I hope I leave something behind
An open door, a broken light
Cause all I've seen is sacrifice
A sun-burnt fear through open eyes

You're gonna leave all of this behind
Into the deep with a fist of light
You're gonna be all right

I hope I leave something behind
An open door, a broken light

You're gonna leave all of this behind
Into the deep with a fist of light
You're gonna be all right


I see Monica everywhere.  On the subway, in the grocery store, in a passing car.  Most days now I don't feel so awful when that happens.  It makes me sad, but then I continue with what I'm doing.  Most days now I don't spend a lot of time thinking about her.
But it's only been two months.
She was here, perfectly fine, two months ago.  Two months of grieving for nearly nineteen years of life.  It feels so wrong.
I still think about her all of the time, but I rarely feel the loss.  I don't know if that makes sense.  I don't think about what it felt like when I found out she was dead, a moment that I will never forget.  I don't think about that week of memorial services, not sleeping, her wake, my Ireland team...
I don't think about that.  Not really.  Not what I felt.  Because it's debilitating, and I don't have enough energy to go through that again.
And because of this, I sometimes feel like I'm losing her.
Like the memory of the last time I saw her is getting fuzzier.
Was her hair up or down?  Was she wearing her lane hat or carrying it?  Did she tell me she loved me or was that the time before?
So sometimes, on nights like this when I can't sleep, I think about the night I found out.  I think about Easter and about coming back and not going to classes and the nightmares and all of the horrible things that represented the horrible thing that her death was.  And I remember that she was real.
I still can't think about Ireland without feeling sick though.
As much as I want to go back, I don't think that I ever could.

I start my new job tomorrow.  Round two of the new jobs.  This one is on campus, working with Neal, who was our faculty advisor on the N. Ireland trip.  I think that's where this all started.  I can't look at him without feeling heavy and remembering things.

Her bracelets were stolen.  When we were robbed in Northern Ireland, her bracelets that she had worn almost every day were stolen and I think her ipod was too, but I don't remember.  I remember her iPhone was still there and we were wondering why.  I remember her being sad for about a minute and a half because her bracelets were a gift and they meant a lot to her, and then she just perked up again like she always did and said that it was just stuff, and she didn't need it.  Can't take it with you, she'd say.
On the first day that we went into the city to shop, before anyone had gotten really close, Monica asked if I'd come with her to get coffee before shopping.  I didn't really want to break off from the group because I wanted to get to know everyone, but I agreed.  So we went, and we spent the whole day together, and twas then that we bonded.

I'm so so glad that she lived.