Life and Death

I guess I should start off by introducing myself, supposedly it's the proper thing to do. I'm Theresa toth a.k.a. Tess, a nineteen year old female. Okay, let's bloody well get on with it... It was requested by Leo that I write an article for CoN. It indeed was a great honour bestowed on myself, so I decided, what the hell, give it the old college try. But, he didn't give me any guidelines to follow or topics to discuss. When I questioned him what the hell I was supposed to write, he basically said anything. So, I figured whatever popped into my mind, that was what I was going to comment on. Also keep in mind that I am not an official member of CoN and do not know what is deemed respectable or what meets CoN's standards. Therefore, don't blame me if this doesn't make any sense, all right? :)

Late Friday Night
Let's see... it's always difficult to start off an assignment (I've goofed off as much as I can for the present moment). Right now it's a quarter past twelve and it's one of those damn nights when my thoughts won't leave me alone. I've tried everything known to man and nothing seems to work. So, I decided this would be a good time to start contemplating what I was going to write for this article. I wanted to write about something original, interesting and modern. But, the topic that relentlessly pursues my cranium is life, of all things! No, I'm not conteplating the meaning of life (everyone knows the answer is 42!), rather, I'm thinking about life and death. Normally I could think of something bizarre to write about, like why every female mannequin has erected nipples (why is that anyway?) but it's been one hell of a year (can anyone relate here?!) It seems that all my friends are dying on me. I learned that my good friend died of cancer, another was murdered on her way home, I held my friend's hand while she went through an abortion (not a pretty sight) and I had a couple of pals decide to get suicidal on my ass. All these events had put stress on me. I'm not looking for sympathy, it solves nothing, but all this crap puts everything in a different perspective.

When Leo first knew me, I was a goody-goody who starved for attention. I was always concerned for others' well being. I worried about others to the point of insanity sometimes! He used to tell me "Tess, no wonder you have fucking ulcers! Stop worrying about others! It might sound selfish, but you should say to yourself 'the only things important is me, myself and I'." At first, I couldn't believe in that whole "selfish" behaviour, it was so unlike myself not to worry about others. That was two years ago. A lot has happened since then. With all this death happening around me, even with the death of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana, all of it has made me become somewhat numb. I don't know how to react. I want to show emotions, tears, sadness over all the lost, but nothing. Does this mean I'm becoming insensitive? Sometimes I wish I still could openly cry, but these days it seems to be more difficult to do. But I still think continuosly about it, so I guess I haven't become completely cold-hearted yet. :)

Time, it seems, things go by too damn quickly. We're so busy watching out for what's ahead of us that we don't enjoy where we are. Days, weeks go by and we hardly notice them. Life becomes a blur. Often it takes some sort of calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we've made, but by then it's too late to change anything. Once it's too late, we appreciate what a miracle life is. We realize that nature is ruthless and our existance is very fragile, temporary and precious. But to go on with daily affairs, one can't really think about that...which is probably why everyone takes the world for granted and why we act so thoughtlessly. As a matter of fact, it's not easy to keep from being overwhelmed by a sense of defeat and pessimism when we look at our mistakes and deeply into ourselves to find out that we aren't perfect and invincible afterall. Pessimism is frequently a sign of our tendency to try to solve everything on a conscious level and our reluctance to rely on others for help.

...Perhaps I should have warned you that my thoughts tend to escape my control? Oh well. I think I should stop myself before I hurt myself beyond repair! This ends my article (and MRs. Werden aka. "Deathstar" said I couldn't write! Hah! I can write, but just not well, that's all! =)

[Note: Mrs. Werden was the English Department Head in our High School. Not only she was a bitch, but she was also so fat that we had to nickname her "Deathstar" -- Editor]