Life Sucks...
but it’s okay.
By Krista Lester
Introduction
No one can leave me alone anymore. Not my family, or my teachers, or life, or school, or anyone. Everyone bothers me. And everything goes wrong. It's almost like something is toying with me. It's almost like some horrible fate has already been decided for me. If I like something, it goes away. If I can't stand it, it keeps coming back. Again, and again, and again....
I don't feel much like a person anymore. Or maybe it's just that I'm not me. The real me wants to tell people what I'm thinking. The real me wants to yell, and scream, and swear, and smoke, and drink, and fight. Every once in a great, great while, the real me will emerge, and people get scared. Scared!
I am such a good kid. I never get in trouble at school. I do my homework. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I never raise my voice. I never get mad. I'm in lots of activities. I respect my teachers. I dress nicely. I take care of myself and my family. But my mind hates me for it. It always thinks just the opposite of what I do. It's like those two little angel and devil figures in cartoons. The little angel always wins out. I hate the little angel. I sit in school nice and quiet at my desk, but my mind is thinking ninety things every second.
Once, in the middle of class, I was just staring off into space when I suddenly pictured a demon in the front of the room. Out of nowhere, I actually saw a demon with blood, and flames, and evil eyes just like all good demons should have. I smiled and stared at it, and I sat there just hoping the teacher would ask me what I was looking at. It would have been so much fun to tell him I was staring at the demon in the front of the room. I know everyone would've thought I was crazy, but I don't care; I saw a demon.
I wish I had somebody to talk to. The only problem is that I hate people. And if I talked about this, I wouldn't write it. And then someday in the far off future, I'd forget it. That would suck. And when I died, no one would ever really know me. I hope when I die, everyone I know will read everything I've ever written 'cause that's where I really am: in what I write and in what I sing.
4/12/93
Dante called last night. We talked for about an hour. I really didn’t say much; I just listened. He came right out and said, “I don’t know if you saw the news or not--my brother died last night.” I probably would have been a lot better off if I hadn’t stayed up for the news. They showed a picture of Corbin, and it just seems frozen in my mind. I woke up at 2:00 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. I could swear that he’s haunting me.
4/13/93
When I went into English class today, there were a bunch of people standing in a circle talking and laughing. I didn’t really care to know what it was they were laughing about ‘cause I wasn’t at all in the mood to laugh, but I overheard one of them say, “Yeah! Hey, can you imagine how hilarious that must’ve been to see? There’s this guy crossing the street and then all of a sudden BOOM! he’s flying thirty feet into the air!” They all laughed hysterically. I couldn’t believe it. I hate them all.
I went to the funeral home today right after school. I was glad I got to see Dante, but I’m not so sure he even realized he was seeing me. He said he had this numb feeling, and I can tell what he means because the way he acts, and looks, and talks, he doesn’t seem like he has the capacity to feel anything anymore. It kind of makes me a little upset because I feel more for him now than I ever did before. I wish I could cheer him up, but I don’t think I should even if I could. He probably needs this time to work through his grief. He also said he feels guilty if he tries to go out with his friends and have a good time. I know what he means here because I feel guilty when I’m having a good time, too. I keep thinking, “Dante is really upset right now. His brother is dead. Don’t be smiling and having a good time.”
Ami is acting different. The whole world is. My teachers are being nice to me. My parents are being nice to me. People in school keep asking if I’m okay. God, I feel terrible for Dante. He looked awful. Emotionally.
There’s this kid that rides my bus that saw his own brother shoot himself in the head a few years ago. I keep looking at him and wondering how he’s talking to people and laughing with his friends. Doesn’t he remember?
I want Dante back. The Dante I know now and the Dante I used to know are two completely different people. Ami, too. And a lot of other people, I’m sure. I couldn’t just be imagining that the whole world has changed. And I didn’t even know him.
4/25/93
When I went to the funeral home the other day, I was very surprised to find an open casket for viewing. It was kind of hard to believe after seeing a pool of blood--Corbin’s blood--on the news from the accident. I’ll never be able to figure out how they took care of that. I wasn’t planning on looking at the body, but I knew I would have had this little voice in the back of my mind telling me I should have for the rest of my life, so I did. It seemed weird to see a young person in a casket. To this point, I had only seen old people in caskets. I kept comparing everything to other funerals I’d been to, and I couldn’t help but think he just plain looked dead. He didn’t just look like he was sleeping or anything; he really looked dead. Even to me, he didn’t look like himself, and I never met him.
The picture that had been on the news was framed and sitting on a table in the room with the casket. He looked a lot skinnier in the picture, and his hair was long. The picture really bothers me, maybe because he was smiling, but I’m not very sure at all. I keep waking up in the middle of the night. It’s the picture; it won’t go away. I keep seeing the picture of Corbin in my head: smiling, not knowing about what was to come. Or what has come.
When I saw Dante, he was totally detached from reality. He was talking to me, but if he hadn’t been, I would have had trouble figuring out if he even recognized me. He had this constant glazed look over his eyes, and no expression whatsoever on his face. He seemed to be looking right past what he was looking at, seeing something in the air that didn’t really exist. Maybe he was looking for answers to all the questions he says can never be answered. I wanted to tell him he might find out someday, but I was afraid he wouldn’t want to be cheered up. Besides, I didn’t believe it myself.
The actual funeral was yesterday. I wanted to go so badly, but Mom wouldn’t let me get out of school for it. I was furious. It was a funeral! Is it really so important for me to miss a funeral to be in school? Yesterday was such an awful day. Not only was it the day of the funeral, but it was dark and rainy all day long just to make things worse. It was cold and miserable, and all I wanted to do was tell the whole world they should be at the funeral. I kept looking around wondering why no one cared enough to be there.
I wore all black yesterday. Mom hates it when I wear all black. At least she had the sense not to say anything about it. Of course, some moron in school took one look at me and said, “Who died?” Are people really that stupid?
Dante told me that Corbin had a lot of problems with being easily influenced. He had apparently gotten into a cult a few years ago, but his girlfriend got him out of it. The girl who got him into the cult called him a few days before the accident. I guess he had been complaining about her calling, but Dante said everyone knew he could be talked into coming back to the cult. At the funeral, the girl touched her hand to Corbin’s lips, and Dante’s mom flipped out. She screamed not to touch him and immediately went over to brush the touch off. The accident was on Good Friday. His mom thinks it was so God could take him while He still had the chance.
Judging from what I heard about him, Corbin seemed to have had a lot of problems in his life. He was a high school dropout. He was a member of a cult. He was heavily into doing and dealing drugs. Every time I talked to Dante, he would tell me how much he hated his brother. Once, he had to cut our conversation short because his brother showed up at his window and needed help. I didn’t really understand it; I just asked him to call me back when everything was settled. When he called back, he said his brother was hiding from his mother, and he was completely out of cash. He showed up to ask for some prescription Dante had so he could try and sell it.
Within the last few weeks, though, Corbin had just registered to start back to high school. He was getting out of the drugs. Everything was starting to fall into place for him. He had already gotten one job for the summer, and at the time of the accident, he was literally just leaving to go home from another job interview. I wonder if the accident happened for some sort of reason? Well, of course there was a reason; there’s a reason for everything. They’re just not always good reasons. But Dante and his mom don’t think it was an accident at all.
Dante thinks his mom is going to drive herself crazy. She went out looking for the car and persisted even when he assured her that the police were taking care of it. He thinks she’s going nuts, and I told him that it might help her to think she’s at least trying to do something, but I was actually thinking I‘d do the same thing if I were her. Even though I’m not her, I still want to look for that car. I get shivers whenever I pass the location of the accident, and I look at the road for blood or car parts even though I know there won’t be any.
Another thing that Dante said that kind of stayed with me is that his father didn’t show any emotion at all at the funeral. Apparently, while he was there he said, “I didn’t know Corbin had any friends, I thought he just dropped out of school and wasn’t doing anything with his life.“ Dante said Corbin hated his dad, and his dad knew that. Still, it was his son lying there in that casket. Corbin was doing something with his life; he was fixing it. And if I thought I wouldn’t hurt anyone, I’d say he probably died happy.
6/2/93
I can't believe it. Only half a day left until he won't be coming back to school at all anymore. Lucas was my reason for going to school, my reason for waking up every single morning. He was my reason to live, and breathe, and write, and sleep, and eat. My reason to smile, to cry, to work, to dream....
In English class, we just finished reading The Wild Duck. It prompted a discussion about life-illusions. The teacher described life-illusions with the example of living your life believing that you'll go to Harvard even though you're failing school. Lucas was my life-illusion. He was reason to believe in the impossible. I admired his arrogance, his self-confidence, his freedom, his attitude. I honestly don't know how I'm going to live once he's gone. Who will I look to for guidance? Who will I see all the answers in? Whose existence will I worship?
Maybe he'll still be my reason to follow where my destiny leads me. You know, he could get run over by a truck the day after graduation, and I would never know! Graduation is a horrible thing.
6/8/93
He's gone. Like for good. And he will never, ever be a part of this high school again. Graduation day. Well, I got a picture of him! Ami and I went up to him with a camera, and he said, "I look awful!" But Ami said, "No you don't, you look great!" So I put my arm around him and posed for the camera, and so did he. I think he took it well, considering I've never really spoken to him before. That picture better be good. I didn't know whether I should jump up and down or cry. I was so happy to talk to him and get a picture. But now he's gone. For good.
11/1/93
Only sixteen more days till my sixteenth birthday! Somehow, I don’t feel much like learning to drive, though. I don’t want to kill anyone.
River Phoenix died this weekend. The story was on A Current Affair, and they showed a clip of him in an interview, saying that some people can't stay in control and he thinks as long as he stays real, he'll be okay. He realizes that we're just flesh and blood.
But we aren't just flesh and blood. We're flesh, blood, and fate. Destiny lies in there somewhere, and it doesn't just decide to swallow someone up every once in a great while. It creates slow, agonizing, painful death of the spirit and then the body. It's scary to think that even twenty-three year olds can be victims of destiny's greedy hands. There's no compassion in there anywhere. Destiny claims childhood idols as well as boyfriends' brothers.
11/15/93
Today, for the first time in nine years, I watched all of the movie Stand By Me. Actually, the first time ever, but the movie has been out for nine years. Before today, I had only watched parts of it because I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies. I’m still not really allowed. Anyway, as I was watching, I was thinking. God, that movie is so freaky now--some of River’s lines. I don’t know how anyone could just watch that movie and not feel River. I’m not obsessing myself with dead people, I think I’m just finally realizing what life is like and how badly it sucks. I come in here to my room, and I see People magazine lying on my desk, and I say to myself, “Why? Why does the world stick it’s nose where it just doesn’t belong?” Suddenly, everyone’s all concerned that River Phoenix was on drugs. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad person, whether it’s true or not. It doesn’t matter now. He’s dead. We should be mourning, not saying he must’ve been a horrible person because he was on drugs.