somebody for everybody?

george sodini was crazy. like a fox. cray cray as rum punch always says.

the shooting on Tuesday evening at the L.A. Fitness in Pittsburgh had all the markings of a crazy person. walking into a dance class full of women at a gym. cutting off all the lights. pulling out your guns. firing off over 40 rounds. killing your self. plain crazy.

but sodini's blog opens up a whole new world of questions while providing some unsettling answers. what happens when the lonliness of a solitary existence eats away at the core of you? when living the single life extends beyond a few months or years and spans decades? what does the despair of being unable to find someone feel like?

from his blog:

"No girlfriend since 1984, last Christmas with Pam was in 1983. Who knows why. I am not ugly or too weird. No sex since July 1990 either (I was 29). No ----! Over eighteen years ago. And did it maybe only 50-75 times in my life. Getting to think that a woman now would just, uh, get in the way of things. Isolated." december 24 2008

"I see twenty something couples everywhere. I see a twenty something guy with a nice twentyish young women. I think those years slipped right by for me. Why should I continue another 20+ years alone? I will just work, come home, eat, maybe do something, then go to bed (alone) for the next day of the same thing." january 5 2009

i feel kinda sorry for sodini. not to take away anything from the deaths of his victims but what a tortured soul. how can it be that a person comes to believe that no one, no woman likes them? that they are utterly and completely undesirable to the opposite sex? more questions without answers.

Life Before Death

Yesterday my homegirl called me and we engaged in one of our usual discussions about what's going on and what you been up to and so forth. Midway into our conversation, she calmly says to me "Today I realized that I am going to die alone." I'm like why are you talking like that? She told me that she reached this "aha moment" while choking on her sandwich and having no one around to rescue her. I knew that her kids were home at the time; I'm sure they would help her in such a situation and suggested she make sure they learn the Heimlich maneuver. But my girl was not amused. She said that when she meant alone, she meant not having that special person to grow old with. And she went on to say that even if she was apart from that special person at the time she died, she would not feel alone because she'd know that person loved her wherever they were. I reassured her that her concern was a bit premature given that we're barely thirty yet and still have a lot of life to live.

Or so we hope.

As easy as it is to acknowledge that tomorrow is not promised, it is just as easy to take today for granted. The truth of the matter is I have no idea how much life myself or anyone else has to live. We hope, pray, and plan for longevity without knowing if we'll ever achieve it at all. And even though death plays a huge role in all of our lives, most of us do our best to tiptoe around the subject for as long as possible as if that will keep it further away or stall it for some time.

Unless you have a terminal illness, there is no way of knowing when your time will come. So how can we prepare ourselves for such an event? Some folks purchase insurance policies and have wills drawn up to protect their assets and secure financial support for their families. That's all good but I'm more concerned with the mental and emotional aspect.

Stick with me here... I promise it ain't as dark and stormy as it may seem thus far.

Ten years ago, I had to engage in an exercise where I was asked to write my own eulogy. I could make up whatever I wanted... D&S dedicated her life to social activism and fighting for the rights of those less fortunate in her community. She also became the first female DJ to bless the airwaves of commercial radio in the DMV. She leaves behind a devoted husband, three loving children, and five precious grandbabies. You get the point. The purpose of the exercise was to identify how you want to be remembered so that you could start taking the necessary steps today to live that life.

That was one of the most eye opening experiences ever for me. It made me realize that we truly only have one shot at this life we've each been blessed with and we never know when our time will run out. As a chronic procrastinator, I have to remind myself from time to time that I won't always be able to put something off until tomorrow. I would be more devastated by dying without accomplishing certain things in my life than I would be by dying alone. But that's just my screwed up way of thinking.

I wish I saved a copy of that eulogy from ten years ago but it's never too late to start on a new one. I plan on starting on it today so that I can get to working on it today. Tomorrow is a beautiful wish that I always hope will come true.

How do you want to be remembered?


Tumultuously Yours,
Dark & Stormy

pour out a little...

last night i was avoiding my father. he called and i didn't answered. i just didn't feel like it. see my dad rambles. and he mumbles. and he slurs. and he talks real fast so that i can't understand what he's saying.

he's a vietnam veteran. with post tramautic stress syndrome. and a mean off-and-on drug addiction.

this is my father.

he and my mom divorced when i was about 8 and thankfully i had a sometimes annoying but none-the-less-there stepfather who has not hesitated to do anything within his power for me and my sisters. thank God for him.

meanwhile my father was absent for much of my growing up, although we saw him every now and then through the years. just recently in the last 5 years, my contact with him has been more frequent and i've grown to understand who he is and what he couldn't be with such clarity that at times i deal with him not as my father but as a dear old man who i am fond of.

so when i was startled awake by my sister calling me at 6am this morning I was shocked at what she had to say.

her baby's father is dead.

and i cried.

those who know the back story would be a little surprised that i cried. because dude has not won any baby daddy of the year awards in the 5 years my beautiful wonderful smart funny cool-ass niece has been on this earth. he's ducked and dodged and a few years ago was laid up on a ventilator after being shot several times.

exactly!

but i cried for his soul, for my sister, for baby daddy's family, and most of all for my niece who has lost her father. who she adored despite his absences. whose height she has. whose aunt's gap she has.

and in my mind i connect her loss with my loss of my father to war and drugs.

how will this change her? some shit she aint want no parts to. she want her daddy. always.

shit sucks...

R.I.P. Young Man