2/11/02

I know, I haven't written, I haven't called, I haven't replied to your e-mail.

The last two weeks have probably been the most stressful of my entire life. Frankly, I've been through some pretty horrible stuff, and I'm feeling shell-shocked right now.

I haven't been eating or sleeping much. I'm just doing enough at work to barely get by. I get upset when I see happy people, because how can they possibly be happy when my world is so full of sadness, worry and guilt? I read online diaries and fume as I think to myself "and these people think that they have problems?!?" (OK, I sometimes do that anyway, even when I'm not upset)

Two weeks ago tomorrow, my cousin was killed in a car accident. She was 17 years old, a junior in high school. I don't even know what to say about it beyond that. I traveled to Pennsylvania for her funeral the following weekend.

During her funeral service, I remembered when she was born...remembered her parents talking about picking a name for her. There were photographs of her all around the church, including one taken of her and her boyfriend all dressed up and heading out to a school dance just a few days before the accident. It was just so hard to believe that someone so young was gone so suddenly. There are no words.

You would think that that would be enough horror to tide me over for a while, but apparently not. Just a few days after getting back from the funeral, a very close friend of mine, who suffers from bipolar disorder, was scheduled to visit me and his other friends in San Francisco. Unfortunately, he entered into a psychotic state right before his trip, and when his plane hit turbulence going into Denver, he made a pact with God that if they landed safely, he wouldn't get on another plane. This left him stranded in Denver, in a severely manic state with impaired judgement.

A long and convoluted story follows, but I don't feel comfortable telling the story right now, because it's not really my story, although I definitely played a role in it. I'll ask my friend if I can tell it here when he's better, because I really think it would be good for people to know that these things can happen and to learn from it.

My friend is safe now. He's in jail. He called me at 3 a.m. on Saturday to tell me that he'd been arrested. I remember once seeing a magazine feature where they asked various people when they'd felt like adults. Most of them talked about the birth of their first child, or the purchase of their first home. I guess I already felt like an adult, but boy, being someone's one phone call from jail really makes you feel like a grown-up.

After he called, I called the people at the jail to tell them about his condition, and the first thing they asked me was "is he always like this?" They'd never seen anyone acting so manic, which is impressive considering that the region where he was arrested has one of the highest concentrations of methamphetamine abuse in the country.

The charges against him aren't serious, and ending up in jail was probably the best thing that possibly could have happened to him. He's safe, and he's getting medical treatment. Hopefully, he'll go home soon, and start taking care of himself. I think this is the scariest thing that has ever happened to me, and it's not over yet. And I can't even imagine how scary it must be for him.