So I'm officially living with Ryan and I gotta say, I was kind of being a pussy for no reason. Considering I was with him everyday, damn near all day (but for work) for as long as I can recall, it really isn't much of a change. The only difference I notice is the discomfort due to the feelings I have attached to this place, and the fact that everywhere I look, I see his wife/ex-wife's things. It doesn't make me angry, or resentful, or anything of that nature. It's just uncomfortable and will be until we are officially living here and through time invested in it by the most of us, it begins to feel like home. I've been calling him a bit more often these past two days and I'm assuming it's because he's familiar. Don't get me wrong I do not fear change nor do I hesitate to stray far from home. As long as I have a place to call home. The one thing I know for certain is as long as he's here it feels like home to me.

I've found myself back at square one with the vampire community, and though I know the only data available to be is that of teenagers desperate to be universally important among a sea their own kind (pipe dreams), I still welcome the company. Recent discussions with Ryan reminded me of the part of me I've neglected for so long; which may very well be the source of my current and longstanding depression. It is always such a delicate issue to address, especially considering he is active in Vampire LARP. Fortunately the line is much clearer than I originally anticipated before getting involved, though my demons prevent me from ever becoming fully involved, to Ryan's dismay of course. I often find myself in silence, left alone with my thoughts, wondering when I will break, and how devastating the consequences will be; regardless of the amount of truth that may or may not lie behind the madness. Ryan doesn't understand, and it is my own fault for not explaining it to him, so I will suffer in my decision to leave it alone. I count the days.

Tags: log
Current Location: Home, as it were
Current Mood: complacent
Current Music: Duran Duran - Come Undone

Well, much of the chaos has passed, if only momentarily. Thank the gods for small favors. My grandmother finally has her head on straight and is currently out of town gambling with her sister. They need it so I'm fairly stoked for them. As far as I know its been years sense they've vacationed together.

In other news the move with Ryan is official, and is guaranteed to last a full year. From there who knows what may become of us. Much to my enjoyment (or dismay) I've been experiencing periodic lapses in my 'madness'. I'm not sure why, and it's for the best that I do not further elaborate. But I will say this: it has sparked a new wave of frustration in me. I suppose it is the lesser of two evils.

[ADDITION] I had a thought. Much of the artist's inspiration is the struggle. And when the artist is fed by the art, how can the artist create to continue to feed himself? Helluva catch 22.

Current Location: The dorm
Current Music: Osbourne - No More Tears

Ethel Butler Bigbee died tonight at 8:00 p.m, and a piece of me died with her.

A house full of cheerful pretties and playing children lay dormant but for the stillness of death and the subtile sounds of dispair as the family grieves. I thought I was ready. I thought I could withstand this. I loved her. I still love her. Two generations between us and still we found common ground in that we were family. She was such a beautiful woman. Breathtaking in her youth and Stoic in her elder years. And something I never knew about her is she wrote poetry and journal entries. Poetry conveying her love for her children and her simplified understanding of life. My mother found one of her books, with a poem called Remember Me. We don't know when she wrote it. Tragedy struck her twenty years ago when her youngest son of two was killed at a service station during a robbery. Ever sinse and more frequently in her older years so spoke of him everyday and claimed to see him periodically going about what would be his daily business. She said everyone thought she was crazy. I believed every word. She was never a liar. She despised a liar. Your word is your worth she always said. I try not to lie. I rarely do and when it happens I always come clean soon after. She tought me better.

I was able to say goodbye. I got to ask her everything I wanted to without risking judgement from the family. I asked her if she did everything she wanted to do in life. She slowly shook her head yes. I asked her if she was ready. She said yes. She then looked at me and said "you'll be alright. You stayed away from all the booze and drugs and made something out of yourself. You'll be alright. Then I broke down and hugged her sobbing, and through her own tears she said "I'll always be here girl", wrapping her feeble arm around me and patting my back as I cried on her shoulder. She didn't have to worry about me, and it instills in me what little peace I can gather.

Some religions say that the soul exists in a plane parallel to the body, and when awake in one we are asleep in another, which explains dreams, and death. When our bodies die only then are we truly awake in unhindered form. Life is the dream. I think she had a good dream. she left a legacy behind. A legacy of survival and persiverence. She is a part of me, who I was, who I am, and what I will become. No matter where my life may end, I will always remember the beginning. My blood, my pride, my origin.

I love you Granny Granny.

Death. The ultimate mystery of life, and forever shall be. There is most certainly another side to us. The pure form. We are not bodies with souls, but souls with bodies. I say it countless times and stand by it just the same. The great mystery lies with the remaining when someone passes. The one dying, especially when aware of the fact, knows where they are heading and are briefly drifting in and out of the other side. I believe the only of us to know the meaning of life are the ones soon to leave it. Death is merely a change in state of existence, but the question remains: Will we ever be able to lift the veil? Or is the mystery of life the point? The questioning, the wonder, and the things we discover along the way? Life is the journey, not the destination, and I believe it to be ongoing. The state of our souls is present in a world parallel to the world of the embodied. The souls with bodies are dreaming, and the souls without are awake. When dreaming in one we are awake in the other. Only in death are we truly awake. The more I see her, the more I believe this to be true. I feel in part I am waking up with her, or perhaps in the height of the power behind this experience my soul is in a state of awareness of the world that surrounds it in its slumber. Sleeping with one eye open. Years may pass before I sleep here and wake up where she is, and I am in no hurry. Life is a good dream, I'm enjoying the nap.

Current Music: Dust in the Wind - Kansas

I can't get the image out of my mind. The woman who built the bridges crossing the chaos separating my family, lying broken and fading in her death bed. Until I turned 18 no one died. No one. In the past two years we've lost eight. And not three weeks ago we buried my sisters' grandmother, who helped raise me. Now the woman I've seen every weekend sinse the day I was born lay on her deathbed. She has a matter of days, if that. I'm drinking Jack right now, which I'm not necessarily proud of, but I haven't slept in two days because every time I Close my eyes I see her dying. The woman who tought me morality and dignity, and what it is worth.

I've never had to watch someone die before. It was always sudden. Like a dream. But this? It's just so...real.

As death grows closer she becomes more like a child. My uncle asks her "Did ya have a good nap?" She says in the sweetest most innocent voice "I guess I did". She is so pure, so free of complication. I've been making the drive two maybe three times a day, and everytime I arrive I find myself faced with what I desperately want to run from. I always want to see her that one last time. "just one more time" and I make the drive. As soon as I get home from the visit and my head hits the pillow I get the sudden urge to get in the car and see her "that one last time". Then I mentally beat the shit out of myself for leaving in the first place when I couldn't bare to stay.

She has so many pretties, everywhere, and she loved and admired each one individually. When I arrived the first time she had her daughter, my aunt Joan, give me a stuffed animal, a cute little stuffed beaver, the perfect size for cuddling. I walked up to Ethel in her bed, holding the gift and she looked up at me and said, "I'm giving away all my babies cause I can't care for them anymore. That is my gift to you to remember me by, and you can hold it when Ryan ain't there." This was a few days ago, and she has been fading fast. There was a light-blue silk throw with gold embroidery my aunt Sharon gave her years back. She covered up with it while sitting in her chair watching television. I am to inherit it. In a desperate need to set things right I walked over to her in her deathbed, placed in the living room surrounding her with loved ones and the comfort of familiarity. I draped the silk throw over her frail body as she slept, watching as she gripped the fringe with her feeble hands.

I never knew what it meant to me to have her until I saw her on her deathbed. I can feel her in that house. She's almost gone, bound to her body by a thread. The worst has yet to come. I love you Granny Ethel, may you have safe passage, and take our love with you on your journey.

Current Mood: Grieving
Current Music: Lighter shade of pale - Johnny Rivers

I feel a little better today I guess. I went to visit my great grandmother, she was in a hospital bed in her home with oxygen tanks everywhere. When I pulled up there were fire trucks lining the street so I thought I was too late, but it was just hospice and the firemen were moving her to the aforementioned bed. I probably won't get to say goodbye to her like I wanted to, not with the family crowded around her talking about the cute shirt they bought at wherethefuckever.

My uncle Bob was there and as it turns out his sister died last night of a heart attack. she was only 44. I may not have known her very well but she was family and furthermore only 5 years older than my mother. I've officially lost count of the casualties this year.

Moving on, according to the hospice people Ethel has maybe a month, but its looking more like 2 weeks tops. I don't understand why it is the family isn't saying their goodbyes and asking her is she felt she had a good life, and furthermore how she felt about dying and if she'd made peace with the fact. I'd like to know, but I'll never get her alone and to ask would leave the family furious. Just like I've mentioned time and time again, there is no proper way to handle death, this would be one of mine. She deserves acknowledgement for her passing and respect for her long life on earth. I need to sit with her soon, maybe I'll be able to speak with her then, or at least revel in her last days and give her a chance to talk about her past.

In other news, I had another dream about Earleen last night, which would be senseless to anyone else but made perfect sense to me as it were. I was wondering around a trailer park in Ashville, the one she lived at but the general layout was entirely scewed. Dreams tend to do that to geography, but anyway. I floated through a narrow path between homes and came to an old grey/blue trailer with an elevated deck and rickety stairs. I climbed the stairs to the deck and turned away for a moment to view passing cars, and when I turned back she was there, sitting on the top of the stairs, looking her age at death as opposed to youthful as she usually appears to me. Dialog went as follows:

"wait...I can see you..."
"yeah."
"But, aren't you dead?"
"Kinda. I know what you are."
"what?"
"I know you can see me and I know what you are."

I stared in confusion at the deseased woman sitting before me, then I turned ubruptly to face a truck pulling into a driveway that wasn't previously there. It was Eddie and Trini. Maybe Josh, if so he was a child. I started yelling "hey she's not dead, look!" I pointed to a deck. She was gone. They asked what I was talking about and I told them it was Earleen and was met with absolute disgust at my actions. She, who was unseen, thought it was funny. I guess certain things in life become comical once you're beyond the need to deal with them...

The date to move in with Ryan has been pushed forward by ALOT. It went from October to next month because his stupid fucking wife/ex-wife (whatever he wants to call her) decided not to pay the rent on the apartment we were going to move into in her place. So of course she calls Ryan and he immediately decides to pay her back-rent of 460 dollars because she said she had this month's rent and when he gets there she decides "oh...well I actually may NOT have this months rent", which puts Ryan roughly 800 in the hole. I guess he doesn't realize that her mistakes will be coming out of my pocket too, otherwise he would bestow upon me the right to bitch, rather than treat me like I have no rights in a matter that directly effects me, as is often the case. The conversation went as follows:

"So she doesn't have this month's rent?"
"It's a possibility."
"but I thought she said-"
"I SAID IT'S A POSSIBILITY!!"

What the hell.
I don't think he realizes how much control I actually have over my own temper. If I didn't control it we would have long been done with because with anyone else that kind of lash-out just wouldn't fly. I love him, I really do. But my tolerance of his temper is wearing thin. I have people dying all around me, loved ones are dropping like flies, I'm barely getting by with an education and no one will hire a full time student, not even just for the summer, and on top of that apparently his dealings with Pam are, after 9 fucking months, STILL none of my business. Sure he's technically married, but I was under the impression that this was a real relationship and if so, his business is my business and vice versa. I wonder if he knows just how many posts I've deleted in an effort to keep the peace with him. Though right now I'm not entirely sure how badly I want peace, or need it for that matter. This is a big step and with his temper and the way he treats me in regards to her I think now is the best time to bring everything out into the open.

He lashes out on me more frequently then ever and then gets pissed because I'm angry that he violated me over something I feel I should know. It could be worse. I could respond the way I actually want to, which is never pretty and looks something like this right here. My money is going into this place too. She may not be my wife, but she DAMN SURE won't be my burden. Everything is fine and fucking dandy until the topic comes to Pam. Then my rights are revoked entirely. I'm nothing. Nobody. He hasn't divorced her. He said outright he WON'T divorce her, so what the fuck am I supposed to do? How long does he expect me to live this way? Granted, he's a wonderful man and treats me like a goddess most of the time, but when he doesn't it hurts like hell. I'd rather him treat me like a human being than treat me like a goddess, then a nuisance. That's a difficult transition. the only time this really comes up is when we have to go over there, or she calls asking for money. We went to her place recently and I sat on the couch in silence the entire time, and he wonders why. It's simple. She's the wife, I'm the mistress. She hates me, I hate her. No matter how he spells it out that's the way it is, and likely will be for a very long time. But who am I to tell him to get a divorce, it's really none of my business...apparently...I may just be angry, but he refuses to see my standing so I'm left with little choice. It's also likely I'm just terrified of change. Though these problems are present they aren't THAT big of a deal, though with the way he treats me when it comes to her I can see a very small possibility of landing myself in a perpetual hell if she decides she wants to stay there after we move in. I love him but i will NEVER do that to myself. It's a very long shot, but still a substantial fear. Either way you can yell at me over me, but NEVER yell at me over "my place". I pick my fucking place. Period. I wonder how much longer I can bottle it before I explode.


In other news...
Apparently College Park Communities doesn't have a termination clause. In other words: they reserve the right to fuck me in the ass. Apparently to get out of my lease (which hasn't even started yet mind you) I have to pay 350 dollars AND find someone to take my place, or pay through July of 2008. I'm still pondering on how many ways I can get evicted. In terms of college I have to endure a full term unsupported AND go through a laundry list of futile tasks before I can recieve grant refunds again. It'll be six months of uncertain terror any way it goes.

So my great grandmother is on her death bed right now. Likely listening to every tick of the bedside clock as she slowly drifts slowly away from all she knows and loves and into the uncertain void of the afterlife. And so she lay there, likely wondering: "Will I still exist? If so will I still think? and feel? and believe? Will I remember or forget? Heaven for my devotion or hell for my sins? Will it hurt or will I, as a living being, simple fade into the nonexistence from which I came?" I do wonder if this is what she is thinking. I would be, sans the heaven/hell part. That's just not my style. It's strange really. I've never seen anyone slowly die before. they're always snatched away from me abruptly with no time to contemplate their absence. But with her...She's just slipping away. I don't know how to respond. What shocks me is everyone is still telling her she'll get better, and it would be a horrible thing for me to do to actually acknowledge it and ask her the things I want to ask, like did she have a good life, is she satisfied in her accomplishments, are any things left undone. And I wonder if she actually believes them when they tell her she'll be fine. the doctor gave her roughly two weeks and I'm still unclear as to whether she's been told. A woman I loved dearly passed a few weeks ago. I knew while she was alive I took her for granted, but instead of seeing her more often or picking up the phone I sat on my worthless ass and pissed the time away. My uncle's father passed not two weeks ago, my great uncle not four months before that, and my father has cancer. I'm not sure on the state of it. I still haven't gotten over what happened to Blake. The more time passes the more I remember of him from childhood. It still hasn't registered to me that it was him in the casket. He was hit by a van and drug for 75 yards before it finally tore his face off and released him. I wish if he were to die he would have died on impact but no, he died at the hospital after the initial horror and torment. He was a week short of 15.

In light of recent tragedies and otherwise events I find myself wondering if I can live with my choices, suffer lightly my past mistakes, and ultimately survive the consequences of my brazen approach to life as it were. I often find myself wondering why I am so cold, unrelenting...unforgiving. Is it because I cannot heal from the wounds inflicted, or because I don't want to? I wonder if I'll ever find a way to let go the wounds, and bare scars in their place. It would certainly keep me from bleeding all over the beautiful things in my life. Like Ryan. He isn't perfect, but I don't really plan on marrying him any time soon and if he momentarily deems me unimportant I can deem him the same and surround myself with less burdening things until he comes to his senses. I have to learn how to let it roll off my back every once in a while. Problem is he said he would work on the anger and it seems to get worse the more I allow it to happen without consequence. Maybe he thinks I've grown numb to it. Or maybe he has the problem I do when I'm drunk: "If I'm drunk everyone else is to." He likely thinks if he's okay I am too, or should be if nothing else. All I have to say to that theory is it's easy to get over things you do to others, you know, sinse you're not the one being emotionally rattled.

Well it's the middle of the night, and I'm due a cigarette and more thinking space. God I dread the backlash from this post.....*sigh*

Another seemingly meaningless day. Much like yesterday. Father's Day never meant anything to me. So I made sure to get wasted and inform my father of the fact. I don't remember it word for word, but it was something to the effect of "every night I lie in bed and wish for death is because every time I look in the mirror I see half of the man that denied me since the day I was born. And don't FUCKING pray for me, I don't want help from a god that justifies your abandonment." He called me this morning and told me "though it hurt and disturbed me, You are my daughter and I will always love you. I know I failed you, I'm not the perfect father, but if you despised me til the day we both died I'd still love you." Why does he make it so hard to hate him? I don't want peace with him. I want retribution, but when I look at him and see how he struggles, roofing at the age of fourty, everyone he's ever known abandoning him, though he did it to himself. For the life of me it kills me to see him this way even after what he has done to me. It pains me to see him suffer and until last night I was the one person he could rely on to love him unconditionally, for better or worse, despite it all. After all these years he got a taste of it - for once it was I that failed my father. I thought I'd revel in it. I'd have my retribution in his destruction. I was wrong. I feel...like a monster. I may not have religion, I may not walk a beaten path, but I have a soul, and it is deep and heavy with burden, and has been for as long as I can remember. It doesn't kill me to be the better person, but it would kill someone else if I release the ravenous demon chained and buried deep within me.

A child reared in terror can become one of two things: a beast or a burden. A beast unleashes the pain on whoever happens to be near at the moment, feeling no pain, no remorse; the soul dies long before the body. The burden is a helpless, needy, dysfunctional being with the consistent mentality of a victim.

My problem? Both. And neither. I beat down the beast and bitch out the burden. I have enemies within and enemies without, and from my past life experience I have a constant need to fight. I'm always ready for the next blow. Searching my surroundings trying to gather where it will come from and how hard it will hit. The problem seems almost characteristic to shell-shock. I'm quite sure it is worse for others; this doesn't, however, make my problems any less substantial.

However, It seems I'm to a stage in my life where I can lower the gun. It's all about getting the balls to do it at this point. And no matter how safe my surroundings, and how content my mind, I still wanna beat the fuck outta somethin' at least 4 times a day.

*shrugs* Must be the Cajun.

Its' been a while sinse I've posted, and this time I have a few things to say.



I have two little sisters who lived with their aunt and father's mother. Have sinse before they can recall, and two days ago, their grandmother, Arby, died. Arby was a small, meek, warm hearted woman that raised all of her siblings when her parents died, then raised her children, then helped raise me, then my little sisters. She loved all of us the same no matter our relation to her. Though her body was weak and burdening her heart overcame the pain, bringing forth all of the love and endearment any child could ask for. Her only strive in life was to help others and never wanted for herself. All she wanted out of life was helping others and having the means to do so, that's all she ever wanted, and she was content. She was a beautiful woman with a pure soul and a nurturing spirit, and now with her gone, the world loses a divine aspect and becomes a bit less fruitful, a bit less pure. Tainted even.

I was worried about my sisters but found I under-estimated them greatly. They are mature, well-rounded young ladies and it's all because of her and the legacy she left behind.


It seems only in death, do we realize that we ourselves are truely alive.


I love you Arby. Thank you for your legacy.