some sort of phenomenal joke. But when I got home and saw my mother surrounded by police, everything that I had taken for granted—protection, comfort, advice, and just someone to talk to when I was mad at mom—disappeared beneath my feet.
The next week seemed to rush by, and I was living in a world between reality and dreams. Part of me could still feel my sister’s presence, even hear her voice in my head, and sometimes I think that pretending she was still alive, even with all the chaos around me insisting that she wasn’t, was the only thing that kept me sane enough to help my mother.
Throughout the funeral services, I looked at the world differently. No more was I an average schoolgirl—with a divorced mom, a dad with a girlfriend, a half-sister, some goldfish, and a dog living fifty miles north of me. I’d taken my sister for granted- taken for granted the fact that she’d be there, waiting for me on Sunday evening when I got home. I took for granted that I’d always be able to curl up with her whenever we watched a movie, or that I’d always have the chance to choose my “favorite finger” off her hands when she modeled them for me. But now, she wasn’t there anymore to do that for me.
Time went by in a shifting haze of too fast and too slow. My personality changed so drastically that, while my friends noticed the change immediately, offering their condolences and empty apologies for something that they hadn’t been at all responsible for, I just kept on trying to live, day by day.
Almost six years have gone by since that dreaded day, and I’ve changed quite a bit. Even when I’m mad at someone, I try to tell myself desperately that there might be a day when that someone isn’t there –by my side, or on the other end of a phone line- to apologize to. It could be a friend, a family member, or even someone so close to me that I couldn’t imagine losing him or her. I try not to take for granted the fact that I live in a nice, warm house, with food to
eat every day, a computer to use, and friends to turn to when I’m in trouble. If ever I feel the need to hesitate and be open with someone, I remind myself that life is an unpredictable force, and what I have today may not be within my reach tomorrow.
I learned that summer not to take things for granted—not just people, but everything that makes my life comfortable or possible in any way. While I may have changed drastically since my sister’s death, I have learned to at least attempt to open up with people and truly get to know them, before I push them aside as potential heartbreakers. No longer could I trust completely in the fact that life would go on, and that I lived the normal, average life of someone who has never experienced loss. Life –the unpredictable force- keeps on going—for better, or for worse.
=-=
Now that I reread it, nearly seven years from when my sister died... nothing's changed. Maybe I'm a little bit more open with people, but I still find it hard to trust people. It wasn't just after my sister died I became a cynic and a bitch... my heart got torn open lots of times after that, and now I'm the person I am today.
So now you know.
The whole message I had about appreciating people-- this is where that comes from. Even before I wrote this though, and even before I had this copy that Eva so graciously gave me. So. Here it is, and I hope you understand.
=-=
AMLIT2 7/11/02
Taking For Granted
People have said that you never know how much something means to you until it’s gone. I never paid much attention to little morals like that, and so I had to learn the hard way, one hot July day in 1996. I was supposed to spend that Saturday with my father, who had custody over me during the weekends, while my mother was at work, and my half-sister Michelle was going to go hiking with one of her friends. When my father came to pick me up for the drive to Petaluma, I left so hastily that I barely remember saying “goodbye,” to my sister, let alone smiling, or saying “Sis, I love you.” Now, as I look back, I wished I could have said something –anything– that would have made me feel better about what happened later that afternoon.
The first half of the afternoon is still hazy to me- I hardly remember what I’d been doing up until the point when my father, his girlfriend, and I had returned from wherever we’d been. Upon checking the answering machine, we heard my mother’s hysterical and unintelligible sobs, breaking the uneasy silence we hadn’t known had formed.
Before I knew what was happening, I’d been ushered out of the house by my father, insisting to his girlfriend Melissa that I be anywhere but inside the house while he made an important call. At the time, my mind was on anything besides my sister—even though we’d had a fight the previous evening, and I hadn’t yet apologized. I figured that I would get around to it when I got home Sunday evening, never realizing that I’d never get that chance.
My father called Melissa and I in a few moments later, a strange expression on his face. I sat down on the couch, sandwiched between the two of them, looking about bewilderedly. Everything was so quiet, it was uncomfortable, and I’d started fidgeting. The first words out of my father’s mouth were something like “I’m sorry, but something’s happened to Michelle.”
I vaguely remembered that she was supposed to go hiking that day, and as my vision blanked out, I saw a valley of green leaves and trees—with a biking path not twenty feet above it, and my sister tumbling down, nursing a sore ankle. I shook my head to clear the vision away, wishing it could only be as simple as a broken leg. But my dad choked the next words out, and then my world collapsed around me: “Your sister’s dead.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was feeling or thinking at the time, only knowing that I was being rushed back to San Francisco to be at my mother’s side. It all seemed so unreal to me, I had asked my father if he thought this was funny—as if it were all some sort of phenomenal joke. But when I got home and saw my mother surrounded by police, everything that I had taken for granted—protection, comfort, advice, and just someone to talk to when I was mad at mom—disappeared beneath my feet.
The next week seemed to rush by, and I was living in a world between reality and dreams. Part of me could still feel my sister’s presence, even hear her voice in my head, and sometimes I think that pretending she was still alive, even with all the chaos around me insisting that she wasn’t, was the only thing that kept me sane enough to help my mother.
Throughout the funeral services, I looked at the world differently. No more was I an average schoolgirl—with a divorced mom, a dad with a girlfriend, a half-sister, some goldfish, and a dog living fifty miles north of me. I’d taken my sister for granted- taken for granted the fact that she’d be there, waiting for me on Sunday evening when I got home. I took for granted that I’d always be able to curl up with her whenever we watched a movie, or that I’d always have the chance to choose my “favorite finger” off her hands when she modeled them for me. But now, she wasn’t there anymore to do that for me.
Time went by in a shifting haze of too fast and too slow. My personality changed so drastically that, while my friends noticed the change immediately, offering their condolences and empty apologies for something that they hadn’t been at all responsible for, I just kept on trying to live, day by day.
Almost six years have gone by since that dreaded day, and I’ve changed quite a bit. Even when I’m mad at someone, I try to tell myself desperately that there might be a day when that someone isn’t there –by my side, or on the other end of a phone line- to apologize to. It could be a friend, a family member, or even someone so close to me that I couldn’t imagine losing him or her. I try not to take for granted the fact that I live in a nice, warm house, with food to
eat every day, a computer to use, and friends to turn to when I’m in trouble. If ever I feel the need to hesitate and be open with someone, I remind myself that life is an unpredictable force, and what I have today may not be within my reach tomorrow.
I learned that summer not to take things for granted—not just people, but everything that makes my life comfortable or possible in any way. While I may have changed drastically since my sister’s death, I have learned to at least attempt to open up with people and truly get to know them, before I push them aside as potential heartbreakers. No longer could I trust completely in the fact that life would go on, and that I lived the normal, average life of someone who has never experienced loss. Life –the unpredictable force- keeps on going—for better, or for worse.
=-=
Now that I reread it, nearly seven years from when my sister died... nothing's changed. Maybe I'm a little bit more open with people, but I still find it hard to trust people. It wasn't just after my sister died I became a cynic and a bitch... my heart got torn open lots of times after that, and now I'm the person I am today.
So now you know.
