My friend Lindsay died on Weds. Her mother called me tonight. Lindsay was a 21, and was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma three months after me. We never met in person--instead we were Lymphoma buddies, trading emails and hours long discussions on the phone. She was a fantastic person--so fun, so positive, so full of life. We'd gossip and commiserate about stuff and talk about basically everything. She made me want to be a better person about this because she never complained, not once, and then I got an email about how things weren't going well and that she'd call me once things got better, but I never heard from her. well, actually, I sent a care package with DVDs, and care bear stuff, and flavored Skittles lip gloss and two weeks ago I got a thankyou note. So last weekend I bought a bunch of new stuff for her, shirts and christmas pajamas, fun stuff because I thought... I don't know. She deserves much more than I can write here. There are some people who profoundly touch your life. That just you can't believe that they exist--they are so nice and kind incredible people and you strive just to be good enough to know them. I was blessed that Linsday was in my life as my friend. And I so devastated that this world will not know more of her. And my prayers go out to her parents and her brother, and anyone who was lucky enough to know her. I really just don't think I can say anything else that will truly do my sadness justice at this loss of such a unique and wonderful person.

So Lindsay:

I will really really miss you.

Terri

I'm still waiting for my epiphany. I believe I deserve it. So that in some way I can take what almost dying really means and apply it to not caring about petty ridiculousness that accompanies trying to nagivate my way through life. Alas, I can not. I am just a silly girl who waits for a boy to call her, as she also waits for the receptionist at her doctor's office to get back to her with a PET Scan appointment. Is that warped? That in the same moment of waiting for an "All-clear" I'm waitin for a date request? Ugh. I'm frightened for myself. I used to be hyper-aware, above the stupidity but now since I've been locked up for so long I've turned into a parody of the catholic school girl who gets to go to college (and no, I don't mean that in the utterly trashy way it can be interpreted. I mean it on a much more basic, clean, sadly chaste level). I think I've written that I my tolerance has gone down (and if one more person says, "Well that makes you a cheap date" I'm gonna clock 'em) and it has. It's gone back up, but I also take longer to recover from a night out of a rolicking THREE BEERS! Yes, I am actually sick for two days, ill to the point that I'm reminded of a horrible instance in college when I got completely loaded on my 20th birthday only to be picked up by my parents the next day to go to my grandmother's funeral. Yeah, I was really sick then--and that's not a story i'm all too proud of. And I get chatty when I drink; yikes, very very chatty. I don't shut up. And well, I have to say, I'm that girl that just loves everybody! Wahoo! Not in a sloppy, gross way, just in a "I'm so happy to be here way" but still, I can't seem to live that down. So here's the thing--don't I get to beat cancer and have a knight in shining armor? So that I can not find myself talking incessantly to boys who might be looking for the nearest exit and shaking my hips to My Goodies? Do I not deserve to be above all that? Have I not suffered enough humilation--what with the baldness, the weight gain, the request to pee in a bucket (accompanied by the curtains for doors and HDTV of me in various states of embarrasment), the puking, the constipation (and my mother constantly asking if I've taken my stool softener--at inappropriate times), the parties I missed, the devestation and the constant state of panic? Come on fates, give me something--not just a non-seized engine. What is the state of customer service these days?