Happy New Year

Here's hoping that 2012 is better than 2011...

Worst Christmas Ever

I got loneliness for Christmas. Phenoms.

What's the point of life if it only consists of surviving? What's the point of trying when nothing comes of it? 
It's time to go back to the girl I was before I met him. Closed-off, cynical, pessimistic, bitter, tough, slow to reveal my real self to people, and never, never, never letting anyone get too close. I let him get too close and I got burned.  Never again.

There will never be a next time

People tell me things like, "You'll get through this" and "Things will get better" and "You are a strong person and you can handle this."  But none of those things are helpful or true.  I don't believe that things get better. Things get different, but not better.  Life has always been trading one crap situation for another and this is no exception.

Seriously, those ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan singing over a montage of photos of diseased animals are the worst advertising campaign ever. I can't even watch them. I just change the channel well before any information about how to donate comes on the screen.  Try again, ASPCA. With less diseased animals next time. Thanks.

Frightening reality

There was a shooting at a northern Minnesota courthouse yesterday afternoon.  The alleged gunman is a defendant who had just been convicted at trial and shot the county attorney three times, as well as shooting three other people.  The defendant's attorney ran to help the county attorney, who had been shot in the leg and in the stomach and was bleeding heavily.

This saddens me. I am in a courthouse nearly every day of the work week. My courthouse has bailiffs and technically has a moveable metal detector that occasionally will be plugged in and pushed into place so people (myself included) have to actually go through it, but 99.9% of the time, the detector is shoved aside, unplugged, and out of the way.  The reality is that something like this could happen easily in the courthouse I'm in almost every day, because people generally know each other, the court people know each other, it's just another day at work for most of us and we generally don't expect to be shot while at work.

I think about that defense attorney having to use a belt to cinch the county attorney's leg wound and the county attorney asking the defense attorney to make sure his wife knew he loved her and I get chills.  It's way, way, way too easy to imagine myself in a similar situation, tending to one of the prosecutors I work with all the time as they tell me to make sure their spouse knows they love them. It's really frightening and creepy.

Prayers go out to everyone impacted by this terrible event.

Dropped my phone in the toilet. Fml.

I'm not real

Supposedly time heals all wounds, but I don't think that's true.  I think time lets you know how to hide the pain or how to work around the pain, but doesn't actually heal the pain.  If I suddenly had a stabbing, throbbing, shooting, agonizing pain in my legs when I walked, I'd learn how to adjust and walk so as to lessen the pain on a daily basis.  But, the pain would still be there and it wouldn't take much--just a thoughtless misstep--to bring it back full force.  I think in some cases, the pain never stops being there.  We just learn how to maneuver around it so it doesn't hurt so bad every day.


I feel like that's what I've been doing lately--maneuvering around the pain.  I am very good at pretending I'm fine.  I'm so good in fact that people tell me quite often that they are amazed at how well I'm handling everything.  I go to work and I joke around and I laugh and I go out to lunch and I make my courtroom arguments and I smile and I do things as if nothing is wrong.  I go out with my friends and have a good time and laugh and get dressed up and enjoy my time.  But, underneath it all is the reality--I feel like I'm dying inside.