this mercyground

2003-01-16 - 12:02 a.m.

these are tender times. everyone seems so fragile and breakable and heartbreakingly soft in pain and sadness, like viewing the world through a bad memory. mom's best friend is getting shipped off to fight in the middle east. he'll be gone for one year. before he left he had to 'get his affairs in order,' make out a will, and such. when i got the news i was at work, and i started crying. i'm upset because my mom's best friend is really cool, and him being gone for a whole year is upsetting in and of itself. i'm upset because i know how important he is in my mom's life, and how much she'll miss him. i'm upset because i fucking hate bush and all these old rich white men who encourage war without the fear of facing the frontline themselves. 'yes, i think it's a good idea to kill off millions of people. it will boost the economy!' goddamn, don't we even realize the value of fucking life anymore? which is more important, the economy, rigid morals, or people, human beings? which is more important, preserving a way of life, or just life? and bush, trying to act like he's not a bloody moron, trying to act like a hero, finish his fucking daddy's war, he makes me sick. i hate him and i hate this war and i hate ideals and preserving ways of life and i'm just so goddamn angry.

so my mom's best friend is gone for a year. one year of his life is now devoted to killing people and trying to stay alive. one year of my mom's life is now empty of his presence.

then my grandmother is in the hospital again, though this time it's for knee surgery. i visited her yesterday. she said that she's feeling okay. it's just that lying there in that hospital bed, so pale and beautiful and soft, all surrounded and held to the bed by vines of plastic tubes, i thought back to just a few months ago when both she and my grandfather were in the hospital. i think about them both, how papaw keeps getting sick, how mamaw keeps feeling pain, and then i think about how i never spend enough time with them and how wonderful they are and i just get really sad. they're such beautiful, amazing people.

then there's moo, who called me crying last night. she feels unhappy and stuck in her situation, wanting nothing less than her dreams yet feeling unable to find the way. i told her that i know how she feels. she said that she's not happy here, that she can't remember why she's here. she feels like she's wasting time. and i understand completely, yet my best advice was just 'wait it out.' and i hated saying that, i really did. nothing else should matter, right? yeah, sure, she's already paid tuition and room and board and she's registered and all set in for classes and such, but that shouldn't matter. if there's a dream that you feel truly drawn to, then i fully believe that you should go for it, an it harm none, do what ye will. everything else just feels like mundane layers of crap, and it shouldn't matter. but i told her to wait it out, just for one more semester. and i felt like a sell-out saying it, too.

but lane's coming tomorrow, and rikki's coming, and few people encourage you to follow your dreams like good friends. especially cancers with stars in their eyes.

i have faith that things will get better. these are tender times, and the cold feels worse in times as these. but i have faith that things will get better.