I don't usually do this...

but I'm not going to cheat myself [or you] today, so I'm going to share something personal.

On November 15th, 2004, a good friend of mine called me and told me I absolutely had to meet her. I was confused because there was an urgency in her voice, but I couldn't read it. She refused to tell me on the phone so I rushed over to her. When I saw her, tears peeked from the corners of her eyes every time she blinked, and after a short "Hi, what's wrong?" she told me--Christina Cho died.

By this point in my life I'd heard of a few deaths. Someone losing their grandparent. Some distant relative in another country passed away. In middle school a student lost his mother. He was out for a month, and when he returned we didn't know what to say, so we just kept on going, because what words are there for something of that magnitude when you're not even a teen and have a limited scope of life? My great grandfather was on his deathbed in my grandmother's house and I was there when he passed--along with my grandmother and her sisters--and I watched, objectively, from the top of the stairs as my family joined in grief. I knew people came, and then they left, but they were distant deaths and I was far from the life lived in between.

But Christina didn't just die--she committed suicide. Christina was 19 years old. Christina had a brilliant mind and was in her second year at UCSD studying some type of science I would never dream of touching in such detail. Christina studied her ass off, and she was recognized time and time again for it. She gave back to others--we bonded through a community service organization we were heavily involved in. Christina had a beautiful voice. Christina could make me laugh at the silliest things. But something I didn't know about was eating away at her, and it hurt me like hell that this was what it silently pushed her to. Sure, she would say some things that suggested she was fragile, sad, unhappy on an online blog...but it could've easily been confused with the teen angst that can rip through us during those turbulent years. Or maybe she just hid her depression well. I wish she would've talked with someone that could've helped. I wished like hell that I could've been there to do anything at all instead of the nothing that occured.

I hadn't spoken to her in months. I was here, she was there. We led busy lives. I heard she'd gotten a boyfriend, and I was happy for her. I didn't hear from her too much, but I believed we could come back together sooner or later. I had no idea what was going on in her life, but I thought of her from time to time and missed her, but thought she was happy.

And then one day her boyfriend decides to drive his motorcycle down from LA to visit her in SD. There is heavy rain and she tells him not to come, but he insists, so she agrees. Something goes wrong and he's in a terrible car accident. He's in ER. He dies. She grieves. Their families grieve together. She feels horrible that he was on his way to see her, and blame weighs down on her. Not more than a week later, we lose her.

Losing her was one of the hardest things I have ever experienced in my life, but I was able to transform the heartbreak into something positive when I received some wise words:

Take a quality of Christina, and apply it to yourself. Christina was a hard working person. Whenever you feel as though you can't do something, think of her and her work ethic. How she could always do the impossible with spectacular results. Just think of her and do it for her, and she'll live on with us forever.

Her death made every petty worry in my life at that time seem so trivial, and it made me want to live. It made me want to be hardworking because she was, and she always inspired it in me. It made me do my best and never give up, because she would never let me when I was down. She was so supportive.

So everywhere I go, I take this with me, and when I think of her I try not to cry, but smile. Because that's what she always told me to do--smile. So I did, I do, and I always will.

Depression and suicide are not topics people should shy away from. We should be able to talk about these things, be aware of early signs, and know how to treat it.


Today is the World Health Organization's Suicide Prevention Day. Please spread awareness.

Oscar Wilde

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation"

i used to care

about writing. every single day, even if it was a silly, meaningless post.

it was a good routine. i think i've been in survival mode too long. once i can relax, it will flow.

until then, i flounder in the "existential angst" of jon arbuckle:


"Although the wind"

Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.

Izumi Shikibu

lady

i liked the way the server remembered me at dinner the other night.

my sleeping patterns are erratic. the past few nights i've been up until 3:30am/4am. last night when jeffrey came to visit me i KO'd before 11pm. i sleep so much better when he's next to me. we really do sleep in different intervals though. boourns. today i worked another unexpectedly long day: 11a-8p. i don't like getting in there early because it's likely i'll work a 12 hr day. tonight i napped from about 10pm-12:30am, in and out with phone calls with my rover and am still slightly wide awake. i want to take a shower but there's a dead moth on the floor and i cannot touch it, and i think my roommates are already in bed so i don't know what to do. i can't even pee, it's right where i'd put my feet. maybe it's my grandpa. don't they represent those no longer here? i don't know what to do, so i'll just sit here with phoenix's 1901 on repeat until i devise the perfect plan.

i love and hate that my days/weeks/months are so planned out. cleaning my room at day break.

left branching syntax :]

"This Be The Verse"

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

...

i hate that the things that made me strong broke the people i love most.

this is not how i wanted to end a 12hr work day.

this week wants to eat me alive.

Dear Man Whose Marriage I Wrecked

If it's any consolation, when your wife took me
in her mouth, I closed my eyes and pretended

I was a piece of wedding cake. I was the instigator,
bringing her flowers so often her co-workers

nicknamed me carnation hands. At night, I'd look
at the stars and slither my petals through her hair.

It was like we were on Mars--me staring over
her skull at one moon, her gazing at another.

What I'm really trying to say is I tumbled into her
arms like a thousand reluctant dominoes.

I mean, isn't it odd--how you can buy a lap dance,
phone sex, or blowjob in a snap, but can't

pay a person a dollar to just sit next to you
on a park bench and simply hold your hand?

Jeffrey McDaniel

i love this video.

Happy.

Laura Trice