Allison's Private Journal

June 2, 2002

Dear Journal,

My cousin Stacey is dead.  She was just in a car accident.  I can’t believe it.  Mary called my mom + dad about 45 minutes ago and asked for one of them to go down to the police station with her, but both of them went and Harry came to watch us.  When Mary called, Dad told Mom that the cops wanted Mary to go to the scene of the accident.  I had this weird feeling and inside I knew she was dead, but put it behind me.

We were all watching T.V. when Dad called.  I answered it and gave it to Harry.  When he got off I asked what was up and he said it’s the worst kind of news you can get… Stacey’s dead.  He said she was driving too fast and went into the woods.  I didn’t really hear much else that he said after that because I was trying to let it sink in a little bit.  A minute after I came up here to my room

—–

A lot of shitty shit happens in life.  I got some not-so-great news today when I found out the guy who sent me flowers at work on Valentine’s Day was romancing a new girl with homemade Italian dinners and flowers through Facebook.  That sucked.  He beat my virtual discovery with a “let’s just be friends” text and joked that he didn’t want to be a douche I wrote about in my journal; I thought that was almost cute until I saw New Chicky’s public “THX” for the beautiful sendoff to Idaho, or wherever the hell she is headed, on his wall.  Anyways, my day has not been the greatest–but it certainly has not been the worst.

Before I got the break-off text from Twatty McTwatster, I spent the morning enjoying the sun and great company with two of my oldest, dearest friends.  Sophie and Aaron are my two closest friends from high school.  We had not spent time together, just the three of us, in years.  It was magical.  I had a wonderful night of adventure and a morning of complete contentment lounging on a porch in 60-degree weather with two people who have stood by my side through it all for almost nine years.  NINE YEARS.  That’s a long fucking time, and after all the crazy shit that’s happened in my life and theirs’ I only find myself loving both of them more.

I am blessed to be able to have this kind of day.  That’s right–a day when I got so mad I punched a wall and cried (only a little bit of course; tears should not be wasted when an asshole does you a favor).  I am blessed to have the opportunity to be upset by disappointments, to be made stronger by lessons learned, and to be brought back up–in fact, never to have fallen very far at all–by the unconditional love of the people in my life who matter.

Stacey’s death reminds me, as I hope it reminds you, that life, in all its imperfections, should not be taken for granted.  If you can read this, thank God right now.  You have SIGHT.  You can READ!  You can THINK!!  THINKING IS AWESOME!!!  So don’t let the downs get you… down.  I read that men are like rubber bands, but I think we should all try to be like bouncy balls.  The harder we get thrown to the ground, the higher we bounce back up.  You know what else?  If we want to keep bouncing up high, we have to KEEP getting thrown to the ground, really hard!  Ouch.

But that’s life.  It hurts.  It makes you cry and scream and want to sit on your ass watching reruns of Curb while shoving sour cream-covered Tostitos in your mouth until you can’t breath.  But you’ve got to put the bag down, bro.  You’ve got to throw on your running shoes and pound the pavement; breath in that fresh spring air while you do your body good and show off dat ass in those fabulous new running pants.  Love life like you should, and soon enough douchemaster will be crying alone in his apartment about how fucking hot you look in that photo from race day.  Stacey, and all the others who have been taken too soon, will look down and smile at how life, when others would cower, has only gotten you up, up, up.