All Tied Up...

I can remember it like it was yesterday... 

old & familiar all at once. 

Sleeping over at a friends' house... 

Her older sister also a friend... 

We needed pictures for our senior ad in the yearbook, so we decided some silly, fun photos were called for.  

The sister was the photographer. 

We flipped our heads over fast trying to catch the right shot. 

We hung over the side of the bed, we twirled, we laughed - a lot. 

 

If anyone would've told me then that my friend wouldn't be alive to see those pictures in the yearbook or to walk across the graduation stage, I would've called them a liar. 

I don't know if it's the upcoming HS reunion or unusual number of thoughts about my hometown, but something has me thinking about Stacy an awful lot these days. Not that it's unusual for me to think about her, but generally the heightened thoughts are around the anniversary of her death and that was back in April. 

Little cute bows.

That's how I wish I could end everything.
All nice and finished just so.  
The perfect ending no matter the subject or the story's beginning.

In grade school when they taught us how to write, there were definite steps. A process to make sure you fulfilled the formula; the final peg being the conclusion - the thing that wrapped it all up. 

But the words above?
They're something I wrote weeks ago and I can't bring myself to finish them. There's no nice neat way "to wrap it all up." 
No pretty bow to stick on it and call it done. 

Since I wrote these words, I've been back home for a visit.
Every time I return, as much as I've missed the area & the family there, there's part of me that can't leave again quickly enough. 

It pains me that I feel this way. 
I wish I didn't. 

But as I drove home a week or so ago, I was pretty sure John was beside me on the highway. I caught a quick glimpse but was afraid to turn and look closer. I made a beeline to 95 South. 

And every time I'm home, I think about Stacy. I keep thinking one day I'll go visit her grave - maybe bring flowers -but I never do. 
This too pains me. 

It's the oddest sensation really. 
To flashback & think about an old friend or an old time as if she is right there or it just happened; yet, also realize that person & that time are long gone & can't be gotten back. 

It's kind of like being asleep yet fully aware of the fact that what you are experiencing is just a dream. 

I think back on a lot of my adolescence that way. As if experiencing them at two extremes - nostalgic longing & a desire to run in the opposite direction. I'm not disillusioned enough to think that's not weird.  I know it's weird.

Oddly enough, I think that same concept is what's kept me from finishing the above post.
Some people, you will just always miss and always want back no matter.
For the rest of my life I will miss my friend.

At the same time, thinking about her is painful.
I'm diligent about how far I let my thoughts go when it comes to painful things.

I think I better get used to the absence of little cute bows...