well it kind of hurts.

death. i think that word evokes many different things for each person. the other day my dad heard me talking about it with my little sister, of 10 years. he got mad and said that "i shouldn't talk about that." i think fear is the most common reaction to death; either that or sadness. however, i don't think we should be scared of it, or avoid it. when you think about it, it's really just a part of life.

          i bring up this issue of death because i had a... i guess you could call it a personal revelation(?) about death this weekend. friday afternoon i was leaving draft, on my way to a wedding rehearsal in staunton to babysit. mind you, a blizzard was just starting then. so, i'm not more than three minutes from my house when i end up behind a long line of cars at a standstill. after about fifteen minutes, the line started to move, and then drive at a regular speed. on either side of the road there were two really, really banged up cars. being the rubberneck that i am, i caught a good look at both of the cars. the car to the left was banged up pretty badly, in a ditch. but the car to the right was just plain screwed. the whole front end could be adequately described as tiger woods' angry wife times10 getting their hands on it. like in a classic movie scenario, there was blood splattered over the cracked windshield. as i drove by i started thinking about mortality. more specifically,  my mortality. i started to do a sort of inventory of my very brief life. and.

          then i called my sister. i told her(among other things) that if i died, on the way to this wedding rehearsal in the blizzard, that.. that i would be okay with dying, right then at that moment in time. you ask, "why?" because i have lived such a full life. in no particular order, i got to spend time with my family, i've basically completed high school,  i've realized my dream of going to africa and tons of other countries, fallen in love and fallen out of love, had great friendships, and been through awful betrayals. by golly, i even got to learn how to operate a motor vehicle. ha. anyways. driving on that road i was overcome with some pretty heavy gratitude. i've really gotten to live this thing we call life.

         all that to say, i'm not wishing i would've died on that road or anything like that at. i'm glad i'm still alive. i'm glad i got to experience the blizzard of 2009, complete with hanging with the whole miller clan, shoveling my car out of a shit load of snow(in reality, sam kirchman shoveled more than me and rach combined) and cabin fever.

         i hope you're well. i hope you continually look for ways to feel alive. don't sleepwalk through life.

 and i couldn't resist throwing in this picture of me alive in kenya. this is charles. i miss him.
enjoy.