In memory of shana

I asked myself earlier whether or not Shana would be proud of me.  She was always so honest and had such confidence in her standards for behavior and her intolerance for betrayal that I often found my own pride in myself through her eyes.  Although the most beautiful thing about this aspect of Shana is that she liked me more and favored me more the more I took pride in myself, and for that reason. She did not believe in wallowing in sadness or self pity.  While she had a hard time acknowledging her own pain, as we grew up we helped eachother find the place sadness has in self respect over self pity.  In the place where you understand how you can grow from the experience, or possibly avoid it in the future, find the strength in yourself to learn from everything about the woes and beauty of humanity. My own self doubt often plagued or friendship, it would repel her or prevent me from being open to her defiant nature.  When I look back on my question, would she be proud of me, it helps me to remember that she will be proud of me when I have pride in myself.  When I understand why I’m doing the things that I’m doing and I’m proud to be doing them.

It’s unfortunate that I forgot what it felt like to have a friend who so positively reinforced me, made me feel good about being genuine, about being strong.  Most people just compliment me for being care free or cool. Only someone who doesn’t truly understand why I try to love what I see would believe those detatched higherarchical compliments. When shana helped me believe I was genuine, I became more genuine, and that was the source of the strength I had around her.  While she could be intimidating her strength was insidious.  She was a teacher of individuality, how to find your own music, your own movies, your own hair style, your own clothing.  She didn’t want the in she wanted the out, the way to ignore what was in.  While we were all products of an advertising industry to some degree, most of our fascinations were as genuine as our aspirations, our drug usage, and our friendships.  That is why our friendships outlasted our drugs and failed dreams, and that is the only reason any of the advertisements ever even worked.

Her death is a reminder to embrace reality the way I did before I felt damaged and weak and jaded. I was truly a hero with her and Emily in high school. I felt like a learner of life and not a victim of my own propensity to fall on hardships. 

Everyone has a propensity to fall on hardships, what matters is that I learn to live as if I could die tomorrow, and to love as if we will never die, to see as if for the first and last time, to feel as if I could be another, to never imagine the audience the obituary or the statistic, but the human behind every song lyric, every science fiction novel, every magic card, everything.  
p.s. shana took the picture that is the head of my blog and is one of the only people that ever followed what I wrote