(originally posted on
January 25, 2012 via my thoughts.com account.)
Alas, I have finally made a blog. For quite sometime now I have wanted to start
this, a place to vent my thoughts and my wonderings, my excitements and my
frustrations....or those things that my brother used to call them: "brain
jibblets". It has to come out, as it must come out of all of us, whether
the next person likes it or not. So, here it goes.....
A new year is upon us, the greatly anticipated 2012. The year in which many
feel like it is their last chance to do something with their lives, because the
world is going to end in December. I myself, don't believe this to be true...but
just in case it is indeed going to be the end of all time before Christmas,
then I don't see why I should make this year any less fun than the other years,
hell, why not make it the BEST one yet! I'm 22 years old, going to be 23 in
June. There's so many things to look forward to...yet the past still plagues my
mind. From time to time. And I don't just mean the little things that went
wrong, but the big ones too.
March 26 will mark the 10 year anniversary of my father's death. He was the
greatest man I ever knew, and he was taken from me when I was only 12 years of
age. Do I still cry about this? Yes. From time to time. Do I think of him as
proud of me to keep going on? Absolutely. I see a lot of him in me as well,
certain aspects of my life and the way I've conquered them reminds me of how he
used to handle things when he was still alive. Our undying love for music and
the power that comes from listening to rock-n-roll. The way we let the music
completely take over our body and our heart, whether it's just kicked back
listening or actually playing the music. Making the hand motions of tinkering
the ivories or the air guitar riffs when our favorite part of a song plays.
Yes, Dad played guitar, piano, keys, and sang...he was rather old school but I
can imagine he'd appreciate some of the latest bands that have come out
lately....especially the ones who are VERY reflective of their roots and trying
to bring back the classic rock vibe or the 80s vibe. I also feel like his love
of family and his romantic side comes out in me as well. Whether it's poetry,
songwriting, our passion for spilling our hearts out for love....I dunno. I
just know that the older I get the more I recognize these things.
However, I still find him to be a much stronger person than I'll ever be. Hell,
he had melanoma in his brain that kept coming back for 3 years. Radiation,
chemotherapy, 3 surgeries....all of this and not a single tear was shed. He had
a stomach of iron and a heart of gold. I miss him every single day, and wish he
could come over and visit John and I in our apartment.
Which to add, yes I live in an apartment with my wonderful boyfriend of 3 and a
half years, John. I'll speak of that later...first off, there's another angel
that watches over me, whom I can't bear the fact that he's gone, and wish to
see him quite often. My older brother, Jace.
I could write an entire book on the adventures that my brother and I had in the
18 years that he lived on this Earth. I will most likely write blogs in the
future to reflect on his way-too-short-lived life, and may even analyze some of
his epic blogs from Myspace. (yes, Myspace...that old social network that
hardly anyone is on these days). Jace Cameron Stephenson. He was the first
person to inspire me to write. He always had a way with words, it's completely
indescribable the way in which his words flowed and he poured out his thoughts
and ideas. He was a very talented artist, he had hundreds of drawings and
paintings, and he wrote very dark poetry, (some of it is in a book that his mother
wrote, he's actually my half-brother). He wrote with a very intense writing
style, one must read it to understand. It's evident through his poetry that he
was very depressed and in a state of gloom after our father passed. He got
wrapped up in drugs etc, but that wasn't really the problem. Through a series
of unfortunate events, he was living in Texas with his mother and step-dad from
the age of 12 to 18, and each year I'd only get to see him for a few months in
the summer and a few weeks around Christmas.
New Year's Day 2005 was the very last day that I saw Jace. He had on his Dead
Kennedys T-shirt and his bleach stained jeans, the ones we had experimented
with over the previous summer with a spray bottle and Clorox. He was so excited
about graduating. He gave me a big hug and said "Catcha laata",
before walking off towards the terminal with his plaid messenger bag slung over
his shoulder. He never came over for the summer, and I can remember being
really depressed because I already knew that my mother was going to be
remarried in July, and I just wanted him to be there so badly. It was hard
enough as it was, and I just wanted my brother to be there to talk to, to play
video games with, to go act like fools in Wal-Mart just because we could,
because we were teenagers. In August, while eating dinner at my step-dad's
house, my mother got a phone call from Jace's mom that he had hung himself in
the attic there in Flower Mound, Texas.
On my way to take my plate to the sink, my mother repeated those words and I
instantly dropped my plate and collapsed on the floor. I pounded the floor
screaming, threw my plate, and went to my room in a frantic...as if the room
was a gateway to bring him back. I buried myself into the bed there in my room
at my step-dad's, crying as hard as I ever had...harder than when Dad died.
There's nothing worse than finding out about someone's death when it's least
expected. My father was dying, we knew he was dying....Jace had his whole life
ahead of him. His death could have been stopped, and every now and again I
wonder to myself what I could have done to stop him from killing himself. I was
only 16 years old at the time. What could I have done?
Fast forward to 2008. I'm in college now. Attending and commuting to East
Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina from the little river town of
Washington, North Caroliina, living with my mother and stepfather who have
given birth to twin boys in 2006. I've now gone through the whole eating
disorder escapades that followed my brother's death. I found no joy in food,
had no desire to eat food, desperately wanting to lose weight simply because I
could. Until it got out of control. So for 3 years, that was my lifestyle.
Starving myself. In the year 2008, I was on my way back up.....but more about
that in a second.
Ah Washington, I've lived here since I was 11 years old. (Before that was Bear
Grass, a country town about a half hour away.) Washington is a quaint yet shady
little place, small in population but large in crime rate, surprisingly. Over
the bridge is another town, Chocowinity. Now Washington and Chocowinity are
kinda like New York and New Jersey. They talk shit about each other and they're
right across a body of water. It makes me laugh.
Then there's a place called the Turnage Theater on Main Street...which
unfortunately was just recently shut down due to financial difficulties. The
Turnage is where it all began...
I heard about auditions for a play called "Overtones". I went to the
auditions, got a part in the ensemble (non-speaking characters) as a little
girl. Funny they did that, I was only 95 pounds at the time so, "Yeah
let's make her the role of a little girl". Either way, I met many young
people there, and like most of the ones throughout high school, they didn't
really want to talk to me either. Except for two people, a boy and girl couple.
They were both still in high school, a sophomore and a senior. We instantly
cilcked together, and we started hanging out from time to time, not just at
rehearsals. At rehearsals, I started to look at this boy and think,
"Damn...am I falling for one of my best friends?...A friend who's taken by
another friend?" So summer went by, as did the 3 weeks of the play, and in
September, the young man called to tell me that he and his girlfriend had split
up because she was cheating on him. I let him vent to me about how angry he
was, lending an ear to listen, to let him say everything that he needed to say,
to be there for a friend. Less than a week later, he called me back. After a
half hour of talking about music and video games, he said, "Jewels...will
you....oh this is so lame. You'll think I'm crazy."....."No what is
it, ask me? I won't think you're crazy."......"Jewels...will you go
out with me?"......."Yes! I've been wanting to ask you that for a
while now!"
That was the beginning of John and Jewels.
We've stayed a strong couple for 3 and a half years now, and being with him has
made me a stronger person. Many positive things have happened since he's
entered my life. I've become stronger mentally (standing up for myself against
my step-dad) physically (gained healthy weight back over these past few years)
and emotionally because I have been able to move on....as well as move out. We
now live in an apartment right here on Main Street. I still stay in contact
with my family, my mom more than anyone else, and surprisingly my step-dad and
I are on better terms than ever before.
Now these past few years have been full of awesome events. 2009, I learned to
swim...kinda. It was our first summer as a couple, first year as a
couple..second Christmas as a couple. 2010, we attended our first real concert
together, which was the one and only HIM, the band that brought us together. I started hosting my own radio show that
summer on ECU's radio station, WZMB. Did my first interviews on the airwaves.
Good times!
2010 also marked the year that I met the majority of my online friends. Nearly
all of them at once. In February, HIM released Screamworks and I started using
my Facebook more often, which is how I found most of them. (A few were on
Myspace but we ditched it soon after and came over to Facebook). Well, for
nearly 2 years, I had a pretty solid online friendship with some people, a
circle of friends...became know as "the girls". We all gave each
other our own nicknames for each other. Everything was going really, really
well, I had these connections that felt really awesome and all these girls were
super kind and sweet, we'd talk about music, etc. I loved it! And I still do!
2011 marked the year that I did my first ever face-to-face interview with a musician
before a gig in Norfolk, Virginia, and it was with none other than HIM and
Daniel Lioneye's guitarist, Mikko "Linde" Lindstrom. He was an
incredibly genuine, kind man, he spoke very softly and was warm in his
mannerisms towards us while on the tour bus, John recording the interview and I
asking the questions. It became known as THE coolest moment of the year, right
next to that summer when I photographed Black Veil Brides when Warped Tour came
to Virginia Beach. The planned interview with BVB fell through because the
manager didn't book it, but oh well, there's next time.
Later in the year, November 1, we finally made the move. I boxed up all my
belongings and over the course of the next few weeks, John and I had all our
stuff moved into a little 2 story apartment downtown. My mother was hysterical
for a little while, worried about me and worried about how we'd spend the
holidays, but it all worked out in the end. However, later that month, I
noticed a change in attitudes on Facebook. I couldn't figure it out...I kept
puzzling to myself why such shitty things were being said about a certain
someone that was so blatantly obviously me. I tried to ask this friend what had
I done to upset her. She never replied. For weeks.
I had also messaged my other friend, trying to figure out if she could
understand what was going on. She offered to help me find out what was the
matter. This friend, (who I'm still very close with to this day) proceeded to
do so, and the other friend finally blew up in my face about it. Well...not
literally. But in fucking caps lock on the Internet. She was pissed off that I
had asked my friend what was wrong with her. Well, I HAD asked them both, they
are both supposed to be my friends, correct? She questioned if she was a good
enough friend and why I liked the other girl more than her. I told her I liked
both of them equally, and asked why she had come to this conclusion. Why would
she assume this?
Either way, this insanely childish manner continued, because this now ex-friend
and her current best friend kept saying cruel things on the wall for all to
see, making death threats to me in my inbox, and getting all bitchy about
things I said on Twitter that they disagreed with. Finally it "ended"
when I wrote a note on Facebook releasing my inner thoughts about the whole
situation, in fair, simple terms. They both blocked me. As if I had done
something so evil towards them. My friend, the one who's always still around,
informed me of what they had done...she said she was so sorry for everything,
and I told her 'Don't be'. Because in the end, all she was trying to do was
help.
Remember how I said "ended"? Yeah, that means it didn't. The
two.....let's just say "twats", to keep from using names. The twats
proceeded to continue the bullying on Twitter. Great. They tagged me in their
tweets, talking pure dogshit about what I had written in my note on Facebook,
and taking the piss out of the way, in my defense, what John had commented to
them, to just leave me alone. Another so-called "friend" chipped into
the conversation and only made things worse. I told her if she didn't know what
was going on, to just stay out of it.
THEN, it ended. Almost. I blocked all three of them on Twitter and the third
wheel on Facebook. I even had to block a few others who had taken their side
and started attacking me...great friends, huh?
To my greatest amusement (sarcasm, more like "Just please shut the hell up
already!") the third wheel wrote a blog on her website talking the utmost
gutter trash about John and I......she was speaking as if she knew who we were,
when she didn't (and still doesn't) have the foggiest idea of what kind of
people we are. She's just one of those people that love to cause drama and
think that their shit don't stink because they live in a big city.
*cough*Brooklyn*cough*
What gets me the most is "the circle". The circle has grown smaller
in size, practically diminished...but not quite. My question for those who
left, or those who pretend like nothing ever happened, I want to know.......what
is a friend for? What is the point if you can't stay true? What's the point if
you fail to take up for one another? And another thing, what's the point in
staying friends with a person that you already know is slime and verbally
attacks people, who are supposed to be friends, without any remorse? When you
know they've done something heartless towards another? When you know these
people are fakes? How is that okay?
Over the course of the last 2 months, I have mind-wrestled with what happened
in November, time and time again. How could I have changed this? How could I
have made this not happen? Just like the death of my brother, and my father, it
was out of my hands. In the end, there's not a damn thing I can honestly do
about it, because it was her/their choice to drop me so easily....what it boils
down to is that they were never true friends to begin with. I try to stay
positive and be thankful for the handful of friends who are still here, the
ones who still care....
The friend I mentioned, the one who took up for me and tried to figure out what
was wrong...she's still by my side.
She's written and sent me multiple letters through the mail which never fail to
make me feel better about the situation....she's encouraging me still to move
on, move past that and forget about those people who tried to bring me down. I
couldn't ask for a better friend. If only she didn't live across the ocean. I
look forward to meeting her this summer when I travel to her home country of
Great Britain.
In conclusion, to this insanely long blog, I feel like 2012 is going to be a
year of change.
New job. New home. New life with my man. New friends (and the true ones who've
stayed). New influences. New tunes. New places. New trips. New highways. New
concerts. New festivals. New journeys. New experiences. New accomplishments.
New dreams. New year.
Like Jace always said, "Good times, good times".
