"Rule #4: Seatbelts. Buckle up its going to be a bumpy ride."

Zombieland's rules are so aplicable to everyday life not just the zombie apocalypse. Let me tell you about a year (or nearly that)in the life of me...starting with last May....

May:
Schools out, I have a job for the summer, things are good. We go visit my grandparents on the Eastern Shore for Mother' Day and what happens when we are at dinner that first night, my Grandma falls and breaks her leg. Shit goes haywire for the next month or so with my Grandma having surgery and my Grandpa being really disoriented since she was in the hospital and then later a rehab center for physical therapy. Now let me preface this with my Grandpa had never really been in great health but I didn't know how bad things had deteriorated over the years because I never saw him for long stretches of time. Long story short (and to save myself some tears) my Grandpa did not adjust well to the sudden and drastic changes in his life and passed away about a month later.

June:
One of the hardest things to do was help my Grandma, Mom, and Uncle with funeral preparations since we were one of the first people to arrive after the news of my Grandpa's death. Who knew making decisions on what flowers, type of casket, photos, where it was going to be, who would be going to the cemetary, what kind of food were we cooking for the army of people staying at the house, and so on, would be so difficult and draining. Let me tell you there was massive amount of alcohol consumed during this week. I think the part that was the worst was that no matter where you went you were never and i mean NEVER alone. There was always someone underfoot.

July, August, September:
Once I got back from the Eastern Shore all I did was WORK. work work work.

October:
This was a particularly strenuous month. Things were going great till my fall break at about the middle of October. I ended up going to visit a friend that I hadn't hung out with in a very long time. I drove home and then drove the extra hour a little later to go visit my friend and spend the night. It wasn't a mistake going there but lets just say a lesson learned. I was put in a situation that I never thought I would end up in: cops, hospital, no sleep, and having to call my mom and my brother to come get me because I couldn't drive home on no sleep. I love my friend she is one of the best people I know but I think our friendship has forever changed because of this incident. Her and I haven't really talked since and I admit not putting that much effort into it once I got back to school but I have had other things going on....
So I get back to school on a Sunday and meet up with two friends at the bar and just unwind. After I've gone back to my apartment and I get a text message, saying a friend that I had talked to before the break and tried to see while I was visiting my other friend, had gone missing at the concert she had attended that weekend. What? Things like this happen every day I was in no way deluded to the evil that exists in our world but you never really think that you will PERSONALLY know the face that they flash across the TV screen. It's always someone else's friend, daughter, wife, sister never someone you know and went to high school with.

The rest of 2009 was spent going to candlelight vigils at home, helping with the volunteer search party and eventually I begin to go on about my life as every day passed with no news of her whereabouts....Winter break came and was spent in AL with family and all the while her memory was in the back of my mind. Thinking about how her parents weren't able to spend the holidays with their daughter.

2010:
A few weeks ago they finally found her body. I never wanted to say it because it would then seem like I didn't have hope that she would return to her family but I had a deep feeling that she was gone the weekend she was reported missing. A beautiul girl's life was extinguished; a girl that impacted my senior year of high school with her infectious laugh and witty comments. I had spoken to her that Monday before she was supposed to go to that concert; she was SO excited and she never got to see the band perform.

I have a blank card that I have been meaning to send to her parents since I was unable to make it to the memorial service due to winter weather. It sits on a bookshelf, still blank--not really knowing what words to fill it with, nothing is going to make her parents feel better, nothing I say is going to bring her back to us, so what do I put in this card....?

This is a lot for one little 21 year old girl/woman (still having a hard time seeing myself as a grown-up) to process and I think it is starting to catch up with me. Should I go see someone and talk out my feelings or should I just keep going as I am?

Sidenote: And to think with all this I met a really cute, sweet, funny, adorable guy that I am insanely attracted to, only to find out he has a girlfriend...I haven't had the nervous butterflies in a very long time and I'm finding it difficult to keep them underwraps....I have a feeling that he KNOWS I like him, or am at least attracted to him....what the fuck who knows where life will take me, I just have to buckle up and hang on for the ride....