Don’t stop laughing.  If you stop for even a second you will begin to cry at the sheer insane reality of what it is that you are trying desperately to run away from.  You will cry yourself dry.

Somewhere along this journey we found ourselves looking back on memories as if they were the only anchors left of a sane world and we forgot that those memories were accomplished by doing great things today.

Ok, enough of that.

I saw her picture on Facebook and read of her being killed in a car crash out on St. Rt. 42 Monday night.  I was shocked.  I didn’t believe it.  I just kept searching the local papers and more updates on Facebook.  We had just talked to each other the other day and spoke of how we missed each other and that I would try to get to West Jefferson to see her over the holidays.

It had been a few years but we had been close once and I was actually excited about meeting up with her over the holidays.

It’s one of those deaths you hear about that just knocks the wind out of you.  The last person in the world you would think is going to die.  I mean when my dad passed, it was very, very sad but we had been prepared for it for a while. 

Of course I found out about her death on Facebook.  God I hate Facebook for so many reasons.

It’s a weird sensation, that actual act of denial that comes with something like this.  The first article I saw was the one that Mack Miller from PC put about a woman from Plain City being killed and even before I read the first words of the article I knew it was going to be her.  It just struck my body like a bolt of lightning.  I still found myself not wanting to believe it.  Mack had a tendency to be pretty compulsive on Facebook.

It’s funny but when I started this writing it wasn’t going to be anything about something like this but apparently I am still not in charge of what is going on around me.  I keep thinking I am but something always comes up to let me know that I am indeed not.

This woman’s life had never been an easy life.  She lost a husband through divorce and a son through an auto accident one insane night.  She never gave up though.  She found ways of dealing and coping and even if I didn’t really believe in her decisions on how to cope, they worked for her, I guess, who knows really.  We all just go through the motions sometimes hoping for the best.

When we least expect it, when we get complacent or distracted and aren’t paying attention life will sneak the hell up and smack us upside the head and bring us back to reality man.  Every damn time!

She was a lot like most of the people I have known, and, I would bet is the way I am about things for the most part.  You force yourself to be happy, to find the sunlight in the darkness.  You really try not to look at the sadness, the misery and the insanity but there is a part of you that knows it’s always there and that going left of center is always an option.

There’s a magic that happens in this life and with all magic it can be beautiful and exciting or dark and forbidding.  It really is all based upon how you look at it, at the time.

She had found God in the last year of her life.  I don’t know.  I hope it helped her.  Who knows?

The absurdity, the insanity was that I was ready to write off one of those rants where I just talk about distraction and madness and how the world is going to hell in a hand basket and now, well; it doesn’t seem to be what is fitting at this moment.

All of us out there in Plain City, Ohio; we lived a strange life, a life filled with confusion and frustration; a life filled with desire and want for something to be tangible and real.  We all wanted to run away but only a few of us actually were able to finally escape and the truth is that no one escapes Plain City, Ohio.  It will always find you and you will be a prisoner of its fields forever.

cool peace

hippy mike

love