My web design class has been a source of frustration from the beginning. It was easy enough when we were doing beginning hand coding, but now that we're into animations and rollovers and god knows what else, lectures have become pointless because everything's going at warp speed and flies right over my head, and I'm so far behind I don't even know where to go from here.
More recently, my best friend has been having some major family issues, centering around her drug-addicted brother who was arrested a few weeks ago and sent to jail. He was given a sentence of a year of mandated rehab, but then he ran away in the small time slot between when he was released and when my friend was supposed to pick him up, and was facing 5 years of jail time minimum, no questions asked, if he was found again. We had the house on lockdown for a few days in case he showed up at our house (because he'd been robbing houses as well), but at least this story has a happy (well, less tragic) ending because he did finally decide to go back and go to rehab after all. But for a while, my best friend was despairing because no one knew where he was, and for all she knew, he could have been dead. It was heartwrenching to hear about all of this because my best friend and her mother are two of the most incredible people I know, and they have tried so hard for so many years to help him, but he always winds up relapsing.
In the midst of all this, last night I found out that my grandfather in Croatia had died.
My grandfather. Moj Dida. The man who fought alongside Tito in the Yugoslavian Civil War. The man who used to make me animals out of reeds and tell me stories of the clever fox to distract me while he pulled a thorn out of my finger. The man who always beat me at briškula, who planted olive trees in our backyard and wanted to buy me a donkey. The man who used to make delicious ćevapčići, asked me about my "friend boys," and called me "my moon" (a play on words for majmun, the Croatian word for monkey).
I can't believe it.
It's like people keep talking about it, and I've already cried so hard it made me throw up, but somehow it still feels like it's just talk. Like this summer I'll go to Croatia again, and there he'll be in his old white sleeveless shirt and his blue sandals and his wispy white hair.
What worries me now is my grandma. She was diagnosed with bone cancer 5 or 6 years ago and has been putting up a fight since then, but she's been getting weaker, and last summer when I saw her, she was barely able to make the few steps from the stove in the kitchen to the table without holding on to something. I suppose my uncle will probably try to help her out as much as he can, but I'm not sure how long she'll last without another person in the house with her all the time. And my poor mother... she's actually on a plane right now on her way over to Croatia to be with her family... but I can't even imagine what she's going through. She only got to see her parents as often as I did, and to be on the other side of the world when one of your parents dies...
I wish I could shut my brain off. Every little memory and detail make it hurt that much more.
It's funny, I was talking to a friend just a few days ago about how lucky I was that the only family death I'd ever experienced (other than the miserable parakeet i had in elementary school) was when I was too young to remember. It's funny how going through something like this can change your perspective. It makes you wonder about the big things again. Not to get all dramatic... but I feel like usually when people are going through hard times, they start to have religious feelings... and I've gone in the complete opposite direction. I've always been atheist, but the concept of an afterlife seems almost insulting. Like the people who are left in the wake of a loved one's death are so incapable of handling the situation that they make up silly shit about how they're "in a better place now." Who do you think you're kidding? We're just organic material, we live and die like any other creature. When we're gone, we're gone. Yeah, it's hard to handle the thought of it, but trying to say otherwise is pointless and stupid.
My best friend's situation stirred similar anti-religious sentiments, which is funny because when I told her this, she admitted to me that although she's largely agnostic now, when she goes through hard times, she finds comfort in her old faith. But I just look at situations such as hers and I get angry. If there is a god, and if he is what people say he is, how could he let such tragedy continually fall on such good people? What have they done to deserve this? I know any religious person would give the vague response that "there is an answer to everything although we may not know it" but I think that's bullshit.
Maybe I'm just jealous that so many other people are able to comfort themselves in their delusions about there being a "greater purpose." Maybe I'm just bitter because I don't know how to lie to myself like that.
*sigh* I didn't intend for this to be an angry post. I'm just struggling.
At least I can be thankful for the support I do have. Even though my best friend has been going through tough times too, she's been doing all she can to help me through my sadness, as well as my boyfriend and my other friends.
Well, that's all for now. There's a rather large gap between the last post and this one and there are lots of things to be discussed, but I'll save that for another time.
