BANDz

      I had my first band practice today, and am officially the sexiest cymbal player central has ever seen. Or any marching band has ever seen. I have mastered strutting while marching. And I have the best freshman cymbol counterpart, she's like a mini, less experienced me who plays oboe (so I guess she has a little Alex in her too). I'm setting her up with Dennis and showing her the ways of the world.
     I had a really scary thought today, like five minutes ago. It was 'what if Conor decides to go to college in Ireland'. Freakin. Fuckin. Scary. Like Freddy Kreuger and Tim Curry. All together. In a Nightmare on the Rocky Horror Picture Show Street. I'm scared that I'm getting too separated with this whole separation thing. Like it's vaguely in the back of my mind that you're coming back, but I think that I've gone into survival mode and that my subconscious is forcing me to try to forget you for sanity's sake.
    Because of this survival mode thing, I don't think about you as much during the day, but I wake up every day at 3 a.m., on the dot, expecting a text from you. Or a call. Or you to be there or a hey Lizzie I'm done with Ireland and I'm coming home and I'm going to live in your house and ignore my mom forever and ever and ever and ever. And then we can stop being away from each other, forever and ever and ever and ever. And it'll be like Tangled, except you won't have to suffer and stab wounds and I won't get (another) bad haircut.
    This whole separation thing has also made me realize the suckiness of modern technology and the giant mind fuck that it is. Computers, cellphones, iPods, all of it - they all give us a false sense of security. Of being close to people we're away from so we don't realize we're so alone. They give us an instant way to contact them, but we can't look them straight in the eye and say the things we need to say to them. We can't have physical contact, we can't touch them or even read their body language. We can't feel the heat of their breath on our necks or the stings of their slaps. We can only feel what we think they're trying to get across, or what we want them to be trying to get across at least. Not only this, but they also further the separation by giving you a morsel of what you could have, but never allowing you to have the entire meal. It's like when people are dehydrated and they get a tiny drop of water. Temporarily it's satisfying, but then it makes it even worse. And because it makes it worse those people start to stop caring about that drop of water and realize the false hope hidden behind it. And every time they get a drop of water, even though they need it to survive, they start to loathe it. They loathe it and finally realize that maybe nothing would be better. Nothing versus this slight drop keeping them alive with their pain pounding at their heads every waking and sleeping moment. Nothing so that they could finally mourn, they could be justified in their mourning of their own deaths and in their pain. Nothing so that instead of pretending that they have become numb and trying to become numb for the hope they can release all of it and know that the end is near. This is the brink that modern technology brings us to.
      At least when letters are written there is thought and time put into them. They note the gravity and heaviness of being away from someone you love and are equally as painful in their delay. But a text message? It's instant and it devalues the pain with a simple 'what's up?'. It's an instant lobotomy, like so much in this world that we live in. From everything to antidepressants, to text messages, to vending machines, this instant gratification and freedom from pain that we have in America weakens us and creates a population focused on not feeling. And when people actually have to bear real pain, when someone is dying at the scene of a car accident, when their limbs are mangled and they know that death is near, then they feel. And it's the feeling of feeling that they're not used to. It's not relievable and it's not going to end in this lifetime. Then maybe the beauty of despair can finally reach them, and in this final release they will realize what it is to be human. I'd like to pretend that we are immortal, but we're not. Anything could crack and paralyze my fragile spinal cord, pinch my fragile nerves, puncture my fragile skin. We're fragile beings.
     The fact that someone can even be transported through the air to another continent, in my mind, is a feat of nature, not of modern technology. Despite our frailties, our faults, our achilles heels, whatever you want to call them, something is allowing us to keep going. With all of the other animals out there, with the beasts and the microbacterium and the disasters of the earth, we should not, as a species, still be in existence. We should have been extinct millions of years ago. In fact, according to Darwinian theory, we shouldn't have even fully developed in the first place. But what kept us alive? Most scholars, most studied people, the American population, most likely even the President of Harvard University would tell you that it's our brains. Our intellect has allowed us to survive all of this, to thrive, to become the 'kings' of the jungle, if you want to talk in terms of pecking order and monarchy. These brains, protected by a fragile cage, have kept this weak and frail species alive. The tools of technology have allowed us to kill, maim, and train beasts. Our feats in the medical fields have taught us how to target and destroy the microbacterium that want to target and destroy us. And through meteorology and modern engineering we have not only been able to predict when natural disasters will occur, we have also been able to protect ourselves from them through well-planned structures of shelter and deflection.
     But this survival? It hasn't been caused by our brilliant minds. It's been merely allowed, allowed and planned by some higher power. Some kind of God or force of the Universe. We wouldn't even have those brains without it. There has to be something. Some kind of something. And in my opinion, we're probably pissing that something off. I mean, here we are, all trying to be inhuman. All trying to be gods. Controlling every part of the world, even the airwaves. All running away from our feelings and pretending that things aren't happening. All lobotomizing ourselves and each other.
      People will say that I bitch too much. People will say that I need to appreciate the good things in life, to stop trying to find things wrong with everything. To stop criticizing us, to stop trying to feel unnecessary pain. But their just trying to run away. And they want me to run away too. They want you to run away. We're all supposed to run away from our feelings according to them. To run away from our intuition and things that are wrong. But the most important thing we can do is not run away from those things. To accept them. To feel the pain, to confront it, to get up in it's face and do what you want with it. To try to stop it, to fight it, but never, never run away from it. Don't run away from things Conor, I love you too much to let you lose a fight.
Love,
Lizzie