Make it stop. Please?

The past few days have truly sucked. They weren’t complete suckage of course because there are always those moments every day that bring you some joy and make you smile. But seriously, what the hell is going on?

I found out today that one of my good (at the time) high school friends died two nights ago. In high school, we were pretty close, but we grew apart after graduation and I honestly haven’t seen or spoken to her since our 10-year class reunion in 2001. But she was awesome. And two nights ago, she went to bed with some mild chest pains and never woke up. She was born literally 5 days before I was, and frankly, her death is freaking me out. I’ve had friends die before, but that was back in high school and they were all people that chose to take their own lives. This is the first person I know that's my age that died because of some freakish medical issue that, from what I've gathered, she probably didn't even know about.

It's made me think about a lot of things today. I've had a flood of emails, phone calls, and MySpace messages from other high school friends asking if I had heard the news. Some of these people I literally haven't talked to since high school. And although it's a horrible situation that spawned it, I couldn't help but feel a deep sense of peace that those of us that went to school together still feel comfortable enough to talk to each other 17 years after we were all friends. (Small towns really do rule.)

And it made me look at my kids differently tonight, making me wonder what night in the future I'll go to bed and not wake up.

And it made me re-evaluate my own habits. And although I know (and have known) that I NEED to change a lot of my daily life, I don't know if I have the drive and will-power to do it.

And I questioned why it always seems to be "the good people" that lose their lives. My friend was a total class clown, loved everyone, was friends with everyone, was always smiling and laughing, had the best laugh I've ever heard, and there were probably very few people on this earth that had a problem with her. And now she's gone. And I'm having a rough time dealing with that.

And it made me think back to high school when I had no real responsibilities and everything was grand and we had no clue what life really was. I laughed my ass off on a daily basis, and truly enjoyed life. I still enjoy every day of my life now, but it was just a "different" kind of joy, ya know? That ignorant joy that we, as adults, often long for.

I probably wouldn't have been quite this affected by her death if other stuff wasn't going on right now.

Tommie (my nephew) has another severe infection in his colon. They're doing some crazy, strong treatments on him right now, but if that doesn't work, he may lose his entire colon and have a colostomy bag for the rest of his life. The bag he has now was supposed to be temporary, so I know he's pretty sad and scared right now. The doctors have no clue why he keeps getting these infections and if they can't stop it, I can't even say what could happen to him, and the doctor hinted, but I can't even bring myself to think about that. No 17-year-old kid deserves that, ya know?

Other than that, it's just a lot of life's little bullshit stuff... crazy deadlines at work... Steve not having any more worked lined up after next week and possibly needing to find a temporary job this winter, the girls starting school in a few weeks and me not having them even remotely prepared in terms of clothing, supplies, etc... my FIL's girlfriend needing chemo treatments again after beating ovarian cancer 2 years ago... and all that other life shit that all seems to dump on you at once. Life just really isn't fair sometimes, ya know?

So sorry to anyone who came here tonight, hoping for a funny anecdote about Hannah and her amazing talent of

(LOL! Dudes, I just read this today and realized that I fell asleep at my computer last night, and apparently hit Post while halfway through a sentence. Ah well... I was almost done anyway. LOL!)