2001-09-30 | 6:05 p.m.

I have to welcome myself back to the living. Not just the existing, but the living. There's a big difference after all.

My paranoia was averted for the time being. The lumps are just problematic lymph nodes. Nothing more, nothing less. I let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding in when I first heard the good news. I was expecting the worse without really thinking about it. Not wanting to die but knowing I would fight like hell to win a match I would never have to step into the ring to face. Which I'm thankful for now. I don't know if I'd have all the energy I would need to fight this all now.

Not that I'm being dramatic. I'm not. I'm just angry and sad and still confused. And while I'm trying to look outside of the disappearing box now, I am still having a hard time stepping over it's barricades. Not because I want to run back to whom I was. No. Because I have no clue who to become as I walk to my future. I don't know what my world will be like let alone look like in the future.

I'm just really confused and angry. I want a resolution. I want closure. But I also feel like I need to swing my fists and hit a few people. I don't know if this makes sense or not. I'm just angry. I get irritated at people easily now. And I want to just scream: "shut the fuck up. Just shut it." And I know it's not normal, but let's face it we're never getting to normal or the normal we all had before 9/11/01.

Still I trudge on and hug my sides and try to shake whatever ghosts that are haunting my mind. Moving fast. Making sure that I go through routines so that I can try to focus. So that I can try to be alright. I'm done with crying. I've done it in hushed corners. The wonderful British reserve I've had instilled in me as a kid has resurfaced and made me able to do daily activities without breaking down and just crying incessantly for my friends and the shattered NYC world I live in now.

And I still am holding true to the whole bullshit consumerist notion I mentioned before. I am not going to let the things I own, own me anymore. I'm not going to buy into this world anymore. I'm done. Fed up with living this way. And I'm going to make sure I keep this ideology because if I throw it away I'm throwing my life away too.

Going up to the east side on a bus with my mom on Saturday for the dreaded doctor's appointment we went up on Madison. At every stop I saw people smiling, walking into shops, walking out of shops with bags. Smiling & Laughing. And I was disgusted. Does anyone really think that a Kate Spade bag or Prada shoes will make their life any better? Will shopping for the new fashion item's save your life? No. Will purchasing them accomplish anything but feed your greedy point of view? No. People are trying to create comfort in a world that right now cannot offer it. And maybe I will never understand this.

I have faith in nothing anymore. I want to pray to a god that has mercy but I find nothing to answer me because no mercy was given to people that died on a day that shone like any normal day. Did they feel like they would be cursed by going to work? No. So maybe there is no mercy in this world. Maybe there is no god. All I know is I am still disgusted and I want to know what to say or think or feel. I want to change in a way that will keep me safe. I want to stop feeling like I do now because I fear that if I continue I will become a person with so much hate in her heart that she won't ever find the way to love.

I have one life to live and I want to know how to live it. I want to know why I live it while other's don't live theirs. I want answers. I'm sick and tired of being hushed and made to believe in crap when there is madness that awaits at every corner? We're supposed to turn the other cheek. Have mercy when life obviously has none for us? Fuck no! Shit is too complicated right now. My mind spins like it's in a blender and I am left trying to walk and not fall down. Trying to keep my vision from being clouded over.

I'm done. Stick a fucking fork in me.



p r e v i o u s // n e x t