Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Karen Beasley

On August 10th, 2007, my young, beautiful, talented, wonderful cousin was found shot to death in her bathroom in her apartment in Austin, Texas. The coroner ruled it "Suicide", though her mother...and maybe myself...don't agree.
Her mother had her cremated and the last I heard, is still carrying her ashes around...Keeping Karen close to her in death as she kept her close in life.
I hadn't seen Karen for years...Our families lived far apart. Sadly, it was only after she died that I was given her personal website to view and that's when I discovered that she and I were so much alike it was scary. Unlike Karen, I do not paint...But only because I've not had the opportunity. I've always wanted to, but raising a family has taken precedence over hobbies for so long that it will take work for me to initiate that part of my life.
However, it was in her "blogs" that I discovered how similar we were and how erily our minds worked once we begin to write. I found a young woman who was not some shallow air head eager to be seen and heard, but a woman who was deep in thought, fluent in language and who made her mark simply by being herself without thought or care to the rest of the world. I found her to be a woman with a beautiful soul who observed the world through magnifying glasses...She knew what was real and she was a tough survivor.
Only after I read her blogs did I agree with her mother...She certainly did not seem like a woman who would take her own life.
But, her words, read by me after her death, will forever leave an impression on my heart and because of them, I decided to create my own blog.
You see, Karen's words just were not enough...There were not enough of them...I read them and wanted more so that maybe, somehow, someway, I could get to know her better.
I wanted more of her than just the 31 years she lived on this earth...And I can fully understand why her mother kept, perhaps still keeps, Karen's ashes close to her.
And, so, I created my own blog because I want my kids and my friends and my relatives to truly know me...My deepest thoughts, the things that make me laugh, the things that piss me off, the things that make me cry. Why I feel certain ways, why I do certain things, and how I choose to deal with MY depression, disappointments and discouragements.
And maybe one day they'll read back through and say, "She left us enough. Nothing was unfinished."
I miss you, Karen, and I wish you could have stayed around a lot longer. This life can be a real bitch on many days, but some days you open your eyes and see that life is a real BEAUTIFUL gift to have.


Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Lost

Sometimes I feel so lost...so alone...so unimportant...so ugly...so forgetable.
It hurts to know that deep down you are special, you are important, you are beautiful and you are not alone...Yet when the world tells you otherwise, and the world does this for years, it does begin to wear down your resolve to the point that you begin to believe the world, even when you don't want to. And, even when you still know, deep down, that the world is a place full of liars and people who are jealous and petty. Even then, their words stab into your heart like a brittle blade that leaves jagged, barbed points behind when it is removed...And those barbs dig in and dig deeper, scarring and maiming along the way.

I just wish that this world would allow me to be me without making fun of me, or putting me down, or giving me shit because I'm not like everyone else.

As of today I am 45 years, 6 months and 3 days old. I've been married to the same man for over 21 years. I've birthed three children and raised them all to adulthood, as well as having a serious hand in the raising of a now grown step-daughter. I have three beautiful grandchildren and I am raising the eldest as my own.
And yet I still feel so lost...so alone...so unimportant...so ugly...so forgetable.