I rarely have many good days.  That isn't to say every day for me is a miserable ordeal that I look forward to completing, but I generally almost never have a day go by where everything seems to actually go in the right direction for me.  Last Thursday, however, seemed  to start out as one of those rare occurrences where everything was actually going right.  I had started my second day of work (I got a job as a clerk at Tuesday Morning) at eight am opening the store and learning how to use the register.  Every customer that came in was terribly easy to deal with, and when I wasn't dealing with them I kept myself busy restocking shelves.  After my shift was over at one-thirty, I drove to down to campus and found a good parking spot almost immediately (a very rare occurrence for anyone who's been to the U of A, especially during the week of a huge football game) and decided to skip out on my political discussions class since I was tired from a lack of sleep.  I told myself that I could catch up in the book over the weekend anyway.  I spent the next hour either hanging out in the drama dept. grad office with friends or scrambling upstairs with everyone else to read the callback lists that were being posted for Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, A Midsummer's Night Dream, and West Side Story.  Suprisingly, I got called back for all three.  My advanced acting class let out early just so we could go home and get ready for the callbacks that were that night (Midsummer's...), and I ended up actually leaving a great impression upon the director that night during my read through, who told me that he wants me back to read again (I've never seemed to make an impression on this guy before in past auditions, and seeing him laugh like he did when I was reading as various mechanicals felt great).  Callbacks finally ended around nine.  Once I got home, I relaxed in front of my computer and qued up some videos on GBStv and started to truly take in how great the callbacks felt.

     Then Gabe messaged me.  Gabe, whom I've known since seventh grade from working with him in the same children's theater in Palo Alto, asked me if I had heard what's been happening with Juliane.  I told him that I had last seen her when I was in California a few weeks ago, and I had assumed that he was talking about a cross-country long distance relationship she had decided to have with this guy she had met earlier this summer.  Gabe said he wasn't talking about that.  He said he wanted to call me as soon as he found out, but he didn't have my number.  Just a few days ago, Juliane had gone on a road trip to Los Angeles with some friends, and about halfway through her trip she had a heart attack.  After being taken to the hospital, she was in a coma for about two days.  She was able to wake up and showed signs of improvement (her heart seemed to be repairing itself, and she was able to squeeze her parent's hands and follow people with her eyes).  However, after a short while, Juliane's improvement stopped, and she passed away on Friday afternoon.

     Personally, I've experienced losing people who are close to me before.  A few years ago, both of my grandfathers died within a few months from each other.  However, their passing was completely expected because of their bad health and old age, naturally.  Before last night, I had never felt the incredible shock of losing someone so close to me so quickly, especially someone I had just seen.  The feeling was what anyone would have expected it to be: difficult, heart wrenching, unnerving to the point of not being able to stand up.  Sure, the rush of terrible feelings was expected.  It didn't make them any easier to deal with, though.

     The worst part of the whole experience was remembering how I had left Juliane in Palo Alto.  Other than to revisit the place I most fondly remember growing up and to hang out in San Francisco, I wanted to visit just to see her again.  Juliane and I go back a long way, having both been someone I had dated for a long time and had been good friends with for even longer.  She would always come to me looking for advice on various things, and I'd always be able to talk to her about anything without any sort of difficulty.  I was happy to see her again when I arrived in Palo Alto, but a lot of her time was cut off from hanging out with a new guy she had just met named Simon (the same person she had wanted to try a long distance relationship with).  On the last night of my visit, we were supposed to meet in downtown Palo Alto.  I had to get back to the train station by eleven so I could catch the last train into San Francisco so I could get enough sleep before my flight the next day.  I got into town at eight, and I waited for her.  Three hours later, the last train back into town came in, and I reluctantly boarded it.  Just as the train lurched forward, I got a phone call from Juliane, telling me that she has lost track of time, asking if I was still in Palo Alto.  I told her I had already left, and that I was really tired and I didn't feel like talking.  The last thing I ever told her was that I'd call her back when I got back into Fayetteville.  I don't know if it was because I was still angry at her for not showing up on my last night in town and/or because she had decided to have a five thousand plus mile relationship with some guy just because she was too sacred that she couldn't find someone who would treat her nicely and make her laugh like he did back home, but I never did call her back when I got back in to Fayetteville.  I felt that I needed to get my mind off of what was bothering me, organize myself for a new school year, and give her a call when my head was clear.  And now, because of my irritation over stupid, trivial issues, I can't even tell her how much it made me happy to see her again.

     I'm going to take a break from writing in here for a little while, at least until my head clears up.  I've already talked to a few people about what has happened, and it has certainly helped a lot.  Funny thing is, even though the things people tell you in these kinds of situations are complete and utter cliches, they still help a lot.  Now that I'm feeling a little better, I've got a three day weekend ahead of me to catch up in school and the Snowball video (finally).  Hopefully that'll help me get my mind off of things for a while.




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edit:
Do you ever have that feeling where when you write about something that's  personal to you in a public setting like this, that it never comes out the right way, that it almost seems scattered and not getting what you want to get across, well...across?  I don;t know where I was going with that whole "I rarely ever have any good days' thing.  Sorry, I just really needed to write about what happened to help me out, and I've been spending most of the day editing this thing down, and ... It's just better that I explain that I can't articulate myself very well rather than retyping for the umpteenth time.

...Sorry.