TV and Life and Death

Today I did a lot of thinking. Soulsearching type of stuff, though it sounds kind of holier-than-thou to say it like that. Ashley drove me in the morning to get my car from Mark's, and I was on my way to get gas when I passed my grandpa's memorial park. My grandpa had a huge effect on my life and how I live it, but believe it or not I've only been there twice before. I went there on his funeral (May 2009), and couldn't stop crying for one minute, and spent a lot of the summer crying at night and thinking about him. Or maybe I should call it thinking 'to' him, because I hoped (and still do) that he could hear my thoughts, wherever he was. I won't go into it, but I'm not religious, but I really didn't (and still don't) want him to be gone. I went to his grave once more a while later, and spent about a half hour sitting by his gravestone crying. So because crying always takes a lot of energy and it's embarrassing to sit alone and cry in public, I have avoided ever going to his grave.. really, since he died.

So to get on with it, today I went, and spent a solid ten minutes crying. After that, though, I had another good while of me thinking to him, 'telling' him about my life, how he has affected it, how my grandma's doing.. Stuff like that. And after a while, I realized that no matter how shitty a situation can seem, life always goes on. Like two years ago, when he died, I couldn't go more than a few minutes without thinking about his not being alive. After a while, it was more like a few hours. Then I could go a few days. And now, it's not like I don't remember him, or care, or love him, or anything, it's just that he's not as much a part of my life anymore. I just don't think about him much anymore. But I still remember him like it was yesterday when I stormed to my grandparents' house, upset with some boyfriend (who it was I can't even for sure remember) and he comforted me like I was a baby.

Anyway, I realized life goes on, and it changes. All you will have in the end is memories, so you'd better make good ones. That just adds support to my life strategy, which I adhere to as much as possible (only spending time with people you enjoy, as much as you can).

So then I went home, did some Chinese, finished watching The Terminal (Ryan - I get why you said it was sad. I admit I cried a little, but it still had a happy ending!), read some Machine of Death (a collection of stories by random people about a machine who can tell you how you'll die), went to BYBA (where Carmen and I discussed the speech I'm making in Washington DC in a couple of weeks), went to my grandma's to eat, came home and wrote my speech and watched the new episode of Parenthood.

Parenthood is so good, I don't know why people aren't talking about it more. I'm hooked for sure.