jesus, i'm random.

[juxtapose]

you ever have one of those days when absolutely everything goes perfectly? you feel great, the weather is perfect (i hear that happens every few years here in chicago), your life is going well, you're in love with someone who loves you, money isn't a problem, you love your job, you get the recomended 6-8 hours of sleep. ever happen to you? yeah, me neither. maybe im just too picky. or maybe its just that every time i order a cheeseburger the mustard i specifically asked to be excluded magically found its way under the bun. eh, who knows. i sure as hell dont.

this "i" that i speak of is me, krissy, a college student from south of the south burbs of chicago(decide where you think the south burbs end on a map and point to that spot, then sneeze, and where your finger ends up is about where i'm from) i have a high tollerance for pain, and a low tollerance for ignorance. i'm not sure why i decided to make this journal. it just kind of happened i suppose. after reading a few entries of mine im sure you'll pick up on my lack of capitalization and the fact that i don't always put 's where they belong. and i cuss. sorry if it bothers anyone. its how i speak, in this case i'll write how i speak. its part of me, part of my story, which i suppose i should get going on.

i'll start with today. as i mention people or places i'll fill in information thats necesary as opposed to first giving you an overview of my life thus far, because who the hell cares that i had a bird named Baby Carriage when i was two? so here we go...

mornings in my house are never as calm as i'd like them to be. first of all, my mom cant control the volume of her voice. especially when i'm sleeping. my mom and 15 year old brother leave for work and school at 7:30. my dad is usually awake by this point, but today he was gone to a doctor's appointment. he has lots of doctors appointments seeing as he's been a cancer patient for the past 20 months or so. but don't picture him as a frail, sickly, poor soul. not my dad. he's something special, he's beat cancer three times now, and currently just finshed another set of treatments that have successfully (...so far) rid him of his cancer. he inspires me...more on this later. so after laying in bed trying my damndest to not hear the ruckus downstairs i finally drift back to sleep, waking for the final time at 9. its nice being on winter break from thanksgiving until january. yahoo for trimesters! so i get my ass out of bed, get ready, go to my dentist appointment, eat lunch, and finish my christmas shopping for the family members im buying for. i like shopping, especially for other people's gifts. i like the salvation army bell ringers. they're always cheery, regardles of the temperature. i always give money on my out, smile on the way in, "merry christmas" and a dollar on the way out. always a dollar though. i know what its like to be in a tight space during the hollidays (remember...cancer...) so i smile and try to keep it from happening to someone else. i never did that until i found myself in that possition of need. i mean sure, when i was a little kid it was the coolest thing when mom let me put a quarter in the little red bucket but i sure as hell didnt know why i was doing it. funny how things work out like that isnt it? well i've been volunteered to cook dinner, so more to come later.

 

[juxtapose]

so in reading my previous post i thought about my habit of saying "merry christmas" and then giving a dollar. who am i to know if my bell ringer is christian? what if hes jewish? maybe i should change to "happy hollidays". one of my best friends is jewish. saying "there's never a dull moment" is a bit cliche, but i can't think of any other way to describe her. should a moment be particularly quiet or dull, rachel will just make a random noise shocking enough to send the entire room into laughter. the fact that these often grotesque and strikingly loud sounds come from a petite cross country runner who stands five foot and a bit only adds to the shock and amusement. people usually look in my direction first, because, well, im the loud one. i just shake my head and continue to love her. we only met at the end of this past august. i moved into college two weeks before the rest of the first year students (we cant be called freshmen anymore because some girls got pissed off...or so i hear) because i was going to play soccer. my roommate, stef, a volleyball player also moved in that day. then there was the mysterious girl who moved in upstairs. we didn't meet her until the next day. this was rachel. stef, rachel, and i were the only three girls living in our suite for those first two weeks. our personalities worked well together and by the time the rest of the 15 girls in our suite had moved in we had already formed our friendship. i still tease that i had no choice but to befriend them or go crazy. but in reality, i wouldn't chose any two other girls to be with.

see, the second day of three-a-day practices (where were incredibly intense and gruelling) i woke up and went to my 6 am training session. i had eaten breakfast and was back in my room by 8:30. stef and rachel were at their practices. i heard my nextel vibrating against my desk and istantly grabbed it in hopes one of my friends from home was calling or two waying me. instead, i just had a voicemail. i assumed it would be a tellemarketer leaving the same message as always "we're sorry we missed you. please call us regarding an important business matter at 1-800-blahblah" (minus the "blahblah" thats the exact message...no lie) because im well aware that 90% of my friends are too lazy to be awake and calling me at 8am. the message turned out to be from my cousin, which was incredibly surprising because she also has a nextel, so why wouldn't she just two way me? she had. but being at practice, i obviously didn't answer. so she called because she needed to talk to me immediately. one of my best friends from high school was dead, killed in a car accident near his college. we're rather close so she wanted to be the one there when i found out. i cried. something i rarely do. its not that im ashamed of crying, i just don't do it. i didn't cry when i found out my dad was sick. didn't cry when i tore cartilage in my knee. didn't cry when my boyfriend of a year and a half broke up with me even though he was crying as he did it. but this was different. this was what i imagine it feels like to be shot. stef and rachel were at practice, and even though we hadn't really started our friendship i wished they were there. my best friend from home was in class, couldn't talk to him. so i called my dad. he answered immediately. i tried to say it, tried to say "dad, john is dead". my mouth moved but the words were caught somewhere in that part of me that wanted to believe that if i didnt say them, they couldnt be true. i strained to say it, then to just say something, anything, to make a noise. the sound never came. he hung up on me. i took another sobbing breath and redailed my number. he answered and without a "hello" or "dad its me" i told him of the source of my pain. he knew. he was on the other line with my mom, who was on the other line with the mother of a friend of mine attending the same college as i on a football scholarship. they were trying to determine when would be the best time and how to tell us. we already knew. the three of us from my high school who had moved in early for sports knew within six hours of the actual accident. none of us were told by our parents. i spent an hour and a half on the phone with my dad. i rarely spoke. only sobbed and tried to calm myself and be strong. he, in turn, was also silent. knowing that i was crying to someone other than myself was help enough. by this time i relized it was 10:00. thirty minutes until my next training session. i had to calm myself quickly. so i did. the tears stopped. i told my dad i needed to take a shower and then head to practice. he let me go, and then promptly called my coach against my wishes. she called me aside before training and talked to me about what had happened, telling me to not even consider the team in any decision i made in the coming weeks, to take care of myself and friends and family first. thank god. i knew i wasnt physicaly capable of training. she offered to hold nothing against me if i just wanted to go back to my room or skip the next practices. i instead stayed to watch. that afternoon i returned to my room and told stef i would be going home the following afternoon for my friends wake. she was shocked. shocked that it happened. and shocked at my lack of visable emotion. looking back, i was shocked too.