I think sometimes, the world just seems like too much. Too big of a problem to handle, too hopeless.
I was just reading cnn.com and happened upon the Iraq casualties list. I scanned them and was about to click off the screen when one person caught my eye.
Army Pvt. Jesse M. Halling of Indianapolis is shown in this undated photo. Halling, 19, a 2002 graduate of Ben Davis High School who was assigned to 401st Military Police Company at Fort Hood, Texas, was killed in a small arms fire attack in Tikrit on June 7, 2003, the Department of Defense said Monday, June 9, 2003. -Anchorage Daily News
I'm not sure what it was about this particular person. Maybe the look on his face, that his name is Jesse, or the fact that I went to a debate meet my freshman year of high school at Ben Davis High.
Something about him made me wonder who he was. So I searched for him.
The first forty results were nothing, but this was behind 41.
"Even as a child, Jesse Halling was focused on life as a soldier.
'Everything was about the military,' said his mother, Pam Halling. 'Ever since he was in kindergarten, drawing pictures of jets and helicopters and tanks ... it was just in him.'
Halling, 19, of Indianapolis died June 7 during a battle north of Baghdad. He was stationed at Fort Hood.
Halling has been widely praised for his actions during the battle, ordering others in his unit to take cover while he remained at his post and returned fire until he was hit by shrapnel. Halling was awarded a posthumous Purple Heart and has been nominated for a Silver Star Medal, the Army's third-highest medal for valor behind the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross.
'Jesse went over to Iraq to help a people have freedom, to help a people have peace,' the Rev. D. Michael Welch said.
Halling's mother said her son's death should be a reminder that thousands of U.S. military personnel still face danger in Iraq.
'People are still getting killed in Iraq," she said. "It's happening every day.'"
I have been feeling sort of angry and depressed for the last three or four days, and haven't been able to shake it. It has now actually made me sick. I have a sore throat. Metaphysical reason for a sore throat? Angry words, held back at the throat. It's certainly true in my case.
I'm angry.
It has had absolutely nothing to do with anyone who is or will be killed in Iraq.
But maybe it should.
If I have to dissect the amorphous blob of anger which has been residing in my solar plexus for the past few days, I think it would be distributed evenly amongst the following (had to think about this one for a while):
-humiliation
-utter bewilderment
-disgust
-self-righteousness
-disappointment
-self-doubt
-pity, and not in a kind-hearted way
-beating myself up for having such a trusting nature
-and, last but not least, irritation at the fact that I have yet another part of my life I have to edit for the purposes of this stupid page.
Thinking like that is the reason that people are dying in Iraq, in Liberia, all over Africa, in Israel. Fuck.. in Chicago.
It's as if a few days ago, my ego resurrected itself from the graveyard of bad human qualities and started to fuck everything up again.
One of my goals in life is to operate sans ego. The ego does nothing but cause problems, and this is a great example of that. The ego tells you that you are better than someone else. The ego wants you to look at things from a perspective of righteous indignation and/or self-hatred, instead of from a place of love.
I found, last month, that viewing what was happening in my life with love and compassion for myself, and other people, was like discovering an incredible painkiller. It was hard, but I didn't feel how I've been feeling lately often, if at all.
When I try to view the above list with compassion instead of anger, it changes.
-humiliation= this isn't about you.
-bewilderment= everything is happening the way it's supposed to for the highest good of everyone.
-disgust= vanishes and is replaced by old familiar feelings of love.
-self-righteousness= this isn't about you.
-disappointment= forgiveness
-pity= sympathy, empathy, actual concern
-beating myself up= I know that my trusting nature is one of the things I love the most about myself.
And then, the world goes back to where it should be. Nobody's an immature asshole. It's not my fault anymore. My heart doesn't feel all twisted and broken; it feels whole and able to appreciate the eternal nature of love.
I think the best thing anyone ever told me was, "Don't take the world personally."
I have been feeling pissed off- about my immense financial obligations this month and how I am going to satisfy them; about my utter lack of enthusiasm borderlining on contempt for the opposite sex right now (which is totally unfair, and I don't like being unfair, so that is bothering me too); about my feeling of disconnection with God and all the things that were bringing me peace; at my lack of enthusiasm regarding various aspects of my health, etc. Basically all anger at myself.
So, now is the time to step outside and think about somebody else for a change.
The first thing I am going to do is this.
Dear Jesse,
Hi. I'm Maggie. I'm writing to you because I saw that you were killed in Iraq in June, on June 7th actually. I was sitting outside on my mom's patio, reading a book and drinking a soda that day.
I don't know you, and I have no idea what your personality was like. You sound a little bit like my stepbrother, Miles, who had a bunch of those little action army figures when we were younger, and used to arrange them in battles with each other and fight little wars. I never really understood why he did that, but I guess you probably do. I think it was just something to think about, a guy thing. I don't think that he had any more of a desire than I did to see our country at war, to see his buddies get killed, to shoot someone he never met.
Although I do feel gratitude towards you and everyone in the military for making me feel protected, that's not really what I want to say.
What I want to say is that someone who doesn't know you is thinking of you and your family. I don't think of you as a soldier who went off to fight our war. I think of you as a guy, with a great name and a great smile, who went to high school dances and probably took a vacation to Disney World as a kid and maybe had a little sister he tormented growing up.
There are 254 of you right now, soldiers who have died. To think of all of them and who they were is too much for one person, so I am just going to think of you. I hope that your mom is doing okay. I hope that you're able to make the people you love the most aware of your presence. I hope that while you were alive, you loved somebody sometime. I hope there's no one left out there who wishes they had told you something, but never got the chance to.
I just wanted you to know you're not just one of a sea of faces. Not to me.
Love,
Maggie
© beotch at
6:21 p.m.
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