School is a dirty and disgusting monkey-poop. My classes are hard and the they are the last thing of which I can think.
Actually, all I have been able to think about recently is Lee.
Gosh! Lee. I guess I haven't mentioned her yet. Here I am complaining about not having anything important to mention and I leave out one of the most important elements of my life.
Okay, so this is Lee.
I met her when I was young. I can't remember exactly but I am pretty sure that I was in eighth grade.
I had no idea when I met her how much she would impact my life.
She was childish and fun. Yet, she had this great sadness.
It is hard now to think of her sadness because it was what took her away for me in the end.
However, I am getting distracted from the story.
Okay so we met when I was young and our friendship took off. We would do the strangest things together. We went to visit her introverted Uncle once. He had a cabin at the top of a mountain, which he owned (the mountain).
We spent the entire day running around all her old hide-outs from when she was a kid. We fought "monsters" that were actually trees and pretended that we were elf-spies.
With her, I could act however I wanted and I knew she would not judge me in the least bit.
I witnessed her hardest moments. She was a cutter when she was younger and sometimes she would cut herself too deeply, or would get really upset and afraid that she would do something stupid. So she would call me, and I would go to her house, pick her up, and take her anywhere to keep her mind off of her pain. Other times, I would sit with her and crack jokes, eventually cheering her up.
However, I listened to everyone's problems in high school, really there was very little special there. What was special about Lee was that she would listen to my problems.
I remember when I went to college for my first year, my parents decided to decorate the Christmas tree without me. Petty and stupid as it was, at the time I was demolished. My family had been falling apart at the seems for sometime; my father would drink too much then act stupid, encouraging my mother to lie to him and make plans behind his back. In addition, my father's failing health caused overwhelming fear in my life.
I knew, as I had known since I was a young girl, that my father was dying of cancer. Still, I felt indescribable pain whenever he would make plans for after his death. When I was a sophomore in high school, my dad told me that he wanted to buy me a new car. I was excited, but when I asked my mom later what had inspired his decision, she said that he wanted to make sure I had a car I could depend on for after he died.
Sometimes, I would find him crying, or notice that he had been crying when I entered a room.
Also, he would frequently mention to me that he was planning on not taking any more meds, or he didn't see the point in trying anymore because he was going to die soon.
But over all this, we always had the holidays. It was a time for the family to get together and actually enjoy each other's company. We loved each other all year round, but in the holiday season, we actually took the time to let each other know.
here are some random Christmas photos:
My sister and I always look up under the Christmas tree after decorating it....
and we usually get in fights while doing so (sisterly love).
I love being able to scrub out on Christmas, and nobody gets to judge.
I'm still a sexy beast though; ribbon around my head and all....
One of the best traditions we had in the holiday season was the Christmas tree decorating. The whole family would get together. Dad would sit on a chair with a beer and watch. Jewdi and I would dance around the Christmas tree with the decorations to the Christmas music we would have blaring. Finally, my mother would be sitting handing out decorations and telling us what to do with them.
It was one of my favorite things to do. SO, back to what I was saying:
So my freshman year in College, fully aware of the crumbling of my family structure, my parents decided to exclude me (and my sister) from this family tradition and instead my mother decorated it by herself.
I was heartbroken.
So I called Lee and I started crying and complaining, in all girly foolishness.
But Lee saw how much it meant to me, so when I got into town, she picked me up and took me to her house.
Upstairs in her room, she had waiting for me a little fake Christmas tree.
She told me that she didn't have a decorations for it, technically, but she had found some old Easter decorations in her attic.
So we spent an hour or so, decorating the tree, discussing everything under the sky and having a blast making the ugliest Christmas tree known.
And through all this, I knew that she loved me.
So the time passed on our friendship, and we grew stronger and closer as friends.
She would call me her soulmate, and in a way, she was mine as well.
We spoke almost everyday; many days, multiple times. I rarely left a class, where I didn't check my phone to find a least one ridiculously long voicemail from her, describing the most random things.
I told her everything, and she helped me through it.
Last year, the end of summer into the fall time, she was really the crutch by which I stood. My mother had decided that she was going to leave my father, and I was her confidant.
Also, my mother insisted that not only was I required to keep everything that we discussed a secret from my dad, but also from my sister.
The only person I could speak to was Lee.
I remember calling her crying once. I told her that I didn't know what to do because I no longer had a home.
I didn't want to go home for the holidays, because I didn't want to see what my family had turned into.
I told her that at home,
I had become a liar, a vault, a punching-bag, a friend, an ally, an assistent, and recording device, but the titles I once held dear had been taken from me;
I was no longer defined by the words: daughter or sister.
The muddled, yet supportive environment that had once been my home, was no longer such.
I told her that I had no home, and that I didn't know what to do with myself any longer.
She listened to everything I told her, and at the end of it all she simply stated.
"Cathe, your home is wherever I am. Honey, I am your home."
We then decided that for Thanksgiving she would come up to see me. We would blow off our families and spend a few days enjoying the bitter, life-shattering cold that is Minnesota in late November.
For the nest few weeks we were so excited, we planned and planned. When I got phone calls from her in class, they usually consisted of- Gawd! I hate this and that, I can't wait to come see you!
I didn't notice when she started saying things like, "I wish I could just leave everybody here in my life and start over new with you."
"I so sick of everything, I just want to be where nobody knows me and the slate is clean."
"Cathe, I love you and you are the only one who gets me."
A conoisseur of outlandish behavior and strange habits, I disregarded her statements as flighty desires. And though I thought it was odd, I never once thought that she would consider leaving me along with everybody else in her life.
On November 13th in the afternoon, I was really tired from my classes and poor night's sleep the night before. So I came home and decided to take a nap. Not long after I fell asleep, I recieved a phone call from my mother.
She told me that she had some bad news and asked if I was sitting down.
As Brutus prepared himself for the death of Porcia (if I remember my Shakespeare correctly), I too had prepared myself for the call saying that my father had become more ill.
I expected my mother to tell me something of my father.
I did not expect to to tell me that Lee had died.
Lee killed herself early in the morning of the 13th.
She left me a letter.
In it she told me that if one person understood her on this earth, it was me.
I still have no idea why she left me.
Sometimes I think that it is because she was in so much pain that she had to go.
And as her dear friend, I can accept that she had to hurt me and all those who loved her to find peace, finally.
But I MISS HER!
I'm not okay!
I'll never be okay!
I just want to see her again and to hug her again.
If I thought that ripping off all of the skin from my right hand would return her to me, I would.
If I thought that stripping naked and running around in the winter of Minnesota would bring her back to me, I would.
If I could trade my life for hers, anyway, anywhere and at any time, I would in a heartbeat.
My heart died when she left me, and I feel as if I can never heal entirely.
She was my home, now my home is too far away and I cannot find it.
So, ummm, sorry about the crazy vent at the end.
Anyway, I miss her terribly.
I have for the past year.
Her death-anniversary is coming up and it is getting harder and harder for me not to attack random people on the street or at school.
NObody gets to see my sad side at school.
It is a rule I made when I was younger when I would be devastated about my father.
If I brought it up in a jovial environment, like in a class or hanging out, I would lose friends.
I don't blame them, who wants to chillax with a Debbie Downer.
So, in response, I made a second me.
This me wasn't sad, even if life was enjoying a nice hand-baskety ride to hell.
This me was perky, funny and sweet. She listened to peoples' problems, but rarely mentioned her own. She was giggly and immature. In essence, she was me before my dad got cancer and I learned that people leave you for no good reason except for life blows.
She is me at six years-old.
She was my mask
.
Now, it has taken Years. But finally, this Cathe controls me.
And when I am in public, I am her 90% of the time.
Honestly, I love it, because though it may not sound sincere,
when I am six, I am happy.
Some days, it is the only way I know how to be happy.
Recently, however, with Lee's upcoming day, my mask is cracking.
It is tragic and I don't know what to do.
I had worked my butt of, to create this alternative me, and I want to keep her.
Damn it! I deserve to be happy, even if it isn't technically "sincere."
Sometimes, I wish that sad Cathe would go away and never haunt me again.
But then I remember her smile (Lee's, not sad Cathe's, that would be odd), and I realize that she loved me, grumpy and sad.
And I hope that I can find that again.
And I remember that it is a shame to her honor to just block out that I experienced real heartbreak for her.
You should have met her, she was the type of girl for whom destroying your life was worth it.
She was like a great drug. And if I could go back again, and do everything all over again, knowing there would be the same outcome, I would.
The problem with such a drug is, you crave it even after it is gone.
Anyway, I have blabbered to way too long, and my physics that annoys me is now giving me a look that says, you are totally screwed for ignoring me.
So bye.
- I hope I don't punch anyone in the face tomorrow.
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