asleep

a friend of mine from jeff west died in a car accident this weekend. her name was ericka and we roomed together at state debate at the end of january. she was a truly beautiful, amazing girl and i don’t know how to express how sad i am.

in general, i’m not as violently emotional as i was when michelle died. but thats mostly because with michelle i had to grieve for my own mortality as well as a friend that was no longer here. i also learned a lot about living outside of the physical following michelle’s death. that doesn’t make this easy though.

i keep thinking about how sad it was because she was only 16 and just barely. she had so much life in her and such passion for what she did. she was pretty quiet but an amazing debater and she was a phenomenal christian. i think i borrowed her panty hose once. its so strange. i’ve been really upset about michelle in the last week because i’m going to college and stuff and she doesn’t get the chance to live this all out and then friday i was at work and erika told me that ericka had died in a car accident so nate came to pick me up and take me home.

the obituary was in the paper today and i read it about a half hour ago and thats when it really hit me that she’s just gone. the obituary did a wonderful job of showing ericka. her favorite color was pink and everyone’s supposed to wear pik the funeral.

i hate laying out my pink clothes to wear them to my friend’s funeral.
i hate waking up in the morning to read the obituary of a sixteen-year-old girl.

the car accident was less than a mile from where michelle’s had been. she collided with a friend of my dad’s who works for westar and was in the huge westar bucket truck. dad says dan is probably a mess. so i hope he’s okay. because its not his fault. and he should know that. its just a really dangerous road.

saturday i kept seeing butterflies and thinking about how calming i think butterflies are. i couldn’t explain why although it surely has something to do with ani’s song “Evolve.” and saturday evening a butterfly came and sat on my hand near my thumb for a few minutes. and i felt so completely at peace while it was there. i can’t really explain it. but this morning the obituary said that she loved butterflies.

she wanted to be a missionary in russia. and i love russia.

all weekend i’ve pretty much only been able to say “its so fuckin sad.”

all weekend that’s pretty much the only thing i’ve been able to think.

i keep having dreams about her. saturday night i dreamt we were going to see her in the hospital. and i got excited and said “you mean she’s alive?” and the person was like “no she’s at the morgue” but i got this feeling that the person didn’t understand my saying she wasn’t alive. like she was still alive just not her body. last night i dreamt that i was at a cd store looking for cds and somebody handed me a copy of the cd “Evolve” by ani but there was a 2disk set instead.

maybe i’m just crazy and obsess over things. but everyone already knew that i guess.

• Category: Journal