15 march 2011.

haley said to me a long time ago about starting to write again, because i told her about a condition i once had, and because it has returned with a violent vengeance, i will write about it.

1) i, in no way, intend to announce this on the loud speaker. please don't think that i am writing this to get attention/sympathy...
2) i have a problem. i'm not sure if it's medical. i doubt it though. but i have a problem with my emotions, and i just gotta say this, hoping someone somewhere out there is going to read it, or else no one will ever know.

i think i have a lot of emotions. i'm a freaking crybaby. i may or may not have as many emotions as you do, but while i have a lot of these feelings, everyone always sees my huge, big-teeth-buck-toothed smile that i involuntarily keep wide open nearly all the time. my mouth just goes that way. i have a smiley mouth.

that doesn't mean i'm not happy. Lord knows, i laugh at stuff i shouldn't be. just that, when i get an emotion that is not happy, i reflexively close it, bottle it, hope no one saw that i wasn't happy. and now i bring out the honesty: i have no idea how it came to be like this.

in the words of copeland, "everybody knows that you'd break your neck to keep your chin up."

for sure, i hate feeling anything other than happy. it makes me uncomfortable for 1) people to see me other than happy and 2) to talk about my emotions in case someone asked me if something was wrong. if you ask me, i will always say everything is okay, because the trouble and the discomfort of going through why i feel this way, yadda yadda, is...i don't value it as enough for something worth your time.

my emotions really are trivial in the grand scheme of things, and even if i did talk about my emotions to somebody, it never comes out the way it really is. and therefore, i don't talk about them. i can't talk about me, my life, exciting things that happened in my day, or how i felt about something. it takes a lot of energy to tell someone, "hey, guess what? i'm working on a piano/flute cover for the song 'stay'." (really, because i consider it selfish to talk about myself for some reason, though i love to hear people talk about their own lives.)

i've been trying to get rid of this. i'm not sure if this is considered alexithymia. but i have something, i think. i've tried to get rid of this once or twice before, and it went away. but it came back. and while i've attempted to destroy it, i can't. and so i talked to a therapist.

his name is gabe. he is in eleventh grade. he loves Jesus and loves people more than anyone else that i know. i figured he would be the best person to talk about it to, because i'm not particularly close to him (though i would like to be), meaning he doesn't know me inside and out enough to accuse me for wanting attention with this emotion problem thing; and God drew me to him. kinda cute.

and i will finally admit this to the world, because this, i think, is what it is all about: i was supremely hurt when i realized that i have a friend who is infinitely times more beautiful, charming, and everything- i'm- not than i will ever be. gabe's proven it multiple times when he forgets about me because my friend is a jewel, and i am a little shriveled piece of paper in the corner that's been forgotten. i respect the fact that everyone loves her more than me, because it's true.

but because of my emotions problem, no one has known about how i felt about it. i just told people, "everything's okay." people would ask me, "why aren't you hugging gabe?" but, seriously, my mouth can't form the words. emotions don't compute in my brain. i just feel them, but i can't let people see that i do, so the action of shying away from gabe when he tries to hug me...

i think it's a reflex of some sort. because while i am hurt, why would i shy away from him? i don't know. i don't know anything about anything really. dumb. and maslike, and quiet. no wonder everyone forgets about me.

i try to stay strong. i try to talk myself into, "i don't need them; i always have the other guys." and then the other guy just forgets about me, and my face is a shriveled mess behind that buck-toothed, bright-eyed smile that everyone always sees. i am so pathetic.

but anyway. so i talked to gabe. it wasn't like anything i had prepared myself before. the evening before, i had asked him on facebook if i could talk to him in person the next day, and i prepared my speech about everything i was going to say, and i predicted what his reactions would be...and it turned out totally different. because, now, i don't think i am cured of this emotions problem, but i have a Savior who's whispering, "I'm looking at your heart."

just like He looked at david's heart, and not his features when samuel went to pick out israel's new king. He's leading me up somewhere. where? i cannot say. but it'll be alright in the end.

i don't have time to maintain these regrets when i think about the way...He loves us.

everything's been a lightning bolt of memory. songs, pictures. a searing knife pierces my chest whenever i remember that josh is no longer with us because of horrible, earthly, unchangeable reasons.

"stay with me."
your brother, your girlfriend, your family, your friends are screaming for you.

even the most repetitive songs about love. i just want him to have stayed here with us.
i can't imagine what persuaded him to take his own life. to imagine the deep, hellish places his thoughts roamed the moments before he did it...

i've had this personal opinion about suicide before too...how someone who belongs to something so special, like a family, or a lacrosse team, a boyfriend and girlfriend relationship, a friendship...but decide to leave them, drenching them in unimaginable grief and confusion because of your selfish desire to be dead. i just can't understand that. where did you go before you did this to yourself? hell and back is my only hypothesis.

look down upon us and don't deny you regret having done this. you've killed us all.

it's 9 march 2011.
today is the day that josh wittes unintentionally decided to make the biggest impact on this school since i can remember. today, we honor his life, and we remember what he did for us. for all of us.

yesterday. eating lunch at ksu. mr. minich comes up to us and asks us if we heard about a josh wittes. people behind me looked grave. i looked clueless. they explained to me. and i was sorry. but i wasn't empathetic.

last night. facebook. it's everywhere. statuses, events, writings on walls. and i start to feel this huge weight on me that i've never felt before. i decide to attend the prayer meeting my friends are hosting in the morning.

7 am this morning. lassiter cafeteria. it's dark and extremely silent, the bodies in a sea of red to honor josh. i walk with my friend, and pass by people with their eyes shut and their heads bowed, super sincere. i sat down and commenced to pray. i've never prayed so long, so fervently in my life. i never thought i could do it. paige came over and we prayed aloud. cayla came over and reached arms over us and prayed. i don't think i've ever been so moved by something organized by students.

the day is hard. i praise God and pray for josh. i wonder how i can be laughing when he is in the hospital, dying.

evening. i thank those who organized the wear red day and the prayer meeting. i check on tumblr to see posts about josh. he was still fighting.

and then i saw the first post. and i didn't believe my eyes. i got angry, even. i though God would come and cure him, give him a second chance. this was supposed to be some kind of practice. but it dawned, slowly. and my frown hurts, and my cheeks are tear-stained. unlike i thought it would be, these emotions were sudden. unexpected. surprising. overwhelming. he's gone, God.

where did he go before he attempted it, where have you gone now? come back. oh please, just come back. your life means more to us than you could have ever thought.

you should have seen the red today, josh. it was so amazing. you should see all the facebook wall posts and everything, it's so incredible. oh yeah, see here? he remembers how you complimented him about football. your brother, see here? he's crying over you. no, please don't mourn. you've left us here with broken hearts and broken souls, but you, up there, look down upon us as we mend. i see healing, don't you? yeah. it's going to be okay. you'll see. thank you for the memories.

edit: it turns out, he passed away the morning of the tenth. funeral services were held today, the eleventh.