Journal Entry #9: Memory and Heart vs. Potassium and Water

Night thirteen:

I guess by now any other person with any common sense would agree to the fact that you just don’t seem interested anymore. And I’ll admit that It took me a little while to come to terms with the fact that I only inserted the ‘I guess’ into the beginning of that sentence to humor what hopes that I have left.

I can’t believe that I am one of those people, actually caught in this situation. No offense to anybody, it’s just that it reinstates a standard that should never have been dismissed.

At this point, most people give up. But as what can sometimes be one of my flaws, you always have my benefit of the doubt, which is what you have always wanted me to give anyways. Whether I like it or not, I always stay optimistic in every situation; typically not to a fault, but with you that is another story. I just cannot stand it when people cannot and/or will not see the good in bad situations and honestly, in every situation. I’m not saying that it is easy to find yourself happy in a moment of unhappiness, but that moment of unhappiness will be much more beneficial if you pick out the good lessons out of it and amplify on their teachings. I practice this religiously. I believe that there is a good message beneath everything, as well as a bad one, and I always try to recognize them.

I got a few words out of you; fewer than I would have liked. You sounded too stressed for anyone’s own good. I’ll never let myself get upset at you when things get hectic like that. It’s unfair. The morality of understanding when not to put more stress on a certain individual (When they clearly don’t need it or cannot handle it) far outweighs the morality of me wanting to feel a better comfort at the current moment that I’m in.

I find myself in daydreams quite often; I’m one of those people; I’ll drift off to the thoughts of so many different things. Often-time I picture what it’s like to be right there next to you, instead of sitting next to all of the miles that are between us. Distance is one horrible and apathetic thing. It’s just as bad as anything that you’ll find on this earth, and no different than any emotion; when whatever on the opposite end of it has meaning to you, there is more attached to it than just a stretch of land or water that its simple name depicts it to have. And that feeling tears at you from your inside and there just is not a damn thing that you can do to guard yourself from it.

A lot of people try to build walls between their emotions in these types of instances, but they never understand how much better that it is ultimately to just let them in. They numb themselves, instead of letting their feelings feel; they focus on the first and foremost feeling of discomfort from that distance and its miniscule disheartening abilities, instead of focusing on the whole picture and the greatness that the whole picture precedes, and then they take that chance of greatness away from themselves out of fear from the first.

So while you stand there unguarded to this discomfort, all that you can do is find yourself falling into its emotion more and more, and becoming lost in it more and more every time that you think about who or what you are missing on the opposite end of that distance. You are just another countless victim of it; another one on its list, unless you can find that one thing: Closure, although it doesn’t guarantee a pure and entire satisfaction of that discomfort. I have found that the world and the majority of the people in it are lacking this incredibly, especially when it really counts and is really needed, and actually, more so when it really counts and is really needed. And not just the presence of closure from a simple branched out idea like simply missing someone or something. I mean closure, overall and as a whole, period, encompassing every emotion which includes those smaller branches such as missing someone or something (i.e. Missing someone versus loving someone).

A lot of people will not or do not think to help someone through a break up; especially one that they were just involved in themselves. You see, most of the time people say their goodbyes (If even that) and they leave each other stranded; feeling like they are suffering from the next best thing to heroin withdraws. When you love and/or care about someone that much, it’s almost no different anyways; they are just different pains with equally devastating effects. But I just do not understand it. Why just leave this person? Why just let them suffer? Why just say that “I’m sorry, there is nothing that I can do?” There is something that you can do! Why not help them? You can leave someone, but help them through it still while keeping yourself behind the lines that should not be crossed. One of my best friends is practicing this as I type this, every minute, of every day. He tells a girl and makes it clear that they are not together and that they won’t be together anymore; their relationship is done. And it is crucial for him to be honest about it, and also just as crucial for the other person that he is saying it to, to understand it and to honestly believe it, or it can be disastrous, obviously. But he is still there to talk to her. He still tells her that everything is going to be okay, and she believes it, because it is him telling her that. He still tells her that he does miss her, because he does, but he does not take it to the point where he gets her hopes up, tricks her, or lets her trick herself over a possible reconnection with each other. He just lets her know that he does care. He still tells her that she is worth every good thing in the world, because she is; just because he does not want to be with her does not by any means mean that she is worthless to anyone else, and that will never stand true, and he makes sure that she knows it. And every night, she sleeps well instead of having her face shoved into a pillow, crying herself to sleep. It doesn’t fix the initial fact that they are no longer together, but it fixes all of the horrible confusions that most break ups cause within a select individual’s mind. Like the typical response of, “There must be something wrong with me if they don’t want me.” That is such an unfair and untrue statement to let someone think, especially when they are innocent. Of course every person is different and you will have to use different approaches and techniques to do this, but that also should be obvious. You see, you owe this to this person for them having opened up to you and have given so much to you. You do not just walk away and leave someone stranded. You do not just turn your back on someone. You call yourself strong because you simply walked away from someone like this, in this specific type of situation? If so, you need to revise your definition of ‘strong,’ because it is so ironically one of the weakest definitions and meanings that you could attach to the word. I learned this from when my family turned their backs on my stepfather, which led to the death of him, and this is why I hold the saying so close. I bet so many people have learned that from someone as well, but the worst part is, they all seem to forget down the road somewhere. The “you’ll never be forgotten’s” and the “(Insert name here) will be in our hearts forever,” they just seem to dissipate over a period of time and gradually, people stop practicing or even thinking about what they have learned from that person’s death. Sadly, I have seen it happen far too many times.

I remember when I was seventeen years old, I wrote a bulletin on MySpace calling my entire high school out on their carelessness over a certain subject. We all had a dear friend who died in a car accident. His name was Robbie Buddington. The story that I was told was that he and another one of my friends were driving home from school and either an ember from a cigarette or a cigar that they were smoking lit a firework’s fuse and caused it to explode in the truck. The driver panicked and crashed into a cement light fixture, seeing that he didn’t know just what was going on. Robbie’s door was somehow jammed shut and the car quickly set a fire. The driver jumped out thinking that Robbie’s door could open, and once he noticed that Robbie was still inside, he ran back to the car and with every ounce of strength that he had in him, he tried to pull Robbie out from the window. But when the driver reached in and pulled out, most of his skin was already burnt and gone from his arms and hands from the fire; it was that intense already. Unfortunately, despite as hard as he tried, the driver could not save Robbie. Someone who had pulled over even had to run in and pull the driver off of the car, because he would not give up. Needless to say, Robbie passed away. This kid did not deserve it; this kid that never did a thing to anybody except brighten their days and make them smile. And unfortunately I’m sure that I sound as if I’m preaching, because I’m sure that just about all of us have a similar story to share. My high school was devastated though. He was a senior and I was a junior when it had originally happened. We all felt like we lost a big part of ourselves. And not because we all knew him so “dearly” like I stated. The fact is, most of us didn’t. But we heard enough about him to gather our ideas. Even his best friends literally had no stories to share where Robbie showed a weak moment, or even an angry or uncalled for moment. I saw him in the hallways always putting a smile on someone else’s face. I never once saw or heard of him doing anything remotely hurtful to anyone; only how his reaction to most people’s teasing only resulted in him teasing himself also, as to avoid unnecessary conflict; and it’s not like he had anyone to be scared of. He was even the ex-boyfriend of the first girl that I have ever been in love with and had an actual long-lasting relationship with, and he made her really happy while they were together; really happy. He was such a good person and the world lost something incredible. Half of the ‘men’ in the world don’t have the courage to do this, or even begin to do this. Most of you idiots think that taking a physical stance toward any and every single argument that is thrown your way is what makes you and defines you as a ‘man.’ No matter how minute or worthless the argument is. You are wrong, and you are hypocrisy at its worst.

All everyone could talk about was “Remember Robbie!” and “Carpe Diem!” He had this tattooed down his back. It translates to ‘seize the day.’ If you knew Robbie, you would understand that he lived up to that very, very well. But he changed everyone’s attitudes. Everyone became better. Everyone started to care about everyone else at the school, whether they knew them or not; regardless of race, or sex, different interests in life, or past histories. He started a movement in everybody. There are no words to describe how incredible that it was. But people change, and fucking A, I hate hearing and saying that so much. In time, they changed back, or maybe, and probably, they never changed permanently to begin with; they relapsed; they all forgot; they all stopped caring. Fights broke out again; constant arguing at lunches. It made me sick. I wrote something that I hoped would emotionally knock some sense into these people, and luckily it did, but so sadly, it was only for a short while again. It circulated all around MySpace and the MySpace’s of the kids at my high school. Everyone woke up finally and began acting out their wondrous ways again. They all began to live up to “Remember Robbie!” and “Carpe Diem!” They all began to show their hearts again. They all began to stop making fun of other people because well, look what happened to Robbie. They all began to apologize to the people that they had hurt. They all began to be better people again, until well…until they began to forget, again. I think that I can only name a few that still remember him like they had promised to. I just do not understand. How can you just forget somebody? Whether it is from love, death, or what have you? How?

This leads into my next topic: Detachment.


R.I.P. Robert P. Buddington
01/02/1987-3/04/2005