Cosmic Connection

Monday, June 26, 2006 | 0 Comments

Thanks you all for being so supportive in this very difficult time for me. I know that you didn't know her, but I think that on some level we are all connected. Of course, some of us feel that connection more strongly than others.

This last Friday I got a call at work from a friend, Punky, that I haven't talked to since around New Year. She said that she just had an overwhelming feeling that she needed to call me. She even called me from work it was so overwhelming. When I picked up the phone I really had no idea who it was for the first few seconds because I would never expect a phone call from her at my work unless it was urgent. I was so glad to hear from her.

Saturday, when we got back from the funeral - within ten minutes of getting in the house, in fact - I got a call from my granma (see previous post). She had said that she had been thinking of me more and more over the last week or so and just felt that she needed to call me, she needed to hear my voice. Even though she was not as sympathetic as I might have needed her to be about the news that I had, I still felt the love and the deep connection that we have.

Around that same time, another friend of both SSB and mine, KT, from our first go-round in college, called. She said she suddenly felt herself thinking about us and hadn't heard from us in awhile. She felt like she needed to talk to us to check if we were OK.

Throughout my life I have noticed these strong, subconscious connections that people have with each other. Obviously some people feel these connections much stronger than others (twins are a great example), but I think that if people pay attention, they might notice more of these messages that other people send out.

My belief in this "cosmic connection" was definitely strengthened through this experience. And it is very comforting to know that even when there is nobody with you, you are not alone.

7 comments:

sands of time said...

Sometimes things like that can happen.

http://pinklady.typepad.com/

Lindsay Lobe said...

Maybe a form of consciousness where thoughts intuitively interact between us like emotional, mental, and spiritual “energy fields.” Maybe that consciousness you experienced is another field of energy, like gravitational, electric, and magnetic fields.
Have you ever thought where to do thoughts go? They don’t go anywhere, maybe they exist in perpetuity!! And when you delete an account on a computer or data, you cause that comment or data to be unable to be read, but it is still exists as a conscious thought!!
May the force be with you!!

Lyvvie said...

It's all true. It happns all the time with me where I think about someone and all of a sudden there they are.

Reasons not to think about ex boyfriends - ew.

Lightning Bug's Butt said...

Yep, you always have the bloggers.

Elizabeth said...

:-) The world is an amazing place.

DrMax said...

Take all the time you need Syl. I just took a few weeks off from blogging too. I didn't realize how much I was missing the real world, it was nice to ignore the computer for a while.

DaMiAn said...

Hi im far from understanding the mind and i never will but i am aware of things such as what you have mentioned....my mom will be thinking or just start talking off somebody and they will ring... I haven't experienced anything like you but by looking at peoples body language you can see mental bonding which isn't a consciousness thought. been with a partner, maybe lying on ur chest or been able to feel ur breathing, they mimic it, when you are walking down the street with somebody infront you sometimes mimic there pase and stride.

How Did I Survive?

Saturday, June 24, 2006 | 0 Comments

Today was K's funeral. The service consisted of panels of pictures of K, some of her art work, her violin, and her own personal photo albums. It was lovely. I got to see pictures of her as an infant, as a little girl, as a teenager, and as a college student. She seemed to have pretty much been the same person all her life. Quirky, sassy, spunky, humorous. Some one described her as being a spritely little imp. Definitely. I cried so much I can only open my eyes half-way now. I'm drained.

And I got a call from my grandmother today. I haven't heard from her since Christmas. She said that she has been wanting to call me for about two weeks. She just started thinking about me more and more and she wanted to hear my voice. I was so touched. It was so nice to have a family member to talk to about this. Someone who understands where I come from.

Then I was reminded where I come from. After spending about ten second saying how horrible she thought it was, she says chipperly, "Well, anyway, what else has been going on with you?"

WHAT? Did you not hear me woman? A very close friend of mine has just died. I just told you that I just got back from her funeral, I'm still crying and that is all you have to say?

I listen to her go on about some things that have been going on with her, speechless. She suddenly stops talking and asks if there is anything wrong.

I say, "Granma, I just told you that I just got back from a funeral."

She says, "I mean besides that. You sound really tired."

And I started thinking about the Harlow experiments and the similar experiments that the SS conducted on human infants. All of these experiments concluded the same way - the infants did not thrive. And I wondered... how did I survive?

So if I act a little weird, inappropriate, or even seem uncaring or unkind; I just would like to remind you...
MY WHOLE FAMILY IS LIKE MY GRANMA!!!
I'm lucky to be alive let alone not insane from the utter lack of compassion.

5 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Ugh. Sorry to hear about your family's unsympathetic ears. However it sounds like the funeral was at least a good place to remember your friend. I hope as time goes on the memories will get sweeter for you.

Lindsay Lobe said...

Compassion is wonderful asset, but alas many feel it is weak to show it, particually families at times.
I think maybe you have been a person willing to take risks and I commend for that, to take on those risks, to give to others, the risk of trying to do your best, but most of all to be wiling to take the risk to love others. As you do
Best wishes

sands of time said...

Im so sorry about that.Some families can be very self centured and think only of themselves.You are such a cpmpassionate person it must be difficult for you.Many hugs to you.

http://pinklady.typepad.com/

Shannon said...

I'm with you on this. I don't get where your grandmother is coming from. Take care.

SierraBella said...

Your granma reminds me of the ol'
"Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

The Sky Is Falling

Friday, June 23, 2006 | 0 Comments

I realize that yesterday's post was maybe a bit too intense and morbid for most people, so I thought that I would try to lighten it up a bit.

I was trying to get ready for work when I saw that our little dog Neo had peed on the floor. I was already in a bad mood and running late and now I had to take care of this. I attempted to clean it up but when I tried to move something out of the way a big pile of papers fell right into the puddle of pee.

I picked up the papers and was going to just toss them over about two feet. Instead I found myself chucking them across the dining room. Then I locked myself in the bathroom for the few minutes I had left before I had to go to work.

When I came out, SSB was there waiting with all my things together. I grabbed everything and headed for the door. As I crossed the threshold to go outside something cold and gushy hit me in the head and landed on my arm. It felt like I had just been hit with Jell-o.

I said, "WHAT THE FUCK!" and looked down to see a gray tree frog spread-eagle on the steps. I bent down to touch it to make sure it was real. It leapt away.

I started laughing. I turned to SSB and asked, "Do you know any omens about getting hit by a frog as you cross over a threshold?"

J suggested that it was K trying to cheer me up. Well, it worked.

4 comments:

Laurie said...

Yesterday's post was just fine. I definitely believe that K was having her way with you this morning. I'm glad you're the kind of person who notices those little things.

DrMax said...

Yup, a tree frog is definately somebody having fun with you.

Shannon said...

:)

"AG" said...

That's hilarious! It's also comforting to think it's from K. :)

I nearly took a coworker's head off today.

Seriously. She does not know how close she came to death at my hands.

She said to me that she and another worker found a bunch of my friend K's school work and personal items that she had left on the computer and they DELETED IT ALL!! She was all proud of herself because she thought that she had done a fabulous thing to try and protect J and others, but those items were not theirs to delete and it was not up to them to decide whether anyone else should see them or not! She told me about a picture in particular that they found "offensive" and "inappropriate" and didn't think that anyone else should see it because it was a self portrait photograph in which K depicted herself committing suicide.

I was so angry I couldn't speak. HOW DARE THEY! They knew her but they didn't really know her. And this is precisely why. That picture was K's way of communicating and they were trying to silence her. They didn't really want to know what was going on with her. K knew that people would only accept the pieces of her that were "acceptable". She felt that many people might find the truth about her "offensive". This just led to her becoming extremely secretive and a damn fine actress. She was so afraid of getting that rejection that she would not let people in. And since people did not know what was going on, she had trouble getting the help that she desperately needed.

She was so good at faking it that most people are convinced that it was a car accident. It was not an accident. I was one of the few people she trusted enough to see some of those other pieces of her. The kind of pieces that these coworkers were trying to erase.

I say "trying" because they didn't really succeed. They didn't realize that just deleting items does not destroy the items. I was able to recover everything.

And I saw the picture. The scene is of her delicate body slumped and bloody against a wall with a gun falling out of her hand. It was both beautiful and sad. She looked graceful and serene even among the violence of the act. And in a strange way it was comforting. She had taken that picture last fall. Although I was already aware that she had been having problems for years, I realize now that this desperation has been going on a lot longer than a few months. She was in a much deeper level of depression than I had thought. Which means that there really wasn't much we could do short of committing her and forcing drugs on her. Her pain had become so great a burden to her that she desperately needed peace. Seeing that portrait in a way has lifted a burden from me. And those girls almost took that away from me.

2 comments:

sands of time said...

It's sad that sometimes we don't realise how sad someone close is.I'm glad yu recovered it.

http://pinklady.typepad.com/

Elizabeth said...

So sorry to hear that you not only lost a friend but some bits she left behind as well. You're right, they shouldn't have done it. Sigh.

A Beautiful Mind

Monday, June 19, 2006 | 0 Comments

I got a phone call yesterday, the kind that everyone dreads. The kind that starts with a shakey, "I don't know how to tell you this, but..."

... but one of your very close friends is is dead.

A friend of five years took her life last Friday night.

And you go through the "But I just talked to her last week"s

And you go through the "If only I had done this" and "If only I hadn't done that"

But in the end, there wasn't anything that could have been done. She just didn't see the world and life the way that other people did. And it is such a shame.

She was young and smart; articulate and well read. She was funny, with that nicely balanced, slightly oh-so-wrong sense of humor. She had just graduated from college a few months ago. She had a whole, full life ahead of her. She had good friends that loved her dearly and would have done most anything for her because she was a good friend herself.

But she had a different perspective. One that she just couldn't get past. She didn't see the end of college as a new beginning; she saw it as terrible void. She didn't see a full life; she saw a life of pointless activities and meaninglessness.


She was supposed to come over to our house to finish getting the room ready that she was going to move into. The day she was supposed to come over we got a series of strange messages from her on our answering machine. I called her to find out what was up. She said that she was very tired and needed a nap. I knew that she suffered from insomnia, so I said, "Sure no problem. You should get some sleep. We'll be here all day." An hour or so later she left another message. One that was even more frantic than the others. "Uh, I'm sorry I'm not going to be able to make it. Um, something's come up. Bye."

That following weekend we were supposed to have a get together with another friend, J, that she had been looking forward to for months. She would not return the phone calls that I made daily that whole week. She didn't make it to the get together.

The following weekend, J called to let me know that the reason that we hadn't seen our friend around was because she was in the hospital for trying to commit suicide. She had gone in the day that she had left those messages on our machine. This wasn't her first attempt. She had been hospitalized a couple of months ago for the very same thing. And both SSB and I were fairly convinced that she had tried to jump off a bridge that Saturday night before she was taken to the hospital this last time. She had stopped over to our house to hang out and had deep scrapes up both arms. She told us two different stories, the second involved a bridge.

She tried again while she was in the hospital, but they let her out anyway, last Tuesday. I got a call from her that day. She was trying to sound chipper and wanted to small talk, but I could tell that things were not good with her. I told her that I was very glad that she was OK and that I wanted to get together with her the next day. She said there was someone on the other line and that she had to go because she was expecting a very important phone call (which I do not think was true). She agreed that we should get together. I was sick with a migraine Wednesday, so I stopped over to her house on Thursday. She either wasn't home or wasn't answering the door. I left a note on her door letting her know that I had been there and that I missed her.

If I would have known that that was the last opportunity that I had to say anything to her, I might have left a longer note.

But I know that there probably wasn't anything more that we could have done for her. If we would have pushed harder, she would have spiraled faster. If she had been left in the hospital, well, I couldn't see that place giving her the will to live. She was on medication. She was supposed to be seeing a counselor. She had friends to talk to and we were always there for her.

And I was pissed at her. How could she do this to us? We were always there for her. We tried so hard to make things better for her and she just couldn't hang on just a little longer? Maybe a week or two until her medication could have a chance to work? She didn't even believe that she was loved. But there were many people that loved her. There are many people that will feel a void in their lives. I know that I will. I've only had a handful of close friends in my life, by choice, and she was one of them. I have only met a few people that I would keep that close, and damn her if she would take that away from me!

But those are selfish thoughts that you think in grief. Her life was her own, not ours. We should be glad that we had the time that we had with her. It helps to think that she had a terminal mental illness. No one knew how long she had to live, but all of us that she held close knew that it was only a matter of time.

I remember during one of our talks out in the woods, she asked me, "You know that I haven't always been like this, right?"

I answered, "Of course! Of course you haven't always been like this."

She said, "Good. Yes. You're right. I haven't."

Too bad she couldn't see that she wouldn't always be like that. Too bad she couldn't see that the horribleness of life was all in her head.

I had the unfortunate task of letting my coworkers know (as we had both worked at the library for the last 5 years together). It was nearly too much to tell the news over and over in the place where her ghost was lingering everywhere. And then having to console people and try to help them understand. I was in tears as I checked out books, but relieved the people of guilt as we shared a laugh by my somewhat playful demand of, "Pay no attention to me."

I was exhausted by the time I got to my second job. I thought, well, at least I won't have to recount things here. But it turns out that the owner's children were friends with her too and she already knew. She tried to comfort me by saying that she believed that she would still go to heaven because it was a disease. Well that's a nice thought, but I'd rather have her here.

17 comments:

"AG" said...

I am sorry for your friend's tragic loss, and the loss of your good friend.

Laurie said...

I'm so sorry.

OldRoses said...

I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. I can't imagine the amount of pain she must have been feeling. You did the best you could. Now you need to take care of you.

evilsciencechick said...

such a complete tragedy. I am so sorry, sweetie.

Flubberwinkle said...

I'm sorry her need to 'escape' overpowered her need to live. I'm sorry you lost a good friend. May she rest in peace.

DrMax said...

Sorry for your loss Syl. Too bad depression robs people of perspective, what seems so hopeless really isn't if you give yourself time.

Elizabeth said...

So sorry. I'll be thinking of you.

Shamus O'Drunkahan said...

Sorry Sylvana, it's always tragic to see how fragile people really are.

Derek Knight said...

very sorry for your loss.

Shannon said...

I'm truly sorry.

The Doc said...

My condolences, Syl. I'll be thinking good thoughts about you.

Lyvvie said...

I'm sorry for your loss. I hope she's found some peace, and I hope you find some too. Hugs.

sands of time said...

I am so sorry about your friend.My friend Lori committed suicide 4 years ago.I still feel bad that i couldn't of helped her.I knew she was depressed but i never realised she was that bad.

http://pinklady.typepad.com/

Wendy A said...

I lost two friends to suicides this year. I don't understand. It must be an age thing. Probably depression. Both were promising, good looking, clever people. They really had it all. Hummmmm so hard to understand. The sadest part is the aftermath of the children they left behind. Leaves a big ???? So sorry to hear about your loss.

Lindsay Lobe said...

Sorry to hear of such a tragic loss, its such a shock and terrible burden to those who loved her, like yourself, natural enough to also feel anger.

You can feel proud of yourself you did your best for her. I cannot concede that those who commit siucide can fully appreciate the terible effect their actions have on those that loved them.

Dr. Who said...

I'm really sorry for your loss Sylvana. I hope your friend finds peace now...

Randi said...

Two years ago in October a very good friend of mine took his life. Theres a link to it on my page, Scott. He said that it was because he couldnt live without his exwife. To me it was such bullshit. I couldnt believe that he would try to pawn somthing like that off on her.

To this day I still have those why's. why didn't he call me, why didnt he call jason. Why did he have to be so selfish and dumb.

To this day I am still so mad at him. I am reminded especially in the summertime because of the so many memories that we had in the summertime.

The pain is not as bad as it used to be. I still miss him horribly. But being mad and angry is not going to bring him back.

Just know that she is not in pain anymore. And you will see her again oneday....and it will be like nothing ever happened.

Please email me if you need to talk....unfortunatly I know just how you feel.......
randimanuel@gmail.com

What? Where Am I?

Wednesday, June 07, 2006 | 0 Comments

I have been so busy lately that my head is spinning! I am hoping that things will die down soon and I can get to some of my more regular activities - like blogging!

I just submitted my application packet for a dream job. It is not a dream job because of prestige or money. It is because I love the environment and the people. I feel that I have a good chance of getting the job, but I'm not going to hold my breath. There is another candidate that is just as qualified for the job, and I know that if the hiring committee feels that we are both equally qualified for the job, she will get the job. But that is OK because she is a great person and would deserve the job just as much. It's perfectly OK to lose to a worthy opponent.

I have also completed the repairs on one of my rental properties ordered by the city building inspector. He wanted bathroom fans put in both of the half baths. HALF BATHS. As in NO SHOWER OR TUB. A couple of construction guys I knew agreed that this was above and beyond the code, but are you really going to argue with a building inspector? I wasn't about to since the house is over 80 years old and bathroom fans at that point sounded pretty cheap.

SSB and I had never installed bathroom fans before, so it was a learning experience. We had to run ducting and wiring through the walls, drill holes in the side of the house, and patch drywall as well completely drywall a ceiling that had previously been a drop ceiling. I'm pretty good with the mud and the new ceiling looks spectacular! Far better than that mangy ceiling tile! All of these things turned out to be way easier than we had imagined. In fact, we had put off the work for some time because we thought that it was going to be a bitch. The only thing that held us back was not having the right tools at any given time, breaking the bolt on a toilet (Oops! Teehee! Don't use a toilet as a step stool.) and waiting for the mud to dry. And now we have a few more skills to add to our repertoire: wiring and ducting. Oh, and by doing it ourselves we saved at least $500! WooHoo!!

11 comments:

sands of time said...

Good luck with getting your dream job

http://pinklady.typepad.com/

Lyvvie said...

Always love a broken toilet adventure! We had a half bath in our old flat, but I mean it was a tiny bathtub - it was adorable! you could sit in it cross-legged and it had a shower and everything.

Good luck on the job prospects!!!

"AG" said...

Oh cool, you're a landlord! Awesome!

Sylvana said...

Pink Lady, thanks! I need all the good energy I can get!

Lyvvie, I don't think bathrooms really need to be that big. One bathroom we had you could wash your hands while sitting on the toilet.

AG, is that sarcasm? ;)

Lindsay Lobe said...

One well thought out gig-well done !!
Trust the force is with you on the job prospects!!!

"AG" said...

No sarcasm! I've thought about doing it one day.

OldRoses said...

Come on over to my house. I have tons of stuff that needs repairing and you two sound like you can handle anything!

Sylvana said...

Lindsay Lobe, thanks. I almost forgot that I have the force on my side.

AG, it is really difficult for the first few years, but then it gets much easier.

OldRoses, I don't like to hire out work because they charge way too much for their shoddy work. So I just teach myself how to do it.

Wendy A said...

Pretty rare that house renos are easier then expected. You lucky girl.

DrMax said...

I'm with you Syl, why pay professionals to do shoddy work when I can do it just as shoddily myself.

Derek Knight said...

it's never "OK" to lose, worthy opponent or not. CRUSH HER AND TAKE THAT DREAM JOB OF YOURS!

ah...heh...um...Yeah.

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