SILENCE IS SO FREAKING LOUD!!

They say that the first year is always the hardest. Turns out 'they' were right. The idea of turning my feelings into words have never been a hard thing for me to do. I love to talk and I like to believe that somewhere, somebody is affected in a way that I am when I read something brilliant. This isn't brilliant though, its not a game. This is real. Its me. My feelings, from the heart.

I used to have dreams that one day broken people would rule the Earth. For my own sanity, as well as others? I hope that never happens. Thats the thing though, about my story.. I was broken beyond belief and I was never good at standing tall. Isn't that the point though, the point of living? Nothing is ever perfect and nothing is more real than reality. Honestly? I'm just surprised I made it a whole year without doing something completely wreckless. But nothing's ever been this big before. NOTHING is bigger than death. I couldn't take care of myself and I let myself go. For the first time in my adult life, I clammed. For those of you who don't know what the expression "clammed" means, its simple really. I shut myself out to the world. There really is no easier way to explain it.

Friday night of October 2nd, 2009. As much as I'd love to forget this day ever happened, it's a string of days in a week that I'll never forget. I had cooked a late dinner, my brother had come home after a few days of partying in Michigan and he decided he was going to have a party. A normality in our home when it came to David. Weekend events in the barn. A few hours later as I sat on the computer talking to friends, writing and what-have-you, my brother came inside, hopped up on the counter and we discussed my mom's divorce (something that had been going on for the past year) we were losing our home and that fight had gotten ugly, quick. Man... I could remember that conversation word for word. He was getting annoying and I told him I didn't care, because I didn't. I didn't care about the divorce anymore. You pick your battles, you know? And I was starting to realize that it wasn't mine anymore. He got mad and than we said goodnight. For a year, I've carried the guilt of how this conversation ended. I made him mad because I said I didn't care. Before I went to bed, I had checked on him and he was fine. We made up, and he wasn't mad that I didn't care about our mom's divorce and I wasn't mad that he'd kept asking me about it. But thats how we've always been. Fighting one minute and best friends again the next. Guilt is a hell of a thing.

Saturday morning I woke up, my sister and mom were already awake, David was still asleep. I was in the bathroom, doing my morning routine and thats when I heard it. You don't forget something like that you know? The screams from a parent, the cries of a sibling. You don't just... get over it. My brother was dead. I was screaming for him to wake up and I was pushing him, trying to get him to wake up.. I couldn't breathe and I felt like nothing was happening. It was too unreal for my brain to process. It wasn't real life. It wasn't MY life... except it was.

And as far as 'what happened goes' I won't go into it because quite frankly? Its none of your god damn business. This town is full of people who love the talk. THEY LOVE IT! If it was the truth? They'd distort it into something else. Nobody is a saint, so how dare you people for talking the way that you did. You know who you are, and you should feel ashamed.

After a week of hell and I mean HELL, I didn't want to be alone with anybody else. I didn't want to have to talk about anything. I didn't want anybody, I just wanted him back. I wanted my brother and I wanted him to be fine and tell me it was a joke. One like we'd played on my sister and like so many others, taken too far. But it wasn't. I started going to lunches on a weekly basis with friends and work was hell for me when I went back. I wanted to stay home, but being there just wasn't an option. I didn't like my mom. I didn't like how she was grieving because I didn't understand than that everybody gets through their own way. I was fresh in a game I was forced to play, and I wanted out.

For the first time in my life I learned what anxiety was. I fought hard when it came to denying I had a problem. I was fine. I was always 'fine'... until I wasn't anymore. There was one person though, and I have to give her credit. She helped me more than I will ever give her credit for. Linda would always question every 'fine' response. Like everybody else in my life though this past year though? I didn't want it. I didn't want the pity, which is what it felt like. I didn't want people telling me things like "it'll be okay, or everything happens for a reason" "his life ended, not yours." So I pushed her away along with anybody else that tried to help me along the way. I want to apologize to those people, because I didn't understand. Still don't, not really... as long as we're being honest.

I quit my job, I was fired from my job, I abandoned every friend I'd ever known and I hated being home surrounded by my family. But I was, if nothing else? I deserved the torture. It took me about maybe up until mid-summer before I could talk to anybody about David without crying, but I was so far in that it didn't matter. This was hell, and I was living it. And I was alone. Sometimes I loved it, and sometimes I wanted to kill myself. To quote one of my favorite authors, "Silence is so freaking loud!!" Depression is a fickle bitch, let me just start out by telling you that. Not only is the mind effected, but the body and spirit as well. Its like cancer. If you beat it, than you win... and if you don't?..

Tadaaaaa!

Gearing up for Nanowrimo! 30 Days and 30 nights of literary abandon! The highlight of every writers life! Check it out and get your nano ready! November is almost here!! http://www.nanowrimo.org/

-New Song-

waking up from an endless nightmare
pick up the phone
can you please come home
oh no.. I'm all alone..

How could you leave me all alone
where did you go
(all alone)
where did you go
(all alone)

I need to hear ; that you love me dear
I need to hear ; that you're not all alone
I need to hear ; hear that little laugh
I need to hear ; that you're coming back

how could you leave me all alone
where did you go
(all alone)
where did you go
(all alone)

screaming for the sound
and I can't see
the shadow that I am
this is all of me -ee

how could you leave me all alone
how could you
how could you leave me all alone

©Yolanda Curiel \\ Music Box

Happy 11 Months.

You want to know what bothers me the most? I don't remember what it was like. To be truely, genuinely happy for myself. I'm not talking about someone making my day a little brighter, or how I get when Donavin's around, or when someone compliments how well I write. I'm talking about when I'm alone and its just me, alone.

Apparently this is part of the "process" and I've "entered another stage" blah blah freakin blah blah! I just, I've never been this way. I'm THAT girl. I'm the girl who has the self esteem, the ego, everything. I look at my life and I feel like I wasted alot of time and time is just continually getting faster and faster.

I just, have alot going on uptown ya know? Too much to process sometimes, so I put it off till "later." I feel like I didn't let other people down, they expected this. I let myself down. I hate it. I hate this stupid feeling and I hate me right now. I HATE ME. I hate that I can't admit to myself outloud, on paper, on a fucking computer.. how I really feel about him.

Its a process, and I'm learning to breathe again.

Winds of Change.

September 2nd which means tomorrow will be the 3rd. On the 3rd day of every month I've found it hard not to think of what it is. An anniversary. Not one person would particularly want to celebrate, but one I find myself needing to celebrate every month. Thats a strange word to use to describe it though, "celebrate" Its not exactly a celebration. More of a remembering. Saying that I don't "remember" though throughout the month is also a false statement.


I've been dreading this month since this past October. Nothing is more scary than getting older (Sept 7th is my birthday) and nothing is more frightening than the realization that you're getting older alone. Its depressing, is what it is. I'm not by any means a depressing person, I'll be honest for the most part? I don't even think people really like me as much as they say. That of course being a result as to the fact that I don't like me... sometimes anyway. You know the saying "You can be in a room full of people you love, who love you and still feel alone?" (something like that) Yeah.. thats about where we're at for the month of September. I always wanted to be alone, until I was.


I just have alot of anxiety going into this month. I hate it when I do that, I hate when I set myself up for my own defeat. Alot of things are happening and moving fast. Don't get me wrong? I love change. I love what it does to a person, how it feels. How everythings different all of a sudden and than its not. I just can't get over this anxiety lately.


Its funny because growing up, this was MY mother. To a tee, always preparing for the worst so that she was never disappointed. We call that "Negative Nancy" "Grumpy Gus" and the always famous "Debbie Downer!" Growing up though I've always been a cross between pessimistic and optmistic. I don't think the glass is half empty or half full, I think its just a stupid glass. Good or bad I believe that if its meant to happen, it will.

Its September and I'm feeling this way? I'mnot supposed to be feeling this way because I'm supposed to be working on getting better. Getting over the fact that when people die, you can't change it... no matter how hard to try, or how much faith you put in believing that there "might" be a possibility. It just, doesn't always go as planned. Change. When its good its good, and when its against your will? It fucking sticks man...

I'm tired of being followed by this stupid dark cloud, but I don't know if I'm ready for it to go away.

Make sense?

Dont think or judge, just listen.

Of course I read this book in less than a a day. It goes without saying, sometimes you really can't judge a book by its cover. In the past I've been turned off by Sarah Dessen novels because, like with movies? Chick Flicks don't do it for me. Having read a few books she's written in the past, my speculation was the same going into this. I had no expectations other than my own.

Kind of glad I didn't pass this one up. The story itself is very immature to me, but what I loved the most? Like with my 'not' husband Christopher Rice? You can relate to alot of the story and not just through the main characters eyes. From Annabel to Owen, Whitney to Clarke and even Emily to Sophie. There was|is something in it for every type of audience.

I have a strong appreciation for music and going into this, that appreciation and passion really stood tall. Music heals and all that stuff.

What can I say? It left me inspired, which as a writer is great!

Of course I had a field day with all the quotes I connected to, and thought I'd share!



Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overtakes … blotting out the future.

--

If you could just be nice, then you wouldn't have to worry about arguments at all. but being nice wasn't as easy as it seemed, especially when the rest of the world could be so mean

--

I wondered which was harder, in the end. The act of telling, or who you told it to. Or maybe if, when you finally got it out, the story was really all that mattered

--

There comes a time in every life when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn to know the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.

--
There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together

--

I was beginning to see, though, that the unknown wasn't always the greatest thing to fear. The people who know you best can be risker, because the words they say and things they think have the potential to be not only scary but true, as well

--

Silence is so freaking loud!!

--

So many versions of just one memory, and yet none of them were right or wrong. Instead, they were all pieces. Only when fitted together, edge to edge, could they even begin to tell the whole story."

--

It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school

--

All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.

--

No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.
--

Harder to get in than out, like so little else

--

The past did affect the present and the future, in ways you could see and a million ones you couldn't. Time wasn't a thing you could divide easily; there was no defined middle or beginning or end. I could pretend to leave the past behind, but it would not leave me

--

I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more

--

"This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don’t jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going."

--

Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you."
--

So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole."

--

Like a word on a page that you’ve printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign. And you feel scared for a second, like you’ve lost something, even if you’re not sure what it is

--

I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between

--

music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

--

The thing is, it's a big deal when you finally get the chance to do the one thing you want to do-need to do-more than anything. It can kind of scare the crap out of you.

--

I understood now. This voice, the one that had been trying to get my attention all this time, calling out to me, begging me to hear it -- it wan't Will's. It was mine
--

All you could do was take on as much weight as you can bear. And if you're lucky, there's someone close enough by to shoulder the rest.
--

instead, we just sat there, together but really apart, watching a show about a stranger and all her secrets, while keeping our own to ourselves, as always.

--

"Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said.
Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though."

--

She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed., haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere

--
All Quotes From:
Just Listen - [a Novel by Sarah Dessen]