This Too Shall Pass.

The last few days have been rough on poor little me, I tell ya.

Part of it is my fault -- or at least a product of something I'm doing totally on purpose. Most of you know that I have an ongoing project involving my autobiography. (Yes, I'm aware I'm only 26. I have fit a lot into 26 years.) I have forty-seven pages of work on it now. According to the document properties, I have spent a total of four-thousand, six hundred and twenty-five minutes writing. That's a lot of minutes. It's also a lot of memories. I'm writing mostly good parts right now, but even nostalgia for good things can be emotional. Yesterday, I wrote about how much my father loved to hear me sing Dolly Parton's version of "He's Alive." He loved it so much he'd rewind the tape several times and ask me to sing it again. Then he'd face the wall so I couldn't see that he had tears in his eyes. So of course, after I wrote about this, I just had to hunt down an MP3 version of Dolly singing "He's Alive" and put it on my iPod. I listened to it like ten times. I was crying after time number two.

I blame it on my friend Josh. I've recently started  going to a little church gathering called "The Common Place," which meets on Sunday mornings in my favorite local chill-out spot, Avenue 209 Coffee House. Josh and his wife Sarah own the coffee house. Josh is also the pastor of "The Common Place." I was coming to the coffee house for a long time before I decided to peek my not-so-Christian-friendly-but-I-need-some-spiritual-fulfillment face into "coffee church", so Josh and I were already on friendly terms. What I didn't know was that he gives truly awesome sermons. Often I don't agree; often I leave confused, and yet I keep coming to listen. He speaks well. He seems very genuine. Something about it is kinda magnetic.

This past Sunday, Josh explained why the word 'Abba' is not translated from the Hebrew in modern versions of the Bible: apparently it's too informal, being something like the Hebrew equivalent of "Daddy." He then went on to explain how its okay to call God "Daddy" if one should feel so inclined. He and Sarah have two small children; he mentioned that they have this certain cry of Daddy! that lets him know instantly that something is wrong, a cry that makes him drop everything he's doing and go running to help. You can guess the parallel.

And so -- in accordance with a certain autobiographical set of mind -- I started thinking about my daddy, which, because of the sermon, led directly to Dolly Parton and "He's Alive." It wasn't a bad thing -- or at least, I don't think it was. It made me cry, but that was okay. I needed to cry. I'm at a point in coming to terms with my childhood where I'm not just angry all the time anymore. Anger used to come first and foremost: there was a certain time in my life when I woke up angry and went to sleep angry and dreamed angry, spiteful dreams. I still get angry -- I think I will for a long time yet -- but nowadays I tend to replace some of the anger with sadness. Occasionally that leads to things like finding a song from way back when and sobbing till I wear myself out. I really hope this is an improvement instead of a setback. Sometimes I'm not sure how to frame it: to tell you the truth, it was easier to be angry. I cried a lot less. But letting go of anger had to happen sometime. Better sooner than later, I suppose. I'll navigate this just like I navigated the other. (*Ahem* By the seat of my pants, *cough, cough.*)


The other part really isn't my fault, and yet it appears that I've lost a friend because of it anyway. I guess it was Friday night it started to happen. Someone I care about decided she wanted to die. She made this known and then disappeared. People looked for her all day Saturday. She wasn't home or at any of her favorite places; she didn't appear to be anywhere. We all thought the worst. I sent her a message Friday in hopes of jolting her into reality before she did anything dumb: If you die, Biz will never be the same. Biz is my best friend, so if that happens I will have to be angry at you for a long, long time. It was the truth. I thought she needed to know that her death would impact people -- maybe if she thought about that, she wouldn't choose to die.

Apparently it didn't work. She was found by the police on Saturday night, comatose from an overdose of sleeping pills and a Wild Turkey chaser. I didn't sleep at all on Saturday, and so I learned this information at about 5:30 Sunday morning when I rolled off the couch and reached for the computer to perform yet another compulsive check for news. All the breath left my body. I made it through the next three hours alone and then drifted down to The Common Place because I just didn't know where else to go. I was okay for about five minutes before I ended up sobbing in Sarah's arms.

Sarah -- bless her heart -- offered to take me to the hospital to visit my friend. I walked through the double doors to the ICU with my heart in my throat, not knowing what to expect. And I found my friend sitting up. I'm pretty sure I gasped loudly enough to wake everyone else on the floor. My friend and I sat. We talked. It was hard to know what to say, but I ended up ending with: "If there's anything you need, just let me know. And for the record, I'm glad you're here -- even if you aren't." I kissed the top of her head and left.

And now she's angry. She's mad at me for the message I sent on Friday, when I was trying to reach her with a little dose of the truth. She now claims she knows "where her loyalties lie." Needless to say, I am very hurt and angry. I did the best I knew how to do, and she's throwing it into my face like so much mud. I don't even know what to say about it; I am truly speechless. And sad. I think I did the right thing; I really do. And now I've alienated someone I care about.

So yeah, it's been rough the past few days. Classes start up tomorrow. Maybe that'll help restore my sense of perspective, which is ... well ... a little boggled right now.

This too shall pass.