Pieces Of What.

To deceive the public, your friends, and your family is a true testament to an individual's ability to be conniving.

You know, having to go through so much inside, behind closed doors, but in any type of interaction, to show little to no pain.

I requested an archive for my Xanga entries about a week ago due to its potential retirement, and finally downloaded all of them a couple days ago. I found a few old pictures, and seeing photos reminded me that I had a Photobucket account that held some of my dearest photos from high school and beyond.

I started looking through pictures of when Joyce was still alive. How funny she was. How beautiful she was. Trying to understand why she liked me back then when I was much more reserved, distant, and severely confused about my identity.

I just kept thinking, If she saw me now, we'd probably be really good friends. That she would be proud of me and how far I am and how well I can apply make up and wear clothes now.

Up until a few days ago, I couldn't figure out if, or when, it had ever hit me that she was gone and what it had meant to me.

Of course I was sad. But I didn't spend the first year of her death in saddness-- I spent it in denial and anger and confusion. I was angry because I didn't know what she was going through. I was angry because of who reached out to me with the news, I was angry because I was going to see her in a few days, I was angry because she left no note (or maybe that was for the better?), and I was angry because it happened in San Jose and not back at home so that none of my friends could even do anything about it. 

No one believed it. No one had a chance to talk about it. And no one went to her funeral.

Up to that day, I felt indignant.

But while thinking these thoughts, and allowing someone to see me like this-- even momentarily-- I felt the most understanding I have ever felt during these past two years, and I feel extremely grateful.

Maybe Joyce was just being polite by not burdening the rest of us with her sorrows because we have our own lives to live. But in the meantime, I'll just believe that she was a conniving 20 year old girl.