Monday, January 29, 2007

Why does it hurt so bad?

I've often said to myself and others that I think my brother was the lucky one, having died so young. He doesn't have to go through the pain and trials of living, getting old and decrepit, losing more loved ones. That may sound morbid to some, but clearly if you think that, you have not been through what I have been through. I would gladly take his place. Matt is an irreplaceable link in a chain that is now broken and feels unrepairable.

Why is it always the people who live their lives how they want to and are essentially happy and content die? Is that called irony, or poetic justice, or cruelty? Should I ever reach a point of contentment, will I die?

In my mind I still find it impossible to fathom that he is gone. Physically I know I cannot talk to him face-to-face or on the phone. We won't go to the bar and chant "Wheeler!" ever again, he'll never give me snowboarding lessons again, or send me funny pictures of Murray accompanied by recordings of his voice. We'll never watch South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, or Futurama together ever again. We won't play Trivial Pursuit and get mad because Josh always got the easy questions. We'll never have another Chinese buffet eating contest, which was probably followed by some sort of a bowel sounds contest. No more C-walking contests. No more anything but hypothetical conversations with the air, dreams, and memories that I am completely and utterly terrified of forgetting (any more than I already haven't forgotten or written down, anyways).

My blogs seem sad, right? Well, they are, but I want everyone to know that I do have a light at the end of the tunnel, albeit dim. I don't believe I will be despaired forever. I'm just trying to come to terms with reality and decide what I need to do to make it better.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

TEXAS IS THE DEVIL!

Yeah, you read right. TEXAS IS THE DEVIL! I came to this melodious conclusion while I was driving home from work this afternoon, which took all of about five minutes. A quick and dirty mental content analysis told me that everything shitty that's happened to me and my family over the past two and a half years started when I moved to Lubbock in August of 2004. Because, really, before that life was good!

Before that I'd spent a year in Ruidoso, waiting tables and bartending, pseudo-dating a fun guy, going out and having a blast every weekend, driving up to Albuquerque to visit Eve, went to go see my dad in 2004, my friends came to visit me pretty often, etc. Generally it was a stupendous time in the life of Sarah, but unfortunately, Sarah has to have a purpose and a goal, or she feels worthless, so she went to graduate school.

First things first. Like two weeks before I moved, Richard hired Satan Incarnate, also known as the Psycho Hose Beast, otherwise known as the skank my brother Josh "dates". Josh met her at Le Bistro and the rest is sordid history. She's been nothing but bleach poured into an open and festering wound since they got together. I won't discuss it here to protect my brother's privacy, but it hasn't been good and has caused my mom more stress and heartache then I think anyone will ever realize. So this has been a continual challenge for two and a half years.

Then the following Spring I meet the man of my nightmares, who I will refer to as "Hick Boy". I met him while visiting Evelyn in Albuquerque, and found out that he didn't live far from Lubbock, so we started a "long distance" relationship, fell for each other (gag me), and then he asked me to move in with him in a terrible, terrible, smelly, poor excuse for a town in the Texas Panhandle. Well, it was either move there with Hick Boy, or back home to Ruidoso and continue the stress of a long distance relationship, so I took the plunge against my own judgment (notice I didn't say "good" judgment). Had I not been living in Texas, I don't think this relationship would have gone past the night we met.

Most of us know how that relationship turned out... For brevity's sake, let's just say f*cked up.

Shortly after that move, I got some bad news about my mom's health and returned home to be with my family with Hick Boy in tow. This was New Year's, 2005/2006, and the last time I got to see my brother, Matt, before he died on January 6, 2006. Still unbelievable to me. That event led to other traumatic events, mental processes, and behavior I don't care to elaborate on.

Hick Boy and I parted ways sometime around the end of February or beginning of March last year, and I moved home, having to travel to Lubbock once a week (not exactly every week because my professor was awesome) so I could finish my Master's degree. That's a three and a half hour drive, one-way, for anyone who's interested... But I did finish.

I visited Dallas twice last spring and really liked it, so being spontaneous and wanting away from New Mexico and all of that horrible-ness regarding my brother's death, I moved here in July, thinking I would easily be able to find a job. Not. So. Much. Ok, so I have had three jobs since I've been here, but none of them are in Mass Communications or writing, so I'm back at square one. However, I have to say that I have learned that I am not really interested in advertising or public relations anymore. Just journalism and writing. So that's a plus, I suppose...

In September of last year, my mom came down with a terrible case of pneumonia that almost killed her. That was fun, let me tell you. Apart from the passing of my beloved brother, this was an incredibly disturbing time. My mother was in rare form and I don't care to ever see her or anyone in that condition ever again. I hope that I, and everyone I love, dies before we come to that state of being. It was horrible.

Other "complications" from aforementioned events have taken place, but I think I've made my point. Texas is jacking with my Karma and I am so over it. "Land of Entrapment"? Fuck you. I want to go home.

*Do you like how I edited the first F-bomb, but let the second one go? That's called accentuation. And I like it.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Manic ___day?

I'm toying with the idea that I may be bipolar (yes, it's funny, and no, it's not). It's really weird because I can go from the last blog that I wrote (see MySpace blog), as morose and pessimistic as it (read: I) was, to being perfectly happy (or as happy as one can be when his or her life is in utter and complete, but totally entertaining, disarray). The feeling is sort of like that excited feeling you have in your gut and your chest when you're about to see someone you have a crush on, or you're going to go to your favorite theme park or something, or (if you're me in grad school) you found the perfect scholarly peer-reviewed article to compliment your research paper and quite literally you just want to squeal, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" All. The. Time.

It's like my thoughts are racing, I can't think or type fast enough, I can't say everything I want to say because there's too much information. Like I'm on some sort of amphetamine (no, I am not on some sort of amphetamine, and I have stopped drinking coffee as of like a week/week and a half ago). It's like I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a... t-t-t-t-today, junior!! Hopefully you get the idea.

Nothing happened to make me feel this way, and it's not the first time by far. I go to work, I don't go to work, I work out, I don't work out, I eat, I don't eat, whatever. I didn't like win the lottery or find out my brother is alive and secretly living on an island with Tupac and Elvis. I just sort of morphed from goth kid to pep squad. And I can't quite pinpoint when it happened.

There are a lot of things I do or don't do when I'm "blue" as opposed to when I want to squeal. Por ejemplo, today I did not take a nap, I filed away all of my paperwork from the last 2+ months, I actually cooked myself dinner (I cooked... for like five minutes!), and I haven't cried or wanted to cry, I put away the clean dishes, and some other stuff... it's all very bizarre to me because two days ago I would have done the opposite.

I have never truly bought into the whole "depression" scene and I'm not sure I do even now. Even after considering anti-depressants (and trying them for a very short period after Matt died), I am not truly convinced they'd do anything. When I feel the way I do now, I all but forget what that other bad feeling is like, when two days ago it seemed like it was consuming my very soul. Yet inside I know that feeling lurks dormant and will return. When? Who knows??

Maybe it's just ups and downs... moods, if you will (but most moods I've heard of don't make you want to either scream in anguish or squeal with delight). Maybe it's the anti-PMS. Maybe I'm just excited that I bought my toy poodle a camoflauge coat yesterday. Or maybe, just maybe, all I need to do is take advantage of these times of glee because clearly my writing is a lot - or a least a little - better (unless I'm writing poetry, because poetry and happiness do not cross paths in my world).

Friday, January 05, 2007

I don't have much to say...

Tomorrow marks one year since my brother died and I just don't even have words. Thinking about some of it makes me feel literally, mentally, clinically insane. Today actually marks the last day he signed in to his MySpace a year ago. Now we have a MySpace dedicated to his memory (he's my #1 friend, if you want to see the page). I guess it makes us feel better in a sense.

I had a blog once upon a time dedicated to me and my brothers - The Wheeler Three. If you want to check it out, click here. Actually please check it out. Maybe it'll help people who didn't know us all understand why this has changed my life forever and profoundly. He was my and Josh's brother and best friend, and friend to so many others. We're only beginning to realize how many lives he affected positively.

It's been rough being home. I'll probably write about it later.

And this computer/Internet connection is so f*cked up I can't even upload a picture of Matt.