no, i'm still not home.

i don't really know how every trip i take somehow ends up being TWICE as long as planned. seriously. i mean sure, that happens when you plan on staying ONE night, then decide to spend another. two nights is twice as long as one, easy as pie (whatever the hell that means). (i guess pie does go down pretty easy.) anyways. but really, at the beginning of the summer i took a "one week" trip. FOUR weeks later i finally rolled into my own driveway, after seeing nearly all of the western united states. this fall i planned a one month long trip to europe. somehow it morphed into the megatrip which [so far] has covered the western US twice, the eastern US once, England, and most of central and eastern europe. where next? i do have a date on which i expect to be home, but the variables always turn out to be more plentiful than anticipated. why me? my friend B. and i decided that most people's idea of The RoadTrip From Hell is actually my normal life. good times. you know, everytime i think i am the definition of flexible, stuff happens, life happens, I happen. or (in this case) death happens.

i've been avoiding that topic...partly because i'm afraid of getting sappy, and thereby turning my blog into one of the oft mocked "trainwrecks"...partly because i'm still trying to figure out exactly how this whole thing has affected me. i still have not figured out when "affect" should be used and when i should choose "effect". in handwriting i just make an ambiguous shape that resembles both "a" and "e", but now y'all know the truth. anyways.

for those of you who are outside the proverbial loop, on halloween night the guy i dated all thru college, and to whom i was engaged for about a year, was killed in a motorcycle accident near his home in california. we originally planned to be married this past August 21, but i broke it off this past March. i guess the way i see this whole thing is: in relationships there's always joy and there's always pain. everytime the pain overwhelms the joy, you are/a person is/i am faced with the decision (conscious or not) to stick out the pain until everything is joyful again, or to walk away. the decision is largely based on whether, in the long run, there will be more pain or more joy. it really is not that hard to be objective about this. once you decide that the pain will be too great or too frequent you have to walk away. now walking away from something intense is incredibly hard and is easiest if you force yourself to keep constantly in mind the reasons for which you are ending it all (ie THE PAIN), until you are no longer emotionally attached to that person. that is a rather confusing way of looking at it i suppose, but it allows me to understand myself and my feelings (yes, i'm talking about feelings, sorry) of this past week. now that paul is gone i NO LONGER have to worry about emotional attachment, or my future in relation to his. basically i never have to think about the pain again, or focus on the bad parts of our years together. i actually said to a friend last week, "it's strange how when someone dies we forget all the bad things they ever did." he replied, "i hope God sees us the same way." so basically this week or so has been a crazy mixture of laughing and smiling at good memories, crying sad, sad tears that it's really all gone forever, and wondering if i'm ever going to find something as fulfilling and sweet, or even a friend so close and familiar. of course i have regrets, but only in the healthy way...i know i can't change anything, and i know i made decisions that i thought were best, but i've learned many things for the future. it's strange that i make a point to maintain contact with old friends, to call my grandma when i think of her, and to say "i love you" when parting even from people i don't know very well, but i didn't speak to paul except once...and he's the first to go. weird, weird life. weirder death.

i feel for his parents. we younger people seemed to immediately accept it, then started to deal with our sorrow. his parents, however, kept asking themselves, God, and everyone else, "WHY? Why him? Why now?" i don't understand that, but i imagine that it's loads harder than our own grief. i can't even imagine how heartwrenching it is for them to plan their own child's funeral.

i feel for his siblings, especially he who saw the accident happen, and those who were with him while he died. in some way siblings are the closest people to one another, whether they like it or not. especially at our age, we have known no one else for SO long.

i feel for his girlfriend...she, unlike myself, still was planning her future on him. she, unlike myself, has been trying to become closer to him, not further. painful.

ok, ok...i feel for myself too. it was weird to be standing alone, among strangers at the funeral, knowing that i knew him better than anyone else, but most people didn't even know that i knew him at all. people who had never seen me before wondered why i sat next to the casket all night and why i was crying so hard. people who did know me had no idea that i still "cared". the realization of how much i still cared for him hit me hard. real hard. the realization that i was not, "oh, just a girl i dated way back in college", but that i was most of his adult life came hard too. i always try to keep in mind the quote, "Woman has the awful choice of being Eve or being Mary. She either uplifts man by her sheer presense, or she drags him down with her to ultimate destruction." trying to be mary has kept me out of plenty of trouble, but looking back on paul's and my years together i desparately hope that i was mary more than eve. it frightens me to realize how much a part we played in each other's forming. i know i'm better off for the experience...i hope he is too.

i don't feel for him though. the most common phrase used to describe him since is "lucky bastard". i can't imagine how joyous it would be to lay there, knowing that my struggle is over. there was nothing more he could do to determine his eternal fate, except pray. no more struggle against the flesh, no more exhausting examination of his life to see if his formation is headed towards "good catholic man", no more determination of vocation, nothing. nothing except conversation with God, and hope that he would see Him soon. he has pretty much everyone in the world praying for him too. the majority of schools, convents, and seminaries in the states, one in italy, one in france, churches in central america, central europe, you name it. i fear for him, i hope for him, but i don't pity him.

i can't wait to get home and take out my old pictures. it's kind weird to be my age and have already gone thru such a long term relationship, pre-marriage counseling, wedding plans, and a broken engagement. really weird, especially to guys i'm interested in. but it's no longer weird to me. i am proud to have been engaged to someone who is/soon will be in heaven. it's almost like an extra guardian angel. i don't know if i'll ever be madly in love again, but if so i think paul will have a hand in picking him out for me. i do miss him, though.