I have this journal, so I may as well use it. And whilst I have my doubts that anyone, aside from myself, really reads this or even cares about what I put here, the fact of the matter is that it is my journal -my own little corner of whichever blogging service I choose to use- and if I so desire to ramble on pointlessly at 0315 on a Friday morning, I am well within my rights to do so here.
Besides, there is something freeing about a great blank text field to enter all these words into, without the constraint of a paltry 140 characters. Never mind the fact that, as this is not showing up on anyone else's page unless they go looking for it, I feel a little less guilty about running my proverbial mouth.
And yet, it seems, that all the words flitting about my head earlier have abandoned me. Frustrating. But I think with a bit of work -namely, that required to just keep typing, just keep typing, typing typing typing- I can find them again; or, perhaps, find better ones.
What I am tired of is using a blog (journal, online diary, what have you) for pointless whinging. I look back over some of my older entries and have... well, a number of regrets. It seems so negative, so virulently lacking in any positive thought whatsoever, that it's a wonder anyone could ever stand to be around me in any form. So on that note, I am going to try to be more positive. Which includes not putting myself down for not always being positive, and occasionally touching on painful subjects that, whilst at first glance may seem negative, are really far more positive to think on than the incessant complaining of prior posts.
It has been just over a year since my grandfather died.
If I were my mother, I could tell you the exact date, the very spot where she pulled over on the side of the road when my brother called to tell us, and who was with us at the time. Some days, I am grateful I did not inherit her memory. I merely know it was at the end of February, we were coming home early from drill team practise, and that the normally boisterous atmosphere was suddenly very subdued. Well, up until Mom told the cadets to please not be quiet on her behalf, because she didn't expect the world to stop just because of her.
In fact, the last drill team practise in February, she did point out the exact spot, which is how I know she would know this.
And from there, it's something of a blur. I don't think it really hit home until competition that year that he was really gone.
For the record? Last year we were complete underdogs. Mostly a bunch of kids, with less than a handful of experienced cadets. The brilliant, wonderful man who had been with the team since he helped start it as a cadet himself had just been diagnosed with cancer and started on treatment and couldn't come down to competition with us. None of us adults were really feeling into it, but the cadets wanted to compete so badly, and we just didn't have it in us to say no. There was no way we were going to get higher than last place.
We came in second; a few points shy of first. Disney, eat your heart out.
And the first thing Mom says to me when we get back to the barracks after the awards were handed out was that she couldn't wait to get home and show Grandpop the trophy.
I'm not sure why I'm writing this now.
I'm sure someone could point out some deep, intrinsic connection between drill team and competition and this own personal tragedy. Or perhaps the fact that I'm feeling introspective -which is a frequent thing for me; I'm a pure introvert. The fact that a lot of my older entries expressed a great deal of anger and frustration at my grandfather likely plays a part. (I will not sugarcoat things now by saying he was a dear, sweet old man who didn't deserve any of my anger or frustration. He was stubborn and willful and set in his ways, and it would do him a disservice to deny any of that. And yet.)
The truth is that I have a deep and abiding hatred of spring. As far as I'm concerned, there is very little good that can come of the time between late February and early June. Oh, sure, you get the little high points like Regional Drill Team Competition, which is a must if you want to have a hope of getting to the National Competition. But mostly, I have found spring to be a slog of interminable hardship and misfortune in my life, and I would desperately like to meet whichever deity or power has decided that my lot is to experience such things during a season often described as being full of hope and new beginnings.
For one: Easter is coming. If I were my mother, I would be able to tell you the exact date my father left us. I am not my mother. All I know is that it happened close to Easter of my eighth grade year (don't ask for a numerical year; I don't feel up to the maths) and that is that. Easter sucks. And while I know him leaving has fuck-all nothing to do with me, it still hurts and it still makes the holiday just that much less pleasant.
For two: I got fired at the end of last May. Whilst I will own up to my own failings, I would like to point out that it is March, I have no job, and I am looking at this coming April to be my last semester of college barring a financial aid miracle or an employment miracle. Either way: Miracles. It's spring. I'm not holding my breath.
For three: Two(?) years ago, at about this time, I should have been graduating boot camp. Instead, I was diagnosed with a fracture in my back and had to cease training. I never finished training. I will, barring a miracle -note the frequency with which I have need of them, relative to the frequency with which they appear in my life-, never be a Marine. Despite having found alternative potentials for my future, the fact remains that having the door closed on my longest held and deepest aspiration is, to say the least, still disheartening. (To be fair, anyone who has ever seen me in real life would possibly be boggling at the idea I could ever be a Marine. Skinny, geeky, quiet. Not exactly the sort you look at and think "Future Jarhead".)
For four, because I like fours and nearly typed that as Four four: Two years ago, at about this time, I should have been getting ready to graduate college and get commissioned in the Marines. (Do we notice a theme?) Instead, five years ago, at about this time, I was home on Spring Break and finding out that I had three bones fractured in my foot. (Again, theme, noticing?) By the end of April, I was home for good.
Perhaps I'm just being over dramatic in thinking that the universe likes to shit on my springtime, and that bad things happen other times of year. It's entirely possible. My Grandmom died the day after my birthday. I'm not quite sure when Granny died -I was very young and do not have my mother's memory, as established- but I recall it being very cold for her funeral, so I imagine it was winter. And my brother went to West Point starting in the early summer, which was a great injustice to a younger sibling who had been but a year behind him in school and was now facing senior year without that very constant presence in their life.
Seriously. I held it together until the lunch the day we dropped him off. At which point no amount of internal fortitude could keep me from crying quite quietly into my sandwich. (Ham on rye. I only remember this because I only eat ham as far as lunch meat goes, and I abhor rye but thought it was normal wheat bread, which I will only eat under duress a.k.a. they didn't have white. Stupid fancy luncheons.) I was apparently doing an admirable job of silent distress; Mom didn't even notice until another parent discreetly pointed it out to her.
For the record: Things have never been quite the same between my brother and I since. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I think bad. But sometimes he's like the brother I remember from high school. And sometimes he's better. And I'm certainly not the way I was in high school (for one, I'm a good two stone lighter). So... It's different, but it's okay. I'd rather have him the way he is now than the way he was even six months ago. There's that, at least.
And for now, I think, it's time to sew up the proverbial vein.
I imagine this looks very much like the pointless whinging I said at the outset that I wanted to avoid.
Perhaps it is.
But from this angle, it looks more like almost an hour's worth of catharsis.
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