Or just SJ.
Broken brain. Fractured heart. Killer smile. Wicked sense of humor.
In the face of the beautiful-awful-tragic-absurd-mundane-heartbreaking-impossible-wonderful,
all I can think to say is:
and even this...
“I record my life, sifting and trying to separate what is real from what I’ve dreamed. I have decided not to tell you what is fact versus what is unfact primarily because (a) I am giving you a portrait of the essence of me, and (b) because, living where I do, living in the chasm that cuts through thought, it is lonely… come with me, reader. I am toying with you, yes, but for a real reason. I am asking you to enter the confusion with me, to give up the ground with me, because sometimes that frightening floaty place is really the truest of all. Kierkegaard says, 'The greatest lie of all is the feeling of firmness beneath our feet. We are most honest when we are lost.' Enter that lostness with me. Live in the place I am, where the view is murky, where the connecting bridges and orienting maps have been surgically stripped away.”
— Lauren Slater
“I want to be remembered as the girl who always smiles even when her heart is broken, and the one that could always brighten up your day even if she couldn’t brighten her own.”
AIM: andeventhis
Email: andeventhis[at]aim[dot]com
At the bottom of the drawer was a thin album of drawings I had done, including one (crayon on oak tag, age eight) of a teddy bear crying hysterically, wearing deely boppers and holding a windmill. In thick black crayon, I had scrawled the following across the bottom of the page:
“Teddy bears are best because they understand it’s nice to be alone.”
“Jesus,” I said out loud, and brought the drawing to the kitchen table where my parents were reading the paper.
“You didn’t think this was cause for concern?”
My mother studied the drawing. “You were always kind of old for your age, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that profound depression is a sign of maturity.”
