Future self.

On a cold, snowy, craptastic day like today two years ago (ish) I wrote a letter to myself.

Wed., Jan. 2, 2008.

All pre-blog and brown hair and 50 extra pounds ago.

I told EmailCapsules.com (which either does not exist any more, or has turned into this) to e-mail it to me in three two years.

I just got it today, but I’m willing to overlook the four-days-late thing seeing as how I only paid zero dollars for the service and wouldn’t have even know it was late except that they told me when I sent it, and really, I guess there’s a chance I told them to send it in two years and four days.

I’ve edited out one sentence, which was about, umm, this one, umm, thing, because, um, well somethings are pri-vate. Gawd. But here it is in all it’s spelling mistakes and grammar errors glory. (UPDATE: Also, I actually said 2007 where I meant 2008 in the original. I was confused. It was a new year. I have changed it here though so I don’t look totally stupid).

Enjoy.

Well 2008 is starting out well. Can’t wait to see what it brings. I started 2006 in Iowa and then moved to south dakota, but i really do plan to stay in oshkosh for 18 months to two years.

… Also, if you are looking for a job, remember to look somewhere warm. Although you may think it’s not a big deal — you hate cold weather.

If you are thinking of selling out — either with work or with a guy you only kind of like — don’t do it. You’re better than that. Have faith not only in God, but also in yourself.

Also, if you have enough money to have bought a christmas tree you are doing very well — remember you didn’t have one for two year back in 2006 and 2007. Oh, and tell April I said hi — I really hope you are still friends with her.

love, past self

So, ya, I only stayed in Oshkosh for 8 months. And, I still live in a land where it snows everyday.

But, I totally had a Christmas tree this year.

I’m glad I (past self) think I (future/current self) am worth more than whatever it is I could be settling for. It’s good to read that.

I’m also glad I still have faith in God, and most days, myself.

And yes, I’m still friends with April.

Speaking of April, she recently made this thing called a vision board at her church, where you cut things out from magazines that represent what you’d like to have or be in the future. That way you can pray about it and stuff.

I liked the idea so much, that last week we made them in my youth group, and I tied it in to the New Year. (I’m clever).

Only a handful of high school girls showed up, and the project turned out to be A. a hit (I think) and B. a great excuse for us to talk about that one girl in that old seventeen magazine issue who dated a guy who was really a girl.

The sole boy, an (awesome) college guy who helps me, was, um, a little less excited, but willing to give it a go.

Mine is obviously on alarmingly pink poster board. Obviously.

IMG00600

Starting with the top center, there’s a picture of a computer with my blog card pasted on the screen under a sign reading “Web site launch of the year” – a goal I didn’t even know I had Jan. 2,2008.

To the right, that’s a picture of a church because I want to explore that section of my talents as much as I can. The quote reads “One girl really can change the world.” I’m one girl.

Underneath that  is a stack of books, which were incredibly hard to find among our stack of make-up magazines. The nail polish and the butterflies were mostly just pretty. I want to be pretty.

On the top, well, that’s a picture of Hawaii because I want to go there or live there or live somewhere like it . If you look close, you’ll see a mini-Johnny Depp. I can’t have a vision board without Johnny Depp.

The large quote in the center is my favorite part.

“I have to believe in fairy tales. I have to believe in love.”

(If I told you Taylor Swift said that, would it be any less blissful?)

The whole thing is a little shout-out to my future self. A little nudge to the hope that three years from now I’ll be living somewhere south of Kentucky, changing the world one blog post and prayer at a time.

I’d like that.

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When Bob died.

I didn’t find out right away.

You’d think news that the boy you’d dated for like two years in high school had died would reach you the day of.

That there’d be a phone call from the family. Or that an old mutual friend would tell you about the funeral. Or that you’d just know. That you’d somehow feel it in your bones, or your soul, or your toes when someone you love that much dies.

But I didn’t find out until two weeks later.

My friend Donell and I were chatting on the phone, while I sat on my dorm bed, and he brought it up in the most nonchalant way you can picture. He brought it up like he was going to tell me what he ate for dinner.

“Did you hear about Bob?”

I will forever regret what I said next. The sentences sting my memory and leave a bitter taste in my mouth when I remember them. It’s a regret I can never repair.

“No. What? That’s he’s coming to visit or something? I don’t even care.”

It haunts me. And, it was the very next moment that I changed into who I am today. That I gained clarity about life, and death and pain.

But when I spoke those sentences, even though it was just seconds away, I was still too young to understand.

“Oh. You haven’t heard? Oh. Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this Crystal, but, um Bob died.”

A shock like that feels like someone has taken a metal bat to the back of your knee caps and then dropped you in an ice tank.

I didn’t believe it. I called other friends, but they confirmed it was true. Thinking about it all now, remembering the details, makes my core ache.

On that day though, the wound was too fresh, too bloody, to ache. Instead, I just fell to the icy tile floor and lost it.

I had never before or since dropped to the ground with such force. It was as if an airplane had flown through my ceiling and actually pushed me to the earth. I was sick and sore and sad and in shock and losing my mind simultaneously.

And for some reason, I thought I’d get over it by Monday.

I thought it was a fleeting sadness.

I don’t know why I thought that, but I remember thinking it.

That death, of that person, who held that place in my heart, was not fleeting though. It consumed my thoughts for a long time after that day. I questioned why I was alive, but he wasn’t. I questioned why anybody anywhere was alive, but he wasn’t. I chastised myself for not trying harder for the ever elusive “us.” I begged God to let him into heaven.

And I couldn’t understand why other people couldn’t understand. Why they’d say the most awful things when I brought it up, like “Oh. I don’t get upset when people die” or “Oh, what a waste” or, just “Oh.”

I wanted to talk about it. And him. And death.

But people hate that kind of talk. They snuff it out like a house fire or baby’s cry.

I still don’t understand that.

And I’m still not over it. There may be days, or even weeks that align where I’m not sad. Where I can mention him in my nightly prayers without crying or when I can tell a story about him without my heart stopping for a second.

But other days. Other weeks.

I feel his spirit. And I miss him intensely.

This is one of those weeks I guess. Maybe it’s because Thanksgiving is looming – it was our first holiday – or maybe it’s because it’s been about six years since he died – 11/03/03.

Or maybe it’s just because.

But I miss him tonight.

I wonder what he’d think of who I became. I wonder if we’d still talk or be friends or even know of each other anymore. And I wonder if there was anything I could have done. Any way I could have altered his history. Or just moved it a little to the right.

It’s the unknowns that change you. They don’t just alter your heart or change your psyche – they take them out of your body and give you new ones.

And because he can never be here again, that place he held in my life I’ve dedicated to good. To living all my days like I could die, or worse, someone with a spot in my heart could die. To using my life to do as much as I can in the world while I’m here.

And to listening anytime someone wants to talk about it. or him. or death.

bob thanksgiving

Bob and I, Thanksgiving, circa’ 1999.

turnabout

My junior year turn-about dance.

– Robert E. Eaton. Oct. 27, 1981-Nov. 3, 2003. May his rest be filled with only peace.

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God broke the Internet

I’m pretty sure God broke the Internet today at my job.

Don’t tell my co-worker because she’d totally be p*ssed if she knew that’s what happened. I mean it f*ed up our day craptastically.

But, see, well, I was going to go to lunch the stupidest of stupid guys. A guy so stupid he doesn’t even deserve for me to mention him on my super amazing blog.

But God broke the Internet at my regular office, so I had to go work somewhere else and couldn’t meet him for said lunch.

The Big Guy was looking out.

See, I was doing so good on my own.

Like, not-texting-him, not-calling-him, not-even-thinking-about-him-during-most-of-the-sad-songs-on-the-country-radio-stations good.

But then I had this dream that I was searching and searching for him, and all I could get was a glimpse and well.

Ya.

It’s the kind of dream where you fall asleep thinking maybe your thoughts have finally found a peaceful place, and a couple hours later you wake up with a broken soul aching to see him.

I tried to fight it. I walked four miles. I thought happy thoughts. I even switched the radio every time a sad song came on.

But that kind of soul aching lingers. And it spreads. And before I knew it I couldn’t take it anymore and I sent him a text.

I knew he’d reply. He always replies. That’s why the only way this whole awful thing between us will ever die is if I do it myself.

But I can’t do it myself. I need help.

Tons.

So God went ahead and broke the Internet to lend a hand.

I guess he knew it’d be just what I needed to make it to the other side of today with a glimmer of hope that I can move past this.

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