Life is fragile, if there's one thing I have learned in my young life of eighteen years, that would be it. God is often thought of as the only one with the power to give and take away, but sometimes it's on us, sometimes we're the ones to give life and take it away. Think about it. That girl who's outfit was sooooo adorable...and you told her, you just gave life to her world. But then there's that other girl who you don't really know at all...and you decide to judge her anyway, you just took some life away from her world.
From infancy we naturally revolve our world around ourselves, our needs, our feelings. But somewhere along the way, past the stages of infancy and even preadolescence when it's still somewhat acceptable to be whiny and self-righteous, we got it all wrong. Somewhere along the way, we made a choice, a decision to walk our hallways, our workplaces, our churches, our homes, and our towns with the very same attitude that is instilled in us from birth. I don't think the world is as distorted as each one of our minds are. We see the world in all of it's pain and clamor and yet we create these 'utopias' that aren't utopias at all, we gossip and hurt one another, judge and discourage, and tear down, but surely because our world is 'all as it should be' and all about what we want and need, we tell ourselves that 'that kind of stuff' won't happen to me, to us.' But it does.
Unique and rare to the town of Cynthiana, compared to some places, is our close knit community, and as of recently, something I have realized we take for granted. Sure, we have the cute little story book ladies who smile and wave at you in the store from behind their shopping carts and stop and chat with you about the latest news, but that usually turns into gossip, and then even more gossip when the both of you go home and gossip to the next person. It's no wonder how fast news spreads in this town, most of us know if anything big has happened by the time we lay our heads down at night. And if nothing 'big' has happened, we still sleep at night, despite and even content in the fact that we spent our day gossiping, judging, and hurting, taking away some more life.
We're all at fault. I know I am. It's nice to be accepted, to join in on the 'excitment' of talking about others. I've been the reciever, but I've also been the giver. I've held my tongue in front of the person, but talked about them behind their back. Which one is worse? We all know the answer, but we're too comfortable in our own little lives to truly care about others. And 'joking'? Let's face it, whether it's to their face or behind their backs, our intentions usually aren't genuine.
Brandi Ballinger. A name I wasn't familiarized with until the day she was self-righteously exploited by others all over facebook after she committed suicide...after facing bullying, among other things none of us will ever know. I didn't know this young lady, but the rumors, the statuses of people who 'wished' they would have gotten to know her, or 'wished' they would of talked to her more, really upset me. If you wanted to know her and if you wanted to talk to her, you would have, but you didn't. Again, your status, it's for attention, it's about you, 'what will others think about me?' The news itself was quite unsettling, the reasons for it happening were unsettling, but the way people reacted to it made me cringe. People are heartless, saying things like, 'It was her decision to take a gun to her head' and becoming jittery at the mention of her name if they can even say it, some just refer to her as 'that girl who died' and it all makes me sick. It was your decision to say mean things to her and tear her down. A young girl, eighth grade. I can't even begin to imagine the pain that she was feeling, and the hope she wasn't. So much pain and so little hope, if any, that she was compelled to pull a trigger and end her beautiful and precious life. I can't begin to understand the dark depths of suicide.
I didn't know her, but I do know other 'Brandi's'--the people I have said mean things to or maybe just ingnored. Healing needs to take place, we need to move forward as a community. What has happened is a cry out to our town. It shouldn't have taken her life to show us how wrong we have been, but it did and it needs to be dealt with, not pushed under the rug in a few months like nothing happened. I believe this 'close knit' label on our community has been used against us in the past, and we have let it, but we don't have to anymore, it's time we bring it closer together and build from the pain and mistakes we have allowed ourselves to become comfortable with in the past. It's time we start giving more life, instead of taking it, for Brandi and for eachother.
Someone once said, 'the breath you just took was a gift, the next one is not promised.'
Where will those breaths find you? Making fun of someone? Or instead getting to know them?
Give life, give love. You never know the battle someone might be facing.
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