Odds

Jeddy saw my Amanda at the Spaghetti Factory Friday night. The one time I leave my phone on the charger at work, I happen to miss one of the most important calls of my life. I could have been there. I would have been there. In a heartbeat. If only I hadn't forgotten my phone. If only I'd gotten back to the office and retrieved the messages earlier. I could have waited in the lounge area and tried not to stare as they left the restaurant. I could have nonchalantly scoped them out from within the restaurant walls as I nibbled on spaghetti noodles and Mizithra cheese. I could have meandered through the halls of Trolley Square until they left and then tailed them outside, watching her soft blonde hair sway back and forth as her little legs carried her out to the car.

But instead I was at a Polynesian wedding buffet of people I didn't know and cared nothing for. Instead, I sat there, holding back vomit as the woman at the table in front of mine ripped the neck from the pig's head that lay before her. Instead, I was driving Doug all over Hell's half-acre, running errands with him. Doug, my best guy friend, who could only say later, "There is no way I could ever make that up to you, Paige. I'm sorry." And he's right.

emotional reactions

Have all y'all ever wanted to live an emotionless life? For as high as I can occasionally get, each moment is dampened with the fear that there is a low just around the corner waiting for me to unknowingly and unsuspectingly venture through the doorway. Actually, I guess I neither unknowingly nor unsuspectingly venture through the doorway if I know what's awaiting my arrival, now do I? If that's the case, why bother going through the door at all? Is that what drives people to commit suicide? Are they just cowards, unable to embrace their fate? Are they merely avoiding the inevitable chain linking the experiences and feelings that create their existence in the first place? Is that all life is made of? Circumstance, emotion, and reaction?

Bye-bye, Brother

It's weird how long it's been since I've written. Written anything. Anything anywhere. I guess I did jot down a few notes here and there while I was in Hawaii last week, but nothing too profound. It's incredible where life takes us; how much it changes us without our even realizing it. We preoccupy ourselves, searching for the very things that envelope and change us while we're oblivious to their immediate presence. When will we learn to pay attention?

I presently sit in front of a computer at a desk littered with notes about various customers and their internet problems. There's a note on my monitor reminding me to call my dear friend and congratulate her on the birth of her baby girl. The note is several months old. I'm quietly playing a self-created mix of Jon Schmidt music on my DVD-rom and enjoy the flirtatious tones wafting through the air. My Dave Barry desk calendar graces the top of my desk, placed next to the photograph of my family before Penny married Greg. Behind the calendar is a picture of my Amanda in the straw hat and blue outfit and a picture of Cade, Aubrey and Ashley all pulling funny faces.

To my right is a wall, complete with hanging calendar and corkboard. The corkboard holds pictures of my new nephew and a former coworker and I. There's also the company phone list, the employee birthday list, and the map of our APs and distances we can service. I have cut and pasted on the corkboard the obituary for Faith Kathleen Montgomery - my dear friend, Jed's, only niece. She came into this world and left it again less than 24 hours later. The obituary hangs next to a picture of me and my dead brother, playing "family" with a nephew and two nieces at my other brother's wedding two years ago.

I miss him.

I spoke at Dana's funeral. He died on July 9 2003 in a car wreck. They say that when he flew out of the Jeep and hit the ground, he broke his neck and immediately died. Is it good he didn't "suffer" if it means his survivors were robbed of the opportunity to say one last goodbye? To give him one last kiss? To tell him one last joke? I wonder what he thought as he hurtled toward the ground - or if he was even capable of thinking. I wonder if it even dawned on him when the trailer started jacking around behind the Jeep that it could ultimately cause his death. I wonder if he was as relieved as I that no one else was on the road; that no one else was involved or hurt in the accident.

I wonder if God let him watch as my parents pulled up behind the wreck and saw him on the ground. I wonder if he watched and heard as my father called my sister-in-law to let her know that morning's kiss would be her last from her dear husband. I wonder if he watched, heard, and cried when my daddy called me to tell me the sibling I held closest to me had passed away an hour earlier and some 300+ miles away, leaving me stuck in Salt Lake City, powerless to comfort and unable to be comforted. I wonder if Dana hears me every night as I'm saying my prayers, begging God to let me be with him again one day.

My brother is a good man. It's no wonder God couldn't wait to have him back. Does that make God selfish? Perhaps...but I don't think so. I think it means God teaches us some lessons the hard way.

i doubt anyone reads this anymore, but i have to say something. life scares me. my choices scare me. i am never confident enough in what i do that i'm doing what's good and right for me.

Chicken? No thanks.

wow. it's been a while, hasn't it? just returned from the PF - my second-to-last shift. i can still hardly believe i'm leaving this place. four years, and i'm leaving without the blink of an eye. will i change? what has changed? why now, six months after i had the first impression that i should go, why do i now find the courage to do so? i don't believe i'm running - from anything, really. am i running to something instead? i don't think so, as there's technically nothing waiting for me when i finally get there. it's December 6, a Friday night, and tomorrow i will be unemployed. why would someone choose to do that? i'm not bored. am i unfulfilled? i suppose it's faith, my friend. merely faith.

life is definitely not an adventure for me. i choose to live moderately. i take no chances, and therefore, never risk failure. i go where i think it is safe to go. i don't feel like i'm missing out on life, though, so don't get me wrong. what i'm really trying to say is baby steps, Paige. i'm taking baby steps. i can't up and move far, far away to Cali or Vegas or something like that; but i can move to SLC, where i have family, friends, familiarity. yes, i'm a chicken, and yes, i'm okay with that.

so the plan is to go to NY to visit Elton late Sunday night for a few days. get home Friday, the sister gets married Saturday, then i'm free to go wherever i want to, because i'll be without job or home or security. it will be different, but different is good.