Nanowrimo 2011 is less than two weeks away. In case you don’t know what that is or have forgotten since the last time I got all self-indulgent about it, you can find out more here and here.
This will be my fourth time, and I’m proud to say I’ve come out on top each year I’ve taken it on. The dynamic will be different this year though: The friend who originally convinced me to try it is taking what may or may not be a temporary respite from the endeavor. This was a little concerning at first since taking on such a monumental project is easier when you have someone working in parallel to motivate you. But she’s out of the picture, and instead my writer cousin is going to be joining me on the Nano road. No, not that writer cousin -- I’ve leaned on him to try it before and he always finds some greased-pig way out of daring to take it on. I didn’t even bother asking for this November since I’m sure the little pansy would play the “Yeah, but my son was just born LITERALLY DAYS AGO so I’ve got other things to do with my time” card. And considering that, well, I guess he’s off the hook for at least one more year. So instead I’m going with my other writer cousin, my young protegé, the little Texas dude with a mind twisted enough to try reimagining the classics of children’s literature as ultra-violent revenge quest adventures. But since he has a few middle school commitments to attend to he’ll be taking part in the Youth program, for which he only has to produce 30,000 words or so over the month. Yeah, only. Ask yourself the last time you wrote something 30,000 words long. In a month. No small feat, especially when you aren’t even old enough to get a learner’s permit. But he sounds pretty keyed up to get started, which gets him over the biggest hurdle.
I remember my initial year of Nanowrimo as being a serious a battle. I focused on word count first and story second, and put together a manuscript that now sits in a folder somewhere, a cool idea with flashes of potential that was paired with an awkward execution. My second year went much better; I had a concept with a lot of emotion attached to it. And even though I had little idea about where the story was going, the whole thing just bled out of me once I started. That one turned out well enough to attract the attention of at least one agent, and now sits in a folder with scads of revision notes waiting for its turn to come back to life. Then last year, Year 3, I took on something far more abstract and experimental than I’d ever tried before, which stands as easily the most polarizing project I’ve ever finished. Some people loved it. Some hated it. Few were neutral.
The thing that each of these projects had in common was that I started working on them early in the morning of November first with no preparation other than a few vague ideas of what I wanted to try. This year is going to be different. In fact this year I’ve done such extensive prep that I’m planning on blowing past that built-in goal of 50,000 words and shooting for something just a bit beyond 60K. And I have no doubt I’ll be able to do it, mostly because, in a manner of speaking, I’m already more than halfway there.
Now, before anyone accuses me of cheating, let me explain... This year instead of starting over with a brand new idea and beginning a manuscript from scratch, I’m taking an existing one, arguably my strongest one, and rewriting it. Almost completely. Just over a year ago I thought I had it to a point where it was ready to go on submission, but twenty or so form rejections later I began to have second thoughts. As I ran it past a few people for second looks and took a hard look at it myself, I started to see it as more of a concept in a later draft form than a finished work. Comments people had made, both positive and critical, took on new life. Random ideas I’d gotten from different beta readers began inspiring new directions. Time spent reading different articles gave me ideas about how I could approach this, and before long it started to grow into something deeper, more fully developed, and... seriously? More frightening than it was before. (And if you’ve ever been one of my beta readers in the past, you’ve likely figured out which manuscript I’m referring to by now, and you probably get the title of this post.) Ironically, since I’m knee deep in revision planning, the same version of the manuscript that was dismissed so many times over has a little piece of life to it right now since it’s being read to a class of kids who are right in the target demographic, and from the updates I get about progress it sounds like it’s going over like gangbusters. A few kids have been creeped out by it during read aloud. One student came back to school telling of nightmares she’d had related to the story, and another hijacked a couple of characters to use as examples in a piece of his own writing work. Cool things for sure, but it all makes me think, “What until you see what’s still coming.”
The puzzle pieces came together to show me what I could do to make it into the epic I’ve always wanted it to be but knew in my heart it hadn’t quite become. But now? Not only do I see how to beef up everything I want to keep and revise everything I don’t, but I’ve found a third act that wasn’t there before, something that sprouted from an itch of an idea that remained after the last time I thought I was finished. Just a thin loophole of possibility that spiraled everything into bigger and darker levels.
So now I have goals. I really would like to see this project someday make a serious run at publication, and I believe it can. But to achieve that I have to methodically work my way through creating a story and a world so undeniable and powerful that it will be impossible for agents to categorically overlook and publishers to ignore. I want it to become the kind of story that people remember from their childhood, partly because of the impact it had on them and partly because of the nightmares it caused. I want it to be a story that I’m proud of, something uncompromisingly engaging that will pull its readers in so deeply they’ll feel disoriented by their surroundings when they pull back from their reading.
Lofty goals for certain, but that’s the vision I have right now, eleven days before I begin working in earnest. I know it can get there. I know it can achieve what I want it to be. The trick will just be making it happen.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Wasted (?) Rewards
I really kind of like my credit card this year. Not because my interest rate is super exceptional or anything, but because of my rewards program. As I accumulate points, or whatever virtual currency has been assigned to me in this system, I'm able to trade them in for so, so many different rewards, and they really do have a little shopping mall worth of options for me. But predictably enough I always fall back to a standard choice: the iTunes gift card.
What could make more sense for me? Music is awesome. Free is awesome. Free music? Super awesome. I get free music and suddenly I turn into Andy from "Parks and Recreation" with my excitement. My latest iTunes card showed up in the mail today. I scratched away the little silver bar on the back to reveal my code and put that baby to use right away, downloading the new album from Evanescence, which was just released earlier this week.
You remember Evanescence, don't you? Sure you do. A band led by a female singer with a very strong, melodic voice singing over some depressingly goth/vaguely self-pitying songs built around some minor-key piano lines and crunchy guitar chords. They had a monster album with a couple of big radio hits back around the turn of the century, give or take a couple of years. "Bring Me to Life?" "My Immortal?" Yeah, well, you'd know them if you heard them. The second album came out a couple of years later, well after typical narcissistic infighting decimated the band, leaving only the singer to rebuild it all by pretty much replacing all of the other musicians. Unfortunately, from my perspective at least, one of the best things about the band was the musical composition that went into the songs, and after the big ugly break-up scene sent some of the more pivotal songwriters packing, that was more or less lost. That second album was an okay rock album; it stayed in my rotation for awhile but didn't prove all that memorable in the end. And after that, the band fell off the map for several years.
Until recently, like in earlier this week recently when this new self-titled album came out. I'm listening to it as I write this. And you know what? A lot like that second album. It's a serviceable rock album with some decent little hooks to it, but overall its showing itself to be just as forgettably generic as I expected it to be. Which begs the obvious question -- why did I even buy it if I had such low expectations?
Because there was a chance it would be good.
I've learned over the years that I'm something of an explorer when it comes to music. I read a lot about it, I follow the careers of different musicians, and this way I find myself led into discovering albums I don't or artists I'm not familiar with that could have some kind of connection, however tenuous, to an artist I already know and like. iTunes is really good at exploiting this weakness, so it turns out I will download a lot of music purely on spec -- maybe because of the user reviews, or the editorial write up, or some professional reviews, or the listing of similar artists, or maybe even just the name of the band is kind of cool and I'll decide they must have something going on if they were bold enough to name themselves something like Spock's Beard or The Airborne Toxic Event or Fair to Midland or even The Poodles. (The Poodles are a pretty awesome band playing an updated European knockoff version of 80s metal, by the way. Try and imagine the convoluted thread that led me to that discovery.)
So, to reflect upon this odd proclivity of mine, I'm going to give you a list of artists I've discovered simply because I took a chance, even if I knew next to nothing about them before I gave their music a first try, and I wound up with at least one more album that I really enjoyed. I'm deciding to limit myself to 20, just as a nice round arbitrary number. Here they are, kind of alphabetically I guess:
*The Airborne Toxic Event: Found from an iTunes link. Saw them described as "literate." I was hooked. Three great albums later they are one of my big discoveries of 2011.
*The Answer: A British hard rock band, very old-school and bluesy. iTunes. I can't imagine why they were never played in the U.S.
*Black Country Communion: Heard of on VH1 Classic's, "That Metal Show." A hard rock supergroup from just a couple of years ago, including one ex-member of Dream Theater playing rock so deeply intrenched in the 70s you can almost smell the incense. Two great albums released in about 14 months.
*The Dead Weather: I saw them perform on Letterman or Conan a month before their first album came out. The performance was electric. I didn't realize until it came out that Jack White was in the band.
*Glen Burtnik: Heard a single on the radio back in the 80s. Bought the 45 (I KNOW!) and put it on many of my 80s mix tapes. Found a good back catalog years later.
*Grace Potter and the Nocturnals: Just learned about them this summer when Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd and the Monsters mentioned on Facebook his band was about to play a show with them. I figured, if they can keep up with BHTM, they must have something. They do.
*Hum: I heard one song on a radio show and found the album. You know the song -- you'd recognize the hook from countless television commercials. Not a great album overall, but the songs that got to me really, really got to me.
*Kamelot: Found them on Pandora on my Dream Theater station. A little too theatrical, but not necessarily in a bad way.
*Marah: I heard a song on the radio and picked up that Bruce Springsteen was doing a backing vocal. That made it worth checking out.
*Matthew Good: iTunes reviews said he was HUGE in Canada. Some sort of ambient but very good songs.
*Nine Days: A one hit wonder for most people; "Story of a Girl" from the 90s. But I have five or six albums, and they have two or three of my favorite songs.
*The Poodles: Already covered. Awesome and ridiculous at the same time.
*Porcupine Tree: A band that was traveling in the same circles as some of my other favorite bands, so it was inevitable that I checked them out. They are now one of my favorites on their own.
*Ryan Bingham: Heard him on Letterman. Got out of bed and downloaded the album.
*Savatage: When I was wondering where the hell the Trans-Siberian Orchestra had come from, I learned that whole project stemmed from this band. If you think you would like that bombastic, operatic hard rock outside of Christmas songs or forced theme albums, here you go.
*Spock's Beard: I heard they were touring with Dream Theater. A large percentage of all of my favorite music can be traced back here.
*Taking Back Sunday: I liked the band name and saw they'd been around awhile. I figured if they had staying power there must be a reason. Gave it a shot. Good summer driving album.
*The Twilight Singers: Letterman. Immediate download. No regrets.
*30 Seconds to Mars: I was too curious about a Hollywood prettyboy like Jared Leto posing in a ridiculous pink mohawk and trying to say he was a serious musician to not see what it was like. And I'll give the dude his credit -- Fight Club is not the only cool thing he's ever been involved with.
So sometimes it can really pay off to step outside of the comfort zone and see what else is out there, music wise. However, I have to say with full disclosure that my music library has at least twice as many of these exploration artists or albums that turned out to be mostly awful. But I try not to think about those so much....
What could make more sense for me? Music is awesome. Free is awesome. Free music? Super awesome. I get free music and suddenly I turn into Andy from "Parks and Recreation" with my excitement. My latest iTunes card showed up in the mail today. I scratched away the little silver bar on the back to reveal my code and put that baby to use right away, downloading the new album from Evanescence, which was just released earlier this week.
You remember Evanescence, don't you? Sure you do. A band led by a female singer with a very strong, melodic voice singing over some depressingly goth/vaguely self-pitying songs built around some minor-key piano lines and crunchy guitar chords. They had a monster album with a couple of big radio hits back around the turn of the century, give or take a couple of years. "Bring Me to Life?" "My Immortal?" Yeah, well, you'd know them if you heard them. The second album came out a couple of years later, well after typical narcissistic infighting decimated the band, leaving only the singer to rebuild it all by pretty much replacing all of the other musicians. Unfortunately, from my perspective at least, one of the best things about the band was the musical composition that went into the songs, and after the big ugly break-up scene sent some of the more pivotal songwriters packing, that was more or less lost. That second album was an okay rock album; it stayed in my rotation for awhile but didn't prove all that memorable in the end. And after that, the band fell off the map for several years.
Until recently, like in earlier this week recently when this new self-titled album came out. I'm listening to it as I write this. And you know what? A lot like that second album. It's a serviceable rock album with some decent little hooks to it, but overall its showing itself to be just as forgettably generic as I expected it to be. Which begs the obvious question -- why did I even buy it if I had such low expectations?
Because there was a chance it would be good.
I've learned over the years that I'm something of an explorer when it comes to music. I read a lot about it, I follow the careers of different musicians, and this way I find myself led into discovering albums I don't or artists I'm not familiar with that could have some kind of connection, however tenuous, to an artist I already know and like. iTunes is really good at exploiting this weakness, so it turns out I will download a lot of music purely on spec -- maybe because of the user reviews, or the editorial write up, or some professional reviews, or the listing of similar artists, or maybe even just the name of the band is kind of cool and I'll decide they must have something going on if they were bold enough to name themselves something like Spock's Beard or The Airborne Toxic Event or Fair to Midland or even The Poodles. (The Poodles are a pretty awesome band playing an updated European knockoff version of 80s metal, by the way. Try and imagine the convoluted thread that led me to that discovery.)
So, to reflect upon this odd proclivity of mine, I'm going to give you a list of artists I've discovered simply because I took a chance, even if I knew next to nothing about them before I gave their music a first try, and I wound up with at least one more album that I really enjoyed. I'm deciding to limit myself to 20, just as a nice round arbitrary number. Here they are, kind of alphabetically I guess:
*The Airborne Toxic Event: Found from an iTunes link. Saw them described as "literate." I was hooked. Three great albums later they are one of my big discoveries of 2011.
*The Answer: A British hard rock band, very old-school and bluesy. iTunes. I can't imagine why they were never played in the U.S.
*Black Country Communion: Heard of on VH1 Classic's, "That Metal Show." A hard rock supergroup from just a couple of years ago, including one ex-member of Dream Theater playing rock so deeply intrenched in the 70s you can almost smell the incense. Two great albums released in about 14 months.
*The Dead Weather: I saw them perform on Letterman or Conan a month before their first album came out. The performance was electric. I didn't realize until it came out that Jack White was in the band.
*Glen Burtnik: Heard a single on the radio back in the 80s. Bought the 45 (I KNOW!) and put it on many of my 80s mix tapes. Found a good back catalog years later.
*Grace Potter and the Nocturnals: Just learned about them this summer when Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd and the Monsters mentioned on Facebook his band was about to play a show with them. I figured, if they can keep up with BHTM, they must have something. They do.
*Hum: I heard one song on a radio show and found the album. You know the song -- you'd recognize the hook from countless television commercials. Not a great album overall, but the songs that got to me really, really got to me.
*Kamelot: Found them on Pandora on my Dream Theater station. A little too theatrical, but not necessarily in a bad way.
*Marah: I heard a song on the radio and picked up that Bruce Springsteen was doing a backing vocal. That made it worth checking out.
*Matthew Good: iTunes reviews said he was HUGE in Canada. Some sort of ambient but very good songs.
*Nine Days: A one hit wonder for most people; "Story of a Girl" from the 90s. But I have five or six albums, and they have two or three of my favorite songs.
*The Poodles: Already covered. Awesome and ridiculous at the same time.
*Porcupine Tree: A band that was traveling in the same circles as some of my other favorite bands, so it was inevitable that I checked them out. They are now one of my favorites on their own.
*Ryan Bingham: Heard him on Letterman. Got out of bed and downloaded the album.
*Savatage: When I was wondering where the hell the Trans-Siberian Orchestra had come from, I learned that whole project stemmed from this band. If you think you would like that bombastic, operatic hard rock outside of Christmas songs or forced theme albums, here you go.
*Spock's Beard: I heard they were touring with Dream Theater. A large percentage of all of my favorite music can be traced back here.
*Taking Back Sunday: I liked the band name and saw they'd been around awhile. I figured if they had staying power there must be a reason. Gave it a shot. Good summer driving album.
*The Twilight Singers: Letterman. Immediate download. No regrets.
*30 Seconds to Mars: I was too curious about a Hollywood prettyboy like Jared Leto posing in a ridiculous pink mohawk and trying to say he was a serious musician to not see what it was like. And I'll give the dude his credit -- Fight Club is not the only cool thing he's ever been involved with.
So sometimes it can really pay off to step outside of the comfort zone and see what else is out there, music wise. However, I have to say with full disclosure that my music library has at least twice as many of these exploration artists or albums that turned out to be mostly awful. But I try not to think about those so much....
Sunday, October 2, 2011
The Annual Dop Memorial Excerpt Post
We're closing in on October 5th here, which many of the people who might sporadically read the blog should recognize as the date my sister Erin finally lost her battle with cancer. Seven years ago, which isn't an anniversary number that carries any added gravity on its own, but just seems like such a long time for us to have been without her now.
Yesterday I went to see the movie "50/50" with Nephew #1. It felt more than serendipitous for that movie to be released within a week of the date she died, so I really wanted to go this weekend, but I didn't want to alone. Ideally I would have gone with my sister but it was her weekend to work and I was too anxious to see it to wait for another time. Luckily Nephew #1 got off his McDonald's shift in time to make a matinee (and when did Andover matinee prices go up to $7.00, by the way?), and he really would have been the next best choice for me as far as who I'd see it with; after all, I'm his godfather and she was his godmother. He was ten years old when it was all happening and a pretty bright ten at that, which meant he was all too aware of what was going on at the time. After seeing the movie -- which is excellent, by the way, if you can stand more than a few jokes about medicinal marijuana -- I wanted to ask him how much he remembered about that time. But he's a senior now and had to read "Beowulf" over the weekend, so he had places to be. Yeesh. Can I just say how glad I am I'm not the student anymore?
I really expected this year was going to be acutely painful for me, with the recent death of my dog still compounding all of my emotion related to this. But so far that hasn't really been the case, and honestly I'm kind of disappointed by that. A part of me wants the hurt. Feeling that pain again brings me back to that experience with real clarity. That specific October pain is now a part of my relationship with her, and if time is separating me from that and the pain is beginning to fade, it makes me a little concerned to think it will be something else I might have to face giving up eventually. And you know, damn it, I've already had quite a bit taken from me here as it is.
I was working this out yesterday over e-mail with a friend of mine, who pointed out that maybe, just maybe, Erin would probably be looking down about now and wishing I would just try being happy instead of looking for ways to trigger the pain again just for the sake of reliving it. Which brings us to this year's quotation. Last year I posted a short excerpt from the memoir manuscript I wrote in the aftermath of the whole experience, and decided this year I would again. To reflect the idea that maybe (!) I'm better off looking for happy instead of hurt, I'm presenting a passage that shows my cousin trying to make that same point with me several years ago, right in the middle of everything while it was happening.
**********
I was dreading summer vacation that year since I was fully expecting Erin to die before the fall, but at the same time I couldn’t wait to get out of school. As the year ended I was caught in a pattern of bizarre dreams, many of which were all too fresh in my memory after waking. A lot of these dreams had a recurring theme -- the people in my life were pitying me behind my back, but few ever stepped forth to do or say anything about it. On rare occasions someone would, doing exactly what I needed even though I hadn’t known myself that I needed it. It felt so comforting to know someone cared, even if it was only in a dream.
But too often this wasn’t happening in the real world, and this misplaced feeling of abandonment carried over into my daily life. As the last day of school drew closer I became increasingly withdrawn, ignoring several of my friends, not wanting to give them the chance to do it to me first. I convinced myself most of the people at school weren’t going to be there for me and weren’t worth the time or effort it would take for me to hate them over it. I bitterly thought I was doing them a favor by cutting them off, which would make it easier for them to pretend my problems and I didn’t exist, saving them the trouble of making promises of support they never intended to keep.
The last day of school was a harsh reminder of the previous year when Erin’s cancer had returned, so I just wanted to pack my classroom and get the holy hell out of there. I spent most of the day plugged into my iPod, a perfect way to completely ignore people. If someone tried to talk to me, all I had to do was give them a blank stare and say “What?” which was usually met with a laugh and a dismissive wave. I couldn’t avoid everyone though, and a few people got past my defenses. They wouldn’t simply wish me a good summer, but included some generic attempt at wisdom, like “Enjoy the time you have with your sister,” or “I hope your family has a lot of good times together.” Which I usually took as “Thank God I’m not you.”
Was it fair for me to categorically write people off this way? Not at all. There were definitely cases where it applied, but it was far from being as universal as I made myself believe. But that’s where I was. Anger feels better than despondency. It’s a dark way to look at things, but it’s true.
From: Kelly
Date: June 5, 2004
I don't see anything so weird about feeling less close with people who really can’t have any idea what you're going through, no matter how nice they are and how much they want to help. I'm sure it's hard to get nothing but pity from people who probably would rather be anywhere than standing there thinking about what to say. That doesn't mean they don't care about you, it's just uncomfortable for people to go from daily banter to serious issues. So maybe you're catching weird vibes from others and that’s what is making you avoid them. It might not be you, or at least not all you. Anyway, God knows you have every right to be having a difficult time dealing emotionally with everything and to go back and forth between something so serious as Erin's cancer and daily conversation. So don't beat yourself up. I just hope you aren't keeping yourself from enjoying everyday things. I'm sure Erin would want you to continue to have normal daily pleasures such as moronic and unimportant fun conversation with your friends.
**********
Okay, so you see what I mean about pain? Just pray you never experience anything like my family had to go through. It's not pretty.
But now maybe this week I'm just going to acknowledge that this awful thing happened once, and that it more or less dismantled what my life was at the time. But instead of dwelling on it, I'm just going to keep my head up and notice that most of life and the world surrounding me now really isn't all that bad.
After all, life happens the way it does, and sometimes it sucks. But we keep on living it anyway, because sometimes it doesn't.
Yesterday I went to see the movie "50/50" with Nephew #1. It felt more than serendipitous for that movie to be released within a week of the date she died, so I really wanted to go this weekend, but I didn't want to alone. Ideally I would have gone with my sister but it was her weekend to work and I was too anxious to see it to wait for another time. Luckily Nephew #1 got off his McDonald's shift in time to make a matinee (and when did Andover matinee prices go up to $7.00, by the way?), and he really would have been the next best choice for me as far as who I'd see it with; after all, I'm his godfather and she was his godmother. He was ten years old when it was all happening and a pretty bright ten at that, which meant he was all too aware of what was going on at the time. After seeing the movie -- which is excellent, by the way, if you can stand more than a few jokes about medicinal marijuana -- I wanted to ask him how much he remembered about that time. But he's a senior now and had to read "Beowulf" over the weekend, so he had places to be. Yeesh. Can I just say how glad I am I'm not the student anymore?
I really expected this year was going to be acutely painful for me, with the recent death of my dog still compounding all of my emotion related to this. But so far that hasn't really been the case, and honestly I'm kind of disappointed by that. A part of me wants the hurt. Feeling that pain again brings me back to that experience with real clarity. That specific October pain is now a part of my relationship with her, and if time is separating me from that and the pain is beginning to fade, it makes me a little concerned to think it will be something else I might have to face giving up eventually. And you know, damn it, I've already had quite a bit taken from me here as it is.
I was working this out yesterday over e-mail with a friend of mine, who pointed out that maybe, just maybe, Erin would probably be looking down about now and wishing I would just try being happy instead of looking for ways to trigger the pain again just for the sake of reliving it. Which brings us to this year's quotation. Last year I posted a short excerpt from the memoir manuscript I wrote in the aftermath of the whole experience, and decided this year I would again. To reflect the idea that maybe (!) I'm better off looking for happy instead of hurt, I'm presenting a passage that shows my cousin trying to make that same point with me several years ago, right in the middle of everything while it was happening.
**********
I was dreading summer vacation that year since I was fully expecting Erin to die before the fall, but at the same time I couldn’t wait to get out of school. As the year ended I was caught in a pattern of bizarre dreams, many of which were all too fresh in my memory after waking. A lot of these dreams had a recurring theme -- the people in my life were pitying me behind my back, but few ever stepped forth to do or say anything about it. On rare occasions someone would, doing exactly what I needed even though I hadn’t known myself that I needed it. It felt so comforting to know someone cared, even if it was only in a dream.
But too often this wasn’t happening in the real world, and this misplaced feeling of abandonment carried over into my daily life. As the last day of school drew closer I became increasingly withdrawn, ignoring several of my friends, not wanting to give them the chance to do it to me first. I convinced myself most of the people at school weren’t going to be there for me and weren’t worth the time or effort it would take for me to hate them over it. I bitterly thought I was doing them a favor by cutting them off, which would make it easier for them to pretend my problems and I didn’t exist, saving them the trouble of making promises of support they never intended to keep.
The last day of school was a harsh reminder of the previous year when Erin’s cancer had returned, so I just wanted to pack my classroom and get the holy hell out of there. I spent most of the day plugged into my iPod, a perfect way to completely ignore people. If someone tried to talk to me, all I had to do was give them a blank stare and say “What?” which was usually met with a laugh and a dismissive wave. I couldn’t avoid everyone though, and a few people got past my defenses. They wouldn’t simply wish me a good summer, but included some generic attempt at wisdom, like “Enjoy the time you have with your sister,” or “I hope your family has a lot of good times together.” Which I usually took as “Thank God I’m not you.”
Was it fair for me to categorically write people off this way? Not at all. There were definitely cases where it applied, but it was far from being as universal as I made myself believe. But that’s where I was. Anger feels better than despondency. It’s a dark way to look at things, but it’s true.
From: Kelly
Date: June 5, 2004
I don't see anything so weird about feeling less close with people who really can’t have any idea what you're going through, no matter how nice they are and how much they want to help. I'm sure it's hard to get nothing but pity from people who probably would rather be anywhere than standing there thinking about what to say. That doesn't mean they don't care about you, it's just uncomfortable for people to go from daily banter to serious issues. So maybe you're catching weird vibes from others and that’s what is making you avoid them. It might not be you, or at least not all you. Anyway, God knows you have every right to be having a difficult time dealing emotionally with everything and to go back and forth between something so serious as Erin's cancer and daily conversation. So don't beat yourself up. I just hope you aren't keeping yourself from enjoying everyday things. I'm sure Erin would want you to continue to have normal daily pleasures such as moronic and unimportant fun conversation with your friends.
**********
Okay, so you see what I mean about pain? Just pray you never experience anything like my family had to go through. It's not pretty.
But now maybe this week I'm just going to acknowledge that this awful thing happened once, and that it more or less dismantled what my life was at the time. But instead of dwelling on it, I'm just going to keep my head up and notice that most of life and the world surrounding me now really isn't all that bad.
After all, life happens the way it does, and sometimes it sucks. But we keep on living it anyway, because sometimes it doesn't.
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