Never too late
Oct. 23rd, 2003 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynI know this will seem like a strange post, but I think autumn and death have put this in my head and until I write it down, I won't be able to shake it loose. On Saturday, my friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
merryish moves away to Chicago. It's hard accepting that I will see her even more rarely than I have recently; it will be at cons, where we'll all be glomming her, but I'm hopeful her new place and new life will turn out to be good. I'm a goodbye person, and have been in denial that she's moving because my tendency is to throw a big ocean-liner style goodbye for someone.
Many of my friends are the types who will launch themselves off the couch and leave without anything resembling goodbye, which distresses me. I have to wave and say the words and talk about getting together again. Because every parting carries with it the possibility of someone dying in a fiery crash, and I won't have had the chance to say goodbye. So I say it, and I make a deal of it, and my friends act like I'm mildly retarded and they are humoring me by even saying "bye." Fiery crashes, people! It happens every day!
This week, on a big list I'm on for copyeditors and the like, we were informed of the sudden death of a young woman who had touched many people's lives with her witty posts and funny outlook on life. She had many health problems, among them depression, and I don't know if her death was a suicide, or not, and it's not my business, but I wondered, briefly. It brought together many on the list becuase they had saved her posts from time to time. She'd made an impression. And musician Eliott Smith killed himself.
I never told the woman on my list anything about her posts. At first, because she often talked about herself in the third person, I thought she was strange and annoying. Gradually, though, I got sucked into the humor of her life and the way she presented her opinions. But I never wrote and told her that I didn't get it at first, and was starting to see. I often write to fanfic authors to tell them I loved a story, or leave feedback. Because of that goodbye thing I have -- must always tell the authors before I die in a fiery crash. It may also have something to do with my feedback issues and why I get so grouchy when people say, "Oh, so and so just raves about your stories/vids/LJ" or whatever, but they never tell me. So I always want to tell the others out there what I think, so that I won't die in that crash and then someone says "Oh, Gwyn thought you were so great." That should come from me, not someone else. But obviously, I never told this woman, and now it's too late.
Those are just the harshest words in the English language, I think. Maybe even worse than "I hate you" or "you suck." Living with too late is a really hard burden. I could kinda sorta tell Elliott Smith that I liked him by buying his music. But I won't have that chance to write a fan letter or anything ever again. And I can't communicate with that woman, and I didn't when it counted, when I should have. Should haves are horrible.
When my mom died, I was glad that I had got over most of the pain and misery between us, because living with that should have might have killed me slowly. My guilt and pain over it is still fresh in many ways, and I doubt I could have handled that on top of so much other baggage. When my friends tell me that they don't speak to their relatives or whatever, I want to scream, fix it, fix it now, before it's too late.
And stupid as it sounds, I look around me at fandom, at so many people bickering and quibbling and fighting and hating over something as inconsequential as TV characters, and I want to say, Life is too short to hate that much. I get upset, I get tense and angry too, but life is so short. You never know when someone or something will be taken from you and you will never have the chance to fix it. Strangely,merryish and I used to just fight like cats and dogs, but we got to this place of friendship and I have never regretted that. A person I know mocked me for it once, as if changing my mind about another person, becoming friends with them, was a bad thing. I don't think so. There's stuff worth fighting and hating for, and then there's stuff to move on from. Fandom seems to me one of the latter.
I keep tearing up at the thought of this woman from my list and her death and how I missed a chance to make a friend. I didn't even know her. I never took the chance. There are a lot of people right now I want to meet in person and spend time with, and that's what I'm going to do. It may be impossible, but I want to not say it's too late ever again.
merryish moves away to Chicago. It's hard accepting that I will see her even more rarely than I have recently; it will be at cons, where we'll all be glomming her, but I'm hopeful her new place and new life will turn out to be good. I'm a goodbye person, and have been in denial that she's moving because my tendency is to throw a big ocean-liner style goodbye for someone. Many of my friends are the types who will launch themselves off the couch and leave without anything resembling goodbye, which distresses me. I have to wave and say the words and talk about getting together again. Because every parting carries with it the possibility of someone dying in a fiery crash, and I won't have had the chance to say goodbye. So I say it, and I make a deal of it, and my friends act like I'm mildly retarded and they are humoring me by even saying "bye." Fiery crashes, people! It happens every day!
This week, on a big list I'm on for copyeditors and the like, we were informed of the sudden death of a young woman who had touched many people's lives with her witty posts and funny outlook on life. She had many health problems, among them depression, and I don't know if her death was a suicide, or not, and it's not my business, but I wondered, briefly. It brought together many on the list becuase they had saved her posts from time to time. She'd made an impression. And musician Eliott Smith killed himself.
I never told the woman on my list anything about her posts. At first, because she often talked about herself in the third person, I thought she was strange and annoying. Gradually, though, I got sucked into the humor of her life and the way she presented her opinions. But I never wrote and told her that I didn't get it at first, and was starting to see. I often write to fanfic authors to tell them I loved a story, or leave feedback. Because of that goodbye thing I have -- must always tell the authors before I die in a fiery crash. It may also have something to do with my feedback issues and why I get so grouchy when people say, "Oh, so and so just raves about your stories/vids/LJ" or whatever, but they never tell me. So I always want to tell the others out there what I think, so that I won't die in that crash and then someone says "Oh, Gwyn thought you were so great." That should come from me, not someone else. But obviously, I never told this woman, and now it's too late.
Those are just the harshest words in the English language, I think. Maybe even worse than "I hate you" or "you suck." Living with too late is a really hard burden. I could kinda sorta tell Elliott Smith that I liked him by buying his music. But I won't have that chance to write a fan letter or anything ever again. And I can't communicate with that woman, and I didn't when it counted, when I should have. Should haves are horrible.
When my mom died, I was glad that I had got over most of the pain and misery between us, because living with that should have might have killed me slowly. My guilt and pain over it is still fresh in many ways, and I doubt I could have handled that on top of so much other baggage. When my friends tell me that they don't speak to their relatives or whatever, I want to scream, fix it, fix it now, before it's too late.
And stupid as it sounds, I look around me at fandom, at so many people bickering and quibbling and fighting and hating over something as inconsequential as TV characters, and I want to say, Life is too short to hate that much. I get upset, I get tense and angry too, but life is so short. You never know when someone or something will be taken from you and you will never have the chance to fix it. Strangely,
merryish and I used to just fight like cats and dogs, but we got to this place of friendship and I have never regretted that. A person I know mocked me for it once, as if changing my mind about another person, becoming friends with them, was a bad thing. I don't think so. There's stuff worth fighting and hating for, and then there's stuff to move on from. Fandom seems to me one of the latter. I keep tearing up at the thought of this woman from my list and her death and how I missed a chance to make a friend. I didn't even know her. I never took the chance. There are a lot of people right now I want to meet in person and spend time with, and that's what I'm going to do. It may be impossible, but I want to not say it's too late ever again.
