2000-09-28 | 05:03:17

i don't feel so good.

i just got side-swiped by sadness.

not because of anything that happened to me.

but for something that happened to an e-friend when she was a little girl.

my god. i was reading along...catching up on my favorite journals...when the mac truck hit me square in the forehead.

i am used to giggling at this smart, sweet girl's wit. but then, she opened a door to ugliness that i was not expecting.

it crossed my mind to link to the entry that i'm referring to, but that just felt wrong. like i would be pointing at someone else's pain.

nothing gets to me more than children and old people being hurt. innocence and weakness being bruised by evil, evil people.

i forget the ugly side of life so easily. my life has always been norman rockwellian.

i remember hearing the oingo boingo song "nothing bad ever happens to me" and thinking, "hey, that's my song."

my life was peaceful. i was loved and cared for. i didn't have to worry about regular meals or...anything.

later, bad things started happening and i realized that danny elfman hadn't been singing about moi after all.

my wonderful grandma passed away. i got laid-off from work. i started going through the relationship hell now known as my personal vietnam.

i loved the plastic bag scene in "american beauty" when the teenage videographer described how sometimes the beauty of life made his heart almost burst.

i know that feeling.

there is another feeling that intense. the sadness of life can be just as heart-bursting.

i always try to look on the sunny side of life, but sometimes i forget about the grasping shadows. and that's wrong. i can't forget because then i won't do anything about it. i don't know quite what to do about it now. what i do know is her pain jolted me out of my down comforter of cleverness.

it was a wake-up call i needed to get.

***

love can heal. esol knows. surf on over. his girlboy list is smile-inducing.

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