so my dad just died. not really, i suppose...technically he'll die tomorrow. but he got really sick really suddenly. one week he was fine, the next week he was in the ER with pancreatitis, the next week he was in a coma, and now he's gone. i've been really really really angry and so upset and i've cried so much but the funny thing is that i still don't really believe it. i saw him in the hospital with his eyes blank and wandering and his skin getting moist and flappy while his muscles atrophied away, but it's really hard to believe that he won't just come back in a few days and be like normal. it'll take me a while just to realize it, because it was so sudden and so shocking. i will never be the same.

i feel sad and angry and overwhelmed and mortified and terrified and guilty. guilty because i was so pissed at my parents for so long. i basically didn't talk to them all year, because i was having problems adjusting to college and they weren't being too supportive, and i was depressed. when i called home, it was brief and only to talk to my mom. my dad didn't talk much. he never did really. but he'd pick up and i'd ask to talk to her. i hope i didn't hurt him, because i never thought i was missing out on my last chances to be a good daughter.

it sucks that i didn't tell him i loved him while he was awake. i didn't think it was serious til they told me he was in a coma, and after that i told him so much, but he didn't hear.

i feel like someone ripped my heart out and pounded it with a meat tenderizer and then stuffed it haphazardly back in. i'm tired and broken and utterly beaten. i couldn't stop crying today when i was saying goodbye to him. i could barely stand up.

then haitham. he's my unbelievably perfect boyfriend. he says he loves me more than anyone on earth has ever loved anyone, and--however cynical i am--i actually believe him. he loves me that much. and i love him that much too. it's been hard being away from him this year, but when we're together we feel like different people. we're whole and healthy and one, but only together. separate we're both so messed up.

i texted him and told him i couldn't describe the pain, that i was sure i must be dying. he called and all i could do was sob wordlessly into the phone. then he told me to come pick him up--a big huge deal since his dad is very strict and wasn't home and he was risking basically lifetime grounding from everything. but i picked him up because i didn't have the strength to save him from that risk--i needed him so badly, and i knew he would care so much more about making sure i was ok than about pleasing his dad.

we ate a little--i hadn't eaten all day--and he went with me to the hospital to visit one last time. we cried all over each other. after that we went and sat in a park and were just quiet, trying to get a grip on all the chaos. and i felt so much better. not even better--i felt GOOD. we held each other and professed undying love and all that cheesey stuff, but it was real. more real than anything. how could i possibly imagine that he would turn all the agony and incredulity into love and strength and hope? he gives me love and hope and time, and reason for my every rhyme. i know i'll be ok through this because i'm not an "i" anymore--i'm part of the most beautiful "we" in the world. it's going to be hard to remember that--i know that i have plenty of hard days ahead of me, and i'm going to cry and i'm even going to want to die--but i hope i never forget that smile of bliss when i promised him that i wouldn't give up on him and let myself die. i can't say this was the worst day of my life even though i said goodbye to my dad, because every day that i've had haitham has been infinitely better than every other day imaginable. it was so hard and so agonizing and i wondered if i would make it to tonight, but i did. and i even feel some peace. my daddy's gone, and i'm gonna miss him, and i may never stop regretting my actions toward him, but i know he'll be ok in heaven. and haitham is enough to make my life eternally blessed. and that's how daddy would want it.

I'm writing a short story for my boyfriend....This is the beginning.  I really wonder how it sounds to other people.

I gave up magic the day I caught Chloe cheating on me.
    It was her seventeenth birthday, and I'd come home from school to surprise her with a ring.  Framed by the rising sun, I levitated to her second-floor window, a pungent bouquet complete with twittering canary floating up alongside me.  The first rays of morning accompanied me through her filmy curtains, illuminating a scene that ran quite contrary to all of my impeccable planning: my cousin Harold coiled so tightly around my then-soon-to-be-fiancee that—even if I had forgiven her on the spot—I doubt I could have found a free corner of skin for a good morning kiss.  Like the afterglow of a painfully bright lamp, that image refused to fade fully from my cringing eyes for months.

to be continued. possibly.

I'm essentially an optimist, and I'm here to help people find hope by encouraging them to love and accept one another.  More than anything, I love humanity.  My only requirement for a friend is that you desire to be friends with me, because no matter how different we are, we can always appreciate and learn from one another.  I want to have the chance to learn from everyone and be a friend to everyone, to always be that person you can go to when you have problems. 

My life changed this year when I went to college and realized that I struggle with feelings of depression and isolation.  I have had to fight myself on a daily basis to stay optimistic and enthusiastic about life—and I could never have made it this far without the generous love of people who support me when I can't support myself.  This is the kind of love I envision as Christ shining through living people, and having received such an incomparable gift, I want to pass it on.  I want to learn about people and touch lives on an individual basis, so this sustaining love can keep spreading. 

In the context of a career, I want to take that concept further, learning about other cultures and groups of people so that I can help build peace on a worldwide level.  As humans, we may not always treat each other as well as we could, but I really believe that if a mutual friend brings enemies together and helps them see one another as worthy of love, we can achieve something truly astounding.

If I could devote each day to fostering in any small way a sense of harmony and peace among communities, I would consider my life a success.  I would gladly give up a permanent home if I could be a citizen of the world, traveling and seeing life through ever-changing eyes, being the common ground between neighbors.  I want to love and to be loved, always giving so that others can have what they need, both physically and spiritually.  In a sense, I wish I could be a professional student who is always conducting cultural studies, combined with a nomadic humanitarian worker who lends a hand wherever necessary.

Frequently, the men and women who make the most difference to the world are the quiet ones who simply try to see everyone as individuals worthy of love, rather than as parts of a faceless mass.  These people become beloved leaders and symbols of peace because of their great concern for each person taken as himself or herself.  I have always wanted to make waves and change the world, but it took years for me to realize that the greatest change I can hope to effect is by spreading individual ripples of love that swell over my lifetime into something visible and quantifiable.

I read the news about the Middle East.  It's hard sometimes, when the death toll numbers physically make me ache and I'm left wondering if there IS a solution.  This is one of those times.  I'm not meaning to be political--I don't like politics for the most part, because I really think characterizing a situation as "us vs. them" is almost always unhelpful and wrong--but I can't see why our government takes the stand it does in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  I've asked so many people if they understand it, and the most common explanation I've heard is one of pragmatism and strategical maneuvering in the region.  That, to me, seems unacceptable.  I wish foreign policy could actually be based on the concepts we pretend to stand for--freedom, equality, preservation from harm, and a legitimate quest for peace.
When 300 Palestinians die next to 2 Israelis, I wish I could see the other side.  I honestly wish someone could make that seem justified, because I don't like thinking of people as cruel and inhumane, motivated by patriotism to the point of devaluing other lives.  I want to help by being in the middle, able to communicate with both sides, but I really just don't get it.  The Palestinians are not complete victims--the shellings prove that--but the death toll is just too one-sided for me to see the situation as even.