I have been reading a lot of footblogs lately to get my spirits up and they are all so happy and uplifting. Even during injury or other setbacks, you guys still manage to have a positive outlook on things. I almost feel guilty posting here, like I am breaking some sort of unwritten rule that footblogs should be nice to read. Hopefully I can snap out of this sooner rather than later and get back to the happier things in life.
[EDIT: here, have a kitty. I didn't have anything else to put up for a picture so I figure this one would suffice. Took it two weeks ago at the barn]
Wednesday was an interesting day. I was feeling pretty good in the morning, having talked to Nastia for a good hour and a half. She was feeling significantly better and told me she didn’t want to move out of the apartment because it had too many memories she didn’t want to let go of. I was relieved (can’t explain why). We spent most of the time talking about our memories with Ilya and how he made our lives better. It all sounds so cliché, but hell with it, it’s what we did and it made us feel better. After going to class, I met up with George at 3:30. I was running late for that but managed to cut two minutes from my bike ride and got to Panera at exactly 3:30. He was already there (to be expected, I just didn’t want to have a friend waiting for me). I got another smoothie, as I find I can drink them even when I am so sad I feel nauseous, and also brought a banana from home. He got something that looked really good, and insisted on paying for my smoothie. Too kind. We talked about things until about 6:00, ranging from my story, to religion and even the harmful effects of cell phones on our soft tissues. I will always have the utmost respect for him because he has morals that he will stick to regardless the situation, and will always be able to explain his stance on something in such a compassionate way that you will wish you just had him walking behind you all day guiding you through decisions. Of course, that would be incredibly selfish, but if you ever need someone to talk to he can’t be beat.
One of the things we discussed was the times Ilya talked to me about drinking. Since he lost his father to alcoholism, he never drank and always urged me to abstain from it as well. His argument was that alcohol never made any situations better and often ended up destroying opportunities, hopes, and ultimately lives. Three days before he passed, I talked to him about what he wanted to do for our birthday. He didn’t have any plans besides the customary skype call. I mentioned that I might go to the bars with my friends because they wanted to, and he didn’t say much about it, but I could tell it didn’t sit right with him at the time.
With his passing, I have been thinking a lot about why I drink and what it does for me. I only really do it whenever I am at a party, and most of them are with footbaggers. I do it because my friends are doing it and it is a social thing. Does it make me happy? I enjoy some beers, but most of those are the ones I help my dad brew at home and just drink them for the taste. Almost all of the stuff I consume at college parties tastes like diluted cat piss or liquid fire. I have a naturally high tolerance for alcohol, meaning I need to drink a lot to actually feel any sort of “buzz” and at that point it’s probably horribly expensive or very toxic. It also means I have a higher risk of becoming dependent on it, and I have had members in my family struggle with alcoholism in the past.
I talked to George about it because he didn’t drink at all in college. His advice was to draw a line and make it a very well defined one. I thought about that and had an idea that I didn’t really want to drink anymore. I just didn’t know if I was going to be able to draw that line when the rest of my friends, all great people, were enjoying themselves and offering me drinks.
At the conclusion of our conversation, I thanked him for spending his time with me (he hadn’t had enough sleep the previous night and was leaving for UNC for a grad school orientation program the next few days). I went to train club with high spirits, feeling comfortable with my understanding of my loss and what I was going to do to move forward. I worked on a small front office building that I was building in an attempt to make our quarry scene look like it actually supported an industry. I added micro LED lights, an interior, front steps and other details to the structure. I used this as a way to keep busy during the week, and dubbed it “the house of sorrows” in a bit of twisted humor. I left the club around midnight and biked home with Ryan. This time I biked fast enough to miss Nastia’s call.
I got home and called her back. Apparently one of the nearby shops got the accident on security camera and the police were able to grab the plates of the truck. From the video, it was evident that Ilya was killed by a drunk driver. He was there in one frame and gone with a blur in the next one. 1/30th of a second and all video evidence of his existence disappeared. The actual impact was much faster and he couldn’t have felt anything. He didn’t even have time to see the truck approach. I suppose it was something to take comfort in. I never want to see that footage. When Nastia told me all of this, it sounded like a massive weight had been lifted from her. I immediately realized that she had been thinking of their argument that morning and had rationalized everything around his death being a suicide, regardless of my efforts to convince her otherwise. Now there was no doubt and she could concentrate on putting her life back together instead of playing through whatever scenarios she made up in her head to explain his disappearance that night.
I have had more than 24 hours to think about it, and I still can’t explain why I reacted the way I did to hearing the news. Up to that point, I had accepted his death as a freak accident, and started building up from that. The fact that my best friend was taken away from me by a stupid act of human negligence just infuriated me beyond anything I had ever experienced. The anger was completely undirected. I suppose I was angry at life. I didn’t give a shit about the driver – he had no idea he hit anyone, hell, he probably felt terrible when he found out in the morning when the police knocked on his door. It wasn’t Ilya’s fault, it wasn’t Nastia’s fault. There was nowhere to direct the anger so it kinda just sat inside me for the next few hours. I immediately went to facebook and talked to Nick and Nate, as well as Kat, although I started to withdraw from talking to her as I felt like I was placing too much of the burden on one friend. Although I was unable to get myself out of my infuriated state, the conversations confirmed that I just needed to give some time to get things back together.
I didn’t want to talk to Nastia because she actually seemed to be doing better than me at that point and I didn’t want to upset her after everything she had gone through during the past few days. I know I didn’t write this in my first post, but I wasn’t comfortable enough with it myself at that point – she had tried to kill herself 3 times in the first 24 hours and my friends stopped her every time. 3 times. I don’t know how bad it must have been to warrant that many attempts at your life, and I hope to never ever find out.
Later in the night, the pent up anger turned into disbelief as I refused to accept that everything happened with no reason. I felt like the whole thing was just life being unfair and taking out a defenseless soul. I wondered if it would have been easier if it was me who got hit. I had a family, lots of caring friends, and a relatively easy childhood. He had her and me for family, the memories we made in our time together, and his aspirations for the bright future he was going to make himself. As I mentioned, he would always tell me how drinking never ended well. He was always right. He was so right that even in death, he was absolutely correct. I fucking hated that. Not in the way that someone hates the kid next to him for getting the only 100% and ruining the curve. I hated the fact that it was somebody else’s negligence that ended him. He never had the chance to tell the driver that drinking could mess his life up. The irony just made me want to punch a wall, but I knew that would do no good. I had more pain inside me than I could handle at that point.
Looking back, Wednesday night was one of the worst personal experiences I had ever had. It topped Sunday night when I had to be Nastia’s life support for 4 hours. When I first heard of Ilya’s death, I went into shock. Then as I started to realize everything on the overlook that night, I called Nastia and immediately blocked out everything I had in my head to keep her afloat. I was almost scared as to how quickly I came to terms with Ilya’s death, but the circumstances demanded it. Turns out I was just masking everything for a few days. The news of the drunk driver completely unfolded everything I had built up to be able to talk to Nastia and hit whatever was left of me full force. I was already stressed and tired out of my mind on Wednesday so I guess I had it coming for me. I just didn’t see it. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean I didn’t feel pain either.
I didn’t try to sleep until 4 am on Wednesday night. I just sat at my computer, trying to console myself with what my friends were telling me but it wasn’t registering. I was angry, confused, and probably incredibly tired. I read Nate’s footblog. I read a few of his short stories which evoked one or two laughs, but they were all halfhearted. It was just a reaction to seeing a combination of words in a sentence that I had always laughed at before. I was just passing time at that point. Then I ran out of things to read and I tried to type up this post, but that was useless. I just felt like I was a hopeless waste of space. At one point I remember thinking about ending things right then and there but even in that state, my mind laughed at itself and told me to get the hell to bed before I thought myself into a hole. There were so many reasons to live that that thought never should have even crossed my mind. Every one of them was strong enough to support me if the others disappeared. Staying up was pointless.
The reason I had been dreading sleeping and still don’t really like it is kinda sad. I like to lucid dream a lot and have gotten very adept at controlling dreams to change their outcomes. Obviously, the only thing I was dreaming about this week was Ilya’s death. I didn’t know how the street looked, what color the truck was, what direction it was driving. It didn’t matter, because in the dream it was all there, and it was consistent enough to be real for me. I knew it was a dream and would always try to stop the events from occurring. But unlike other lucid dreams where I could actually do this, I couldn’t stop this dream from running its course. Every time, I saw him disappear from the surveillance video in a blur. I would wake up and feel worthless. Eventually I would just be tired enough and not remember anything, and that is when I would actually be able to sleep for extended periods of time.
Thursday morning I still felt like crap. I wasn’t angry anymore, just very upset with myself and how I reacted to everything. I don’t know why, but I expected myself to have been effected less than I actually was. I contemplated not going to class, but that probably just would have me dwelling on my feelings from the previous evening so I dragged myself out of bed after 4 hours of sleep. Somewhere there was a will to bike to campus through the cold and show up and play racquetball. I played like shit and didn’t care. Just going through the motions. I usually love that class and am one of the best players, but today I lost every single match handily. I always go for every ball because I know if I can get to them the other player won’t be expecting it and lose the point. Today I hardly moved from the center of the court and gave up on everything out of arms reach. And I didn’t care. I don’t know if the teacher noticed, but I wasn’t gonna go explaining why I missed Tuesday’s class and just didn’t give a shit today so I was relieved when she didn’t say anything.
After that I went to my 3 hours EE lab. I usually like that one as well because it actually reinforces the stuff we learn in class with neat experiments, but today I just wanted to get out of it. The lab took twice as long as it should have because I was screwing up the breadboard work, which I pretty much expected. I apologized to my lab partner and told him that I would make it up to him by doing the next lab myself. He is a pretty laid back guy so I don’t think he cared too much. I didn’t bother to tell him what was up. Next was EE lecture, which I slept through. Interesting stuff, but I just didn’t feel it today. After that was Computer Science, where we had an in-class assignment we had to complete in the hour and a half that was usually reserved for lecture. I finished in 5 minutes. It was stupid. It might have been fun, but I didn’t really care for the assignment. The only thing I got out of that class was helping out my neighbor figure out the bugs in his code. It was a complete shit show, but it was also very satisfying to be able to help someone who was struggling and see their immediate gratitude. I think I might have helped that kid learn something today.
After classes were finished around 4:30, I submitted some paperwork to get funding for train club and went home. I was still indifferent to everything around me. I can only assume it was because of the intense emotions I felt the previous evening and my mind just wouldn’t have any more of it. I got some homework done, ate ramen and watched a soccer game. I fell asleep 15 minutes into the first half and woke up when Ryan and Marc came home. I relocated to my room and slept for another 2 hours. No dreams, I was way too tired for that. At 9:00, I went back to train club and worked on my “house of sorrows”. I added a door mat and weathered the building to look like it had been used by the workers of the quarry. Still completely indifferent to everything. I went home around 1:00 am.
At this point I got hit by something I would say was loneliness. It wasn’t loneliness though, as Ryan was literally 5 feet to my right on the couch. I realized, for the first time in the last 4 days, how much I missed Ilya. I feel like that sentence can never convey how much I wanted him to be here with me. These were irrational feelings, but after 4 days of turmoil, I didn’t exactly expect my mind to do a 180 and start thinking straight all of a sudden. This loneliness made me stop talking to the friends that I had relied on these past days to keep an even keel and returned me back to my comfort zone: internalizing problems and breaking them down until they were fully understood and no-longer relevant. All of a sudden I had somebody in my head to talk to again, and it was comforting. Sure, nothing made sense at first, but I think that I was so shocked when everything happened that I immediately gave up on my internal coping strategies and opened up to my friends like I never have before. This was highly uncharacteristic of me, although it was probably the healthiest thing to do at that point.
At this point it was around 2 am and I got into a conversation with Nate about the short story he sent me the previous night. I re-read it and gave him my thoughts about it, and this turned into a full blown review and brainstorming session, which I enjoyed immensely. He had his stuff together with this story and I was glad to be able to help where I could – I am excited to see him work on it more and maybe finish it sometime. It promises to be a fantastic read. We finished the conversation around 3:15 am and I went back to typing up this post. This is the fourth time I have typed this and the words seem to agree with me more this time around so I suppose I will keep this version. It is now 5:09 am and I am not going to class tomorrow. And you know what? I think I am making headway. Writing this has helped me figure out what the hell has been going in my head the past few days, and I think tomorrow (today) will be a brighter day than yesterday.
During my bout of loneliness, I talked to Kat a bit about random stuff. After that I thanked her for the time she spent listening. In reply, she said “don’t thank me, I am your friend”. To which I replied “Friends thank friends while they can. If you don’t thank your friends, one day it will be too late. It’s sad, but true.” So my friends, I thank you for all of the help you have given me in my time of need. This is a sincere thank you, knowing that I can never repay you for your kindness.
Here’s to happier posts in the future, with fewer words and more highlights. Good night (morning).
I hope it heals up in time for Jamps.