Wild Heart
a letter you’ll never get to read.
First of all, I miss you. I miss you more than you could ever imagine. When I heard the news, my heart dropped, I couldn’t stop crying. I will never ever forget the day. I had just gotten back to Daytona, had a great day, took a nap, woke up & logged onto facebook. I saw your best friends facebook status, & really just couldn’t & didn’t want to believe what I saw. It had to be a joke. There was no way. Well actually, there was.. it was true. You were gone, just like that. Immediately the tears started falling & there was no stopping them. My room had never felt so empty dark & lonely. I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of the night sitting alone in that room, thinking of you & all the things that were left unsaid. So I packed my bags, & I headed back to Orlando to be with my friends & family. Hoping to distract me.
I listened to A Day To Remember the whole way back, something I know you would have approved of. That hour drive home I accomplished a lot of crying, and a lot of thinking. There were too many things I never got to say to you, Rod. I was careless & childish & never got to treat you the way you treated me, the way you deserved to be treated. I thought I would have more time!!! This wasn’t supposed to happen. This wasn’t fucking supposed to happen. I took the short time I had with you for granted & that is something I will forever regret. The nights we spent together, were nothing but amazing. YOU were nothing but amazing. I was stupid to not scoop you up right when I had the chance & give you what you deserved.
My thoughts are everywhere right now, so many things racing through my head that I want to say. But you’re never going to read this. You’re never going to know.
I look like a crazy person, writing a letter to someone who isn’t even here anymore. But it’s all I have. It’s all I can think of to do.
I’ll NEVER forget the last night I saw you. November 30th, the night of the Wiz Khalifa concert we were both at. Luckily our seats happened to be near each other & I was able to see you. A coincidence that at the time I had no idea would mean so much. I’ll never forget your huge smile that greeted me, your big hug that embraced me, the kisses you gave me. I’m glad I have a happy last memory of you. You were having a good time, like you always did. You always managed to make the best out of any situation, and always had a smile on your face willing to share with anyone & everyone. I know you didn’t take life for granted, Rod. You worked hard, & you played hard. You made the best of every moment. Your time here was not wasted.
A friend of mine, when I was talking to her about your passing, shared an awesome outlook with me. She believes that when someone passes away, that means that their time here on Earth was done. Whether that be when their 102 or 22. It means they made their impact, & the universe decided it was okay to take them because their mark was made on this Earth & the lives of the people they touched. There could not be a truer statement for you, Rod. You left your mark. I hope that someway, somehow, wherever you are, you can see how many people are devastated by the loss of your life. Not to make you sad, but to show you how many people truly & genuinely cared about you because you truly & genuinely cared about people. You were loved by many, because you loved many. There is absolutely no way that you will ever be forgotten. You made the most out of your life while you were here, although it was only a short 22 years long. Your life was not wasted. So that’s why it’s, (for extreme lack of a better word) “okay” that you were taken from us. It’s not okay to the people who loved you, but I have to have faith that there is a plan and that this somehow fits into that plan.
The night that you stayed with me until 7am helping me take my friends home, take me to get extra keys to my car, taking me back to get my car only to be told we couldn’t get it so we had to wait, then going back. All of the running around you did for me. Me, someone who you had known for just about a week, a club buddy, you didn’t owe anything to me. You didn’t have to do anything for me. But you did. And words can never ever express how much that truly means to me. I will never forget that, Rod. You were a genuinely kind hearted, polite, great, guy.. which is very hard to come by nowadays. Even harder now that you’re gone.
The night before your funeral, I was tossing & turning all night thinking about it. I was sad, nervous, scared, angry. I dreamt about you. I dreamt that I was going to your funeral & every possible thing that could go wrong was going wrong, causing me to be late. I thought I was going to miss it. I was panicking. I had to say goodbye to you somehow. At one point, I was talking to you on the phone & we were finally on the way to the funeral. You had said something about how you weren’t gone yet, I had the urge to ask you where you were, what it was like, how you were. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it for some reason. At the end of the call I said I had to hang up because we were on the way to your service. & in my dream you thanked me. You thanked me for going to your funeral. What a Rod thing to say. I like to think, as crazy as it may seem, that somehow that was really you. I cling to that dream like it was reality. When you thanked me, I said no, thank you. That’s all I said out loud.. But I also like to think that you knew that meant thank you for being a part of my life. Although it was a period far to short, in that time you enhanced my life by just being you. & I am so incredibly blessed & thankful to have had you in my life as long as I did. Thank you for being a part of my life, thank you for being there for me when I needed you the most, thank you for showing me that there at least was one good guy left out there, thank you for showing me how I should be treated. Just thank you for being you, & sharing that with me.
When I got home to my room in Orlando, I noticed the dream lite that you got me. I had totally forgotten about it, & my heart broke even more when I saw it. A gift you got me for no reason. A dog, because I had once told you that was my favorite animal. And a pillow that projects colorful stars around the room because I’m a stoner & would like it. For the first few nights after you died, I slept with it on. As lame as it sounds, it was comforting. Your attention to detail, & your thoughtfulness is not something that can be found in very many people. You were truly & completely one of a kind & such a blessing to everyone who got to experience your greatness.
I can only hope that one day, I will see you again. I’m not quite sure how this all works yet, I’m trying to figure it out & I know I won’t know for sure until the day that I’m taken from this Earth. But I can only hope November 30th was not the last time that I was ever able to see you. Maybe I’ll meet you in heaven, maybe in another life, who knows.
The day of your funeral, was an absolutely GORGEOUS day. The weather was cool; not too cold not too hot. I’m sure you loved it. The service was beautiful, & an absolutely fitting “Homegoing Celebration” ,they called it, for you.
Afterwards, my best friend that came with me & I were at a loss of what to do. I had absolutely no idea what to do. I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I didn’t want to miss you. I didn’t want to think about it. So the brilliant & totally fitting suggestion my friend made, was what we did. We drove back from Sanford, listening to Wiz Khalifa, with the windows down enjoying the weather. We went to Area 51 & we smoked a blunt for you. Something I know you would have approved of. :) I remember laying back on the basketball court, & looking up at the sky. All I could see, for as far as my eye could see, was blue. A brilliant beautiful sky blue. No clouds to be seen. I hope that was you smiling down on us from wherever you are, & letting us know you’re okay and happy.
I know you wouldn’t want me to cry, or be upset that you’re gone. But I know you understand. & I am going to make it a point in my life to live like you. Living it to the fullest, being a kind & generous amazing person with a smile always on your face. I know it won’t hurt like this forever, all things heal with time right? But right now, there’s a huge hole in my heart whenever I think about you. Whenever I see your picture. Whenever I see your name in my phone, or on my facebook. The urge to text you, or pick up the phone & call you, or see you like my pictures on facebook like you always would, or see your sweet comments, is immense. All I want to do is see your name come up on my phone again, see your smile in person again, see your beautiful green eyes, lay & talk with you just one last night. But I know that won’t happen, so I will forever cherish the memories that I did have with you.
I got a tattoo for you. On December 30th. It was kind of a silly idea, but I didn’t care. I wanted something on my body forever to remember you by. You deserve it. My friends cousin offered to give me a tattoo for free, & what better timing. I got the cutest little happy penguin in the inside of my left ankle. Your favorite animal. :) I’ll never forget you telling me about how you loved penguins, something about how they always look like their in a tuxedo so how you can you NOT love them?! I’ll never forget that your favorite movie was happy feet. You were the cutest nerd I knew. When I first thought of getting a tattoo for you, there was no question about what I was getting, it was going to be a penguin. I love it. The tattoo isn’t perfect, but I’ll fix it later. The point is, you’re always going to be with me. I’m always going to have a happy little penguin on me, my little piece of your amazing life. I’ll never forget you Rod. I still have the pair of basketball shorts that you let me borrow, & I’ll never get rid of those either.
This letter doesn’t make much sense, I’m so scatterbrained.. my thoughts are just everywhere. So many things left unsaid. But again, I guess it doesn’t really matter much since you’ll never get to read it. I guess I’ll come back to this later, at least being able to get this all out, even though only on stupid tumblr, made me feel a little better.
I love you, Rod. You were an amazing young man, & will never be forgotten.
How the fuck am I supposed to forget this shit?! UGH.
No matter what it will always be in the back of my mind. No matter what I’m always going to remember how it felt to lose everyone that I would have done anything for. I’m always going to remember how easy it was for you to talk bad about me, when it was so hard for me to talk bad about you despite everything. I’ll never forget how easy it was for you to drop me.
Caring more about someone than they care for you is a bitch. STORY OF MY FUCKING LIFE.
I really wish that this shit didn’t happen right now. Right after I had finally grown and learned how to deal with it. I created my OWN happiness, life is great right now and I feel like this whole thing is just making me take 10 steps backward when I’ve worked so hard to take steps forward in my life.
How the fuck did I go from being on the right track, to doing my own thing, right back to being completely lost and scared again? It’s amazing the power my connection to you creates. You literally have the ability to turn my life completely upside down with just one look, the power to shake my whole mind up with one thing you say. I was stupid, and childish before, to not see what I had in front of me. I can’t let you slip away. At least not without knowing I tried my absolute best to fix it. I feel like we are at the point in our lives where together, we can learn about each other and our bond together, and just let everything grow from there, grow with each other.
I can’t take back what I missed in these past months, but that only means that we’re going to have to make twice the memories to make up for lost time.
Writing my essay for Comp 1 on Stevie Nicks. :)) I think this is the only paper in my entire school career that I ever enjoyed writing, haha. I love my english class!
But anyway, an awesome quote from Stevie I found during my research:
“I danced around as Isadora Duncan at four years old. And my parents said, “What are we gonna do?” I’d pay my brother 50 cents a week, just to dance with me, just because I love to dance so much. I didn’t want to go to ballet school every day and study, and kill myself either; because I knew I couldn’t bluff my way through say, Russian ballet. SO I had to figure out another way to do something wonderful without working at it. So as a real little girl I started singing along with The Beach Boys, learning all the words… working out my routine, sort of, and that’s not easy when the mirror starts at right where your chest starts, and you’re trying to work out the whole stage show, but that’s what I did.”
God I love her.
every day,
is a new day. :))) yeah some days are bad, but there’s always going to come another better day.
i wish i wish i wish
I had a whole bottle.. or two.. of some very strong sleeping pills. I’d swallow them all right now. Just to not have to wake up to another day. I’m done.
positive people,
Are the absolute BEST people to surround yourself with. I’m really glad that the people in my life are the ones who have stuck around, I couldn’t ask for better people to have in my life.
Today, I received a text from one of my best friends saying, “For English class we have to ask someone we admire what they do and what motivates them. And I want to ask you that question. You can send it to me through a fb message if its too long or text me. But I wanted to ask you.”
I literally teared up reading that. To know my friends are proud of me, and admire me, is one of the greatest feelings. Sometimes, things get tough and I want to give up.. But my friends keep me going. My family too. They know I can do great things and they expect me to do great things. I can’t let them down. I’m really just so lucky to be where I am in life right now, I would have never planned it but I know this is where I’m supposed to be.
In reply to her question:
“Robert Frost said, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” While this is in fact true, I however, think of it a little bit differently.. I’ve learned that no matter what, Everything happens for a reason. And that is one of the main things in my life that keeps me going every day. Even if where I am in my life isn’t where I had planned, or where I love at the moment.. I always know that it’s where I’m SUPPOSED to be. There is a great plan for me, and I am on this earth for a reason, so I need to take what this life hands me and make the best of it. I’ve learned that a positive attitude can help in more ways then you can ever imagine, if you think positively and live your live in a positive way, good things will come. I’ve learned that if you keep a smile on your fact even through the bad times, it’ll make them that much sweeter. I’ve learned to surround myself with positive people who will always bring me up and support me rather than put me down. If you surround yourself with good people, good things are bound to happen. I’ve always had the best support system, between my friends and family, and they have been another one of the biggest motivating factors in my life. I don’t know where I’m going in life, or how things are going to unfold, but I don’t let that bother me. I embrace the fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen, because that’s where the fun lies. I have a huge canvas of life in front of me, that I can make into whatever beautiful painting of life that I want to. That’s something to smile about, something to stay positive about, and something to always remember and embrace.”
i really wish,
that the circumstances were different, and you were a part of my life. But, I can handle it if you’re not and this might even be for the best. But I hope you know I don’t speak or think bad about you, I will always care about you and I wish you nothing but the best ever.
Everything is coming together, everything is working out. :) Honestly the fact that everything happens for a reason is just so apparent in my life right now and that really makes me feel like I’m gonna end up where I need to be.
10 days from today and I’m starting my class in Daytona, I can’t fucking wait. :) It’s most definitely time now. I’m ready to get a degree under my belt and get my life started. ITS FUCKINNNGG TIMEEEE. :))
My life is so full of positive thoughts and vibes as of now, I couldn’t be more excited to see where everything goes.
