Malda · Laire

I haven't written in a very long time. Perhaps I feel like I haven't needed to, but more likely it's that I haven't really felt like what's going on in my life was meant for the public eye. Or, perhaps more accurately, I didn't know how to make it appropriate for the public eye. As it is, I am much, much more relaxed, much less emotional than I was for a good deal of the summer, and since things have now become rather final and settled, I'm all right to play catch up.

I suppose the first thing that must be talked about is the fact that Dan and I broke up. There isn't much I'm going to say about this because, despite the fact that I have no problem talking about it, the reasons are close to me (that goes without saying), and while I have no problem telling people about it, I'd prefer it not be broadcast on the internet. Suffice to say, we'd been having problems for quite some time. I thought going and visiting him this summer would patch things up, and we'd work things through, but they really didn't, and we broke up the first day of school.

It would be expected that the ending of a relationship that I put sooo much time and effot into would leave me incapacitated for a while. On the contrary; I haven't felt so calm and relaxed in a great long while. Partly that's simply because, in the months leading up to us actually breaking up, I was laboring under a great deal of pressure and guilt, which left me constantly stressed out, sleepless, and unhappy. My relationship with Dan became a symbol of that, and so, in part, when we broke up, I felt relief that those feelings had been lifted.

Just because we broke up doesn't mean that Dan isn't a wonderful man. I still consider him to be one of my best friends, and, even though our break up was not a particularly happy time, we continue to be on very good terms, and hopefully our friendship will continue to grow and last for many years to come.

Another reason why our break up was not so terrible for me was because I've begun dating someone else, a guy here at Tech named Kaz. We've been having an absolutely amazing time. He's so much fun to be with, and...well, I could say a thousand-million good things about him, but I'm sure that will come in the future.

For the first time in my college career, or really, for the past three and a half years, I haven't felt obligated to be near the computer or phone in case Dan is available, and, consequently, for the first time I've been able to develop a very active social life. A lot of my time is spent hanging with Kaz, but I've definitely being hanging out with Bry, and Gabbert and Goings and Grey and that gang and I all have plans to hang out soon. In addition, through Kaz I've made a lot of friends with the people he works with in the Corps, and some of the most fun times I have are goofing off with them. It's just been a really amazing start to the year.

Classes--after all, this IS college--have been going very well. I'm taking 18 credits, 12 of which are psyc classes, and then a history class and second year Russian. They won't be easy, but I don't think I'll feel bogged down, either, especially since, for the most part, my afternoons are completely free.

There's so much that's going on this year, I really can't tell everything. But everything's really great; I haven't felt this happy in a very long time, this excited about everything that's going on. And I'll try to write more often. Love everyone!!!


P.S. If you read this, you have to comment and tell me how you're doing.

You know, it seems very strange to me that I really am "moving on," as best I can, anyway. Life HAS "gotten back to normal." And it's not even yet been a month...Anyway, I still look forward to getting home, being with my family.

Is it stupid that it bothers me so much that none of my friends ever gave me a hug in the past week? Or is it just silly? I mean, everyone has been talking about how amazing it is that Tech and the community has pulled together like it has. But I don't feel that at all. I mean, I see it happening all around me, but I'm not a part of that myself, and it really hurts! I mean, I seriously am probably the only person on campus who has not gotten a single hug. From anyone. I mean, am I just THAT pathetic or disgusting or SOMETHING that peope can't even stand to give me a hug, that my "FRIENDS" here cannot even lend me a little support?

I mean, I see pictures of them hugging other people, so I'm kind of to the point where I really have to wonder what's wrong with me that no one wants to comfort me or support me or even TOUCH me. And I KNOW it's not for lack of me looking for it.

I mean, of course, it's a big enough slap in the face that no one ELSE has to go looking for it, that for everyone else, people just OFFER them hugs and love and support. But it's ANOTHER slap that even when I DO go looking for it, I STILL don't get it. People don't even know what it has been like being here all week, alone, with no emotional support. And now school has started again.

I thought it would be easier, once I had distractions again. But it's not. Not at all. Now I'm just forcd to go on campus. Now I CAN'T avoid reminders of Leslie. Of what happened. Talk of what happened.

There are counselers being provided by the school, and several times I've thought about going, but I haven't. Why not? I think it's because I feel like it's admitting something embarrassing: that I can't do this on my own, that even God seems to be sending me more trials than comforts, that I'm a pathetic girl whose friends here don't love her enough to give her a shoulder to lean and cry on.

All my life I have taken pride in being strong, in being able to take care of myself AND others. There have been very few times when I have actively SOUGHT help and support from the people around me. And, without fail, every time I have, all those peopel I helped have turned their backs on me. And this time is not any different. I have been the best friend I know how to be to these people, and now, when something absolutely terrible has happened, and I am all alone, no one can even be bothered to stop by.

What is WRONG with me that that is how people treat me?

I was gone for most of the day. After Russian I went and gave platelets. Gray went with me. It didn't really affect me at first, but after a while I just got SO tired, I can't even explain it. And now, 6 hours after I gave, I can't even walk from the living room to my room without feeling completely drained. Maybe I'll actually get some good sleep tonight. Ha, right.

I just wish I could see someone, you know? Gabbert, Goings...anyone. Plus, I STILL haven't gotten any hugs. I feel pathetic. I'm probably the only person on this ENTIRE campus who had to go through this entire week entirely alone (save for God, of course).

You know, it's so easy to feel sorry for yourself. Myself. But looking back on the past week, thinking that a week ago 32 people were dead...The enormity of it all is nearly incomprehensible. And WOULD be incomprehensible, if I weren't here. Which is why I've so desperately needed someone HERE to support me, because only if you're here can you really understand.

As time passes, I expect it will become more and more incomprehensible, so that one day someone will ask me if I was here on the day of the shooting, and I shall say yes, and not quite believe it.

Is that healing? I don't know. It doesn't seem right that healing should be synomynous with forgetting. But then, I think it's possible that I never truly believed I was here. Sue, there were moments. But it ALWAYS felt surreal. I don't know if it's possible for a normal human to even comprehend the ACT of a single person killing 32 and wounding dozens more in the space of a few minutes, nevermind comprehend oneself being in the same place as such destruction and evil.

It makes one wonder about one's place in the world. Why is it that I, that WE, were here? Surely it was God's doing, but what was His purpose? To bring people together? I understand that God did not do this HIMSELF, but He allowed it to happen, and surely that means something. If God's purpose in allowing this to happen was only to bring people together, could He not have found a way other than that which left 32 innocent people dead?

I believe that God is merciful, and there is no such thing as "righteous anger" in my mind. I do not believe that God gets angry, only that it appears so to Man, because Man must have someone to blame for floods and storms and earthquakes. But sometimes when I think about what happened here, it is hard to stay solid in that foundation. It just seems as though perhaps 32 people's lives GONE, and thousands more destroyed is not worth the community pulling together. Of course, we cannot pretend to fully understand or even imagine the entirety of God's plans, but it is part of the human condition that we attempt to.

I went to the ceremony this morning. It was nice. I've stopped wearing make up because every day I end up crying. Every day something reminds me of Leslie, and I break down.

It's hard to see where God is in all of this. Even harder when He doesn't let me have someone to go to for support, and when He tries me with things like Dan's decision to go to the desert, and my awful back pain. My God, my God, why have you foresaken me?

Healing. I don't think I even understand the true meaning of the word. How will I be able to differentiate between healing, and suppressing? I think right now I'm suppressing. I know I will have to look to God for the strength to heal, and I have been. But at the same time, I need the physical presence of someone who cares about me to help comfort me...I would think God would send someone to me. But that has not been true. I've had to deal with it all alone.

I feel most completely abandoned by Bryan, I think. He could go to Caroline, whom he has known half the time that he has known me, but he could not even call to see if I was all right. And when I messaged him the other day, and he called back to tell me where he was, he could not even ask if I was okay.

I know...Well, actually, I don't know. I have nothing more to say to that. I guess it's inconsequential and insignificant that I should feel hurt by his lack of concern, and I shall continue to spend my time in my room, working as I have. Letting the tears come and go. I guess it's time I just started pushing things down, because nothing's going to change.

I just want to go home.

First of, before I begin what is going to end up being a rant, most likely, I want to say that this is not directed at all those from other parts of the country and the world who have sent me their prayers and thoughts. This (whatever "this" is) only applies to people here, in Blacksburg and at Tech, who know me, because, as I'm sure everyone can understand, people here understand--or SHOULD understand--how I feel, and people who are/were not here cannot completely comprehend that.

The fact is, tomorrow marks one week since the shooting, and although I have gone to vigils and memorial services and church services and community picnics, I have not recieved one hug. In times like these, people don't just need words, they need the support that only physical contact provides. They need to not only know, but FEEL that people are there for them, that people care for them. And I haven't recieved that. I knew someone who died, and I had to spend this past week alone in my empty apartment, finding out that all of my friends had left to go home, and my mother neither thought it necessary to bring me home, nor wanted to pay for a ticket.

And now, facing the beginning of school once again, I can't even think that I want to see people any more. I just want to go to class, do what I have to do, and come back to the apartment. Why bother with the people here, when they didn't bother with me? If there's one thing this week has taught me, it's that even when really, really terrible things happen, I can count on my life continuing just as it did before: the people who come to me to cry won't give a rat's ass when I need to come to cry to them. I've learned that I can handle things just fine on my own, and if crying into a pillow night after night isn't nearly as fulfilling or comforting as crying with someone's arms around you, it at least tires you out enough so you go quickly to sleep.

I don't even care any more. Let people go comfort each other. I'm just going to finish things up here, and then get the fuck out of here. I wish I could say and then I'll never come back, but that's not true. I'll come back, because even if the people here suck and are friends only when it's convenient for them, the school's still amazing, and I'm not going to abandon it just because of this one episode.

I've just realized that I can't count on my friends here to make sure that I'm okay, or to provide comfort and support. So tomorrow I'm just going to go to breakfast, go to class, go give blood (hopefully), and come back here and clean. And that will be my day. I don't even care any more. I don't MIND being locked up in my room all day. Sounds fine to me.

I don't want to talk to him. He called twice while I was at riding, and I have no desire to return his calls. And that has nothing to do with the fact that I know he's flying. I really actually don't want to talk to anyone. the people who are supposed to have cared the most about me have abandoned me, then I think I just want to keep it that way.

I feel like Dan is getting everything he wants, especially if I DO come out at the very end. Which I am now not at all certain I will. Maybe I WILL get a job. I'd like to be able to say, when he asks me to come, "You didn't let seeing me deter you from doing your job, so why shoudl I do any different?"

I DON'T want to come. He has hurt me just as deeply as the loss of my fellow Hokies has. I think, if this had not happened, and he had gone, then I would have been able to forgive him. But now I am not so sure.

Why am I engaged to him? To a man who is willing to put his desire to be a hero above me? Is that what I want? Is that what I deserve? How is that love?

How can he think that any amount of words over the phone is going to make any difference now? I don't want to HEAR that he's "hugging" me, or "holding" me.

If something is more important to im than his future wife, FINE, but don't let him turn around and tell me how much he loves me and wants to see me, when HE'S the one who destroyed the possibility of us getting to see each other in the first place. If there's something I can't stand, it's hypocrisy.

So FINE, let him foresake me for some godless place, just so he can be closer to his "brothers" who are dying, but don't let him come crying to me about how much he misses me.

--How can he put his "dying brothers" above me? My brothers and sisters have died, and are suffering HERE, right beside me and all around me. But if Dan called, said he needed me with him, I would be there in an instant. Because even though this present is horrible and present, HE is my FUTURE, and I feel a greater obligation to that--and to him--than to anyone/thing else.

And I suppose someone would say, well, that's kind of hypocritical, because is he not calling for me, just later in the summer?

Maybe. Be he has SPURNED me. He has judged me to be not as worthy as those "brothers" who are dying, who he will never meet.

So LET him go off to the fucking desert. I will not be there when he returns. Let him be the hero. I have, many times, dropped everything to go to him. When he is ready to do the same, THEN I will listen to how much he misses me, and how much he wants me to be with him. They say actions speak louder than words, and this is definitely one of those times: he SAYS he wants to be with me, to hold me, to kiss me, to make love to me. FUCK that shit! He has BLOWN our chances of getting to do that. So he can kiss my ass.

So, no. I have no desireto speak to anyone, least of all him. Let me deal with my grief--both of losing MY brothers and sisters, and of being rejected by him in my moment of most need--by myself. If people who are HERE, who should be my closest friends, are not gong to seek me out, then why should I want to be with them?

Let people try not to dissuade me: I am ALONE. When my own family does not want me home during this time, when my friends will not come to me and hold me, when my fiance CHOSES to go to some war zone instead of seeing me, I am ALONE.

And there is nothing empty about it. Instead, I am completely full. Filled with the emotions that I cannot release. These words are but a glimpse of what I am feeling. Only a glimpse.

The bastard did it. He put his name in for the deployment for the desert. I thought he would have realized that now, after 32 of my fellow Hokies are dead, is the time when I need to see him the most, to spend the most time with him. Instead, he runs off to the fucking desert. Instead, all he cares about is being a fucking hero. He's such a fucking hyprocrit. He does this, and then tells me that he only wants to make me happy, that he just wants to be there for me. Bullshit, if he wanted to make me want, to help me heal, he would not have put his name in. He would have realized that what I need, above all else, is him.

I'm so angry. And so devestated. And I feel so, so, so alone. All I want is a fucking hug, and no one here will give me one. The people who I thought I could call my friends haven't even asked to see if I'm holding up all right, and the people who I've hung out with once a week for the past month, who feel too uncomfortable around me still to hug me, and around whom I feel too uncomfortable to cry, are the only ones who've asked after me. God, what friends I have. I'm all alone in the apartment; everyone else has gone home. A lot of people have gone home. Most of those people I've been hanging out with are going home today. I wish so badly I could go home, but that's not possible. Instead I get to sit here, and go over and over in my head how many people have died, and who I know, and who I don't know, watching as more and more names are announced and discovered. And going over and over in my head that the man I need most either doesn't realize how much I need him (which I find somewhat unlikely), or just doesn't deem me worthy enough.

So, whatever. Let him fucking get everything he wants and needs. And I'll make the sacrifices. I'll sit here and...listen to him give me hugs over the phone, from 10,000 miles away. Right. Fuck that shit.

Lately I've been crying myself to sleep a lot. I've felt so deprived of love that I have to have dreams about waking up in the hospital and being surrounded by my friends to remember that they love me. Only sometimes, in my dream, I wake up and there's no one there.

Lately I've been needing lots of hugs, and not recieving any, except from the maroon bear.

Lately I've been wanting to destroy something beautiful. To slam my fists into someone's face over and over again until it's all gone, only blood and fleshly pulp and pieces of bone and brain matter. Until all my feelings of hurt and betrayal and neglect have been pounded away. Even though, lately, I know that wouldn't make it go away at all.

And lately, I've been feeling very self destructive. I can't sleep when I go to bed at night, and I lie there thinking about all the different ways there are to hurt oneself. The physical and the psychological.

Lately, it's been one of those break down things. Where you can't reach the people--or person--you need, and everyone around you is too wrapped up in their own problems to help you with your own, so you just keep your mouth shut about your own problems and listen to theirs. Because whenever you start to talk about yours, they either turn their heads and begin to distract themselves, or they somehow almost immediately find some way to find similarities between your problems and their problems, and they manage to turn the conversation back to their problems.

Lately, it's been the story of my life, over, and over and over again.

These are real notes written by parents in an Alabama school district. How they appear is exactly how they were written. HILARIOUS

1. My son is under a doctor's care and should not take PE today. Please execute him.
2. Please exkuce lisa for being absent she was sick and i had her shot.
3. Dear school: please ecsc's john being absent on jan 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33
4. Please excuse gloria from jim today. She is administrating.
5. Please excuse roland from p.e. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.
6. John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.
7. Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.
8. Megan could not come to school today bec ause she has been bothered by very close veins.
9. Chris will not be in school cus he has an acre in his side.
10. Please excuse ray friday from school. He has very loose vowels.
11. Please excuse Lesli from being absent yesterday. She had diahre dyrea direathe the shits.
12. Please excuse tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea, and his boots leak.
13. Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust.
14. Please excuse jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.
15. I kept Billie home because she had to go Christmas shopping because i don't know what size she wear.
16. Please excuse jennifer for missing school yesterday. We forgot to get the sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it monay. We thought it was sunday.
17. Sally won't be in school a week from friday. We have to attend her funeral.
18. My daughter was absent y e sterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the marines.
19. Please excuse Jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.
20. Please excuse mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.
21. Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.
22. Please excuse brenda. She has been sick and under the doctor.
23. Maryann was absent december 11-16, because she had a fever, sorethroat, headache, and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick, fever an sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.

LOL. Dude, these people are WHACK!!!