Accompanied Solitude

A month ago my household experienced a tragedy that has changed parts of all of us in ways that we may never truly understand. A friend was killed - murdered by a 19 year old with a stolen gun - and her absence is so painful that many other things seem not only insignificant, but rather frivolous. Things like my day to day activities that I ramble on about here in this blog, for example. The knowledge that "life goes on" is strangely comforting and sickening at once. Comforting because it's true - life continues all around me even though people near me are halted in so many ways - and sickening because when something so terrible happens it's almost impossible to devise a strategy to cope with the life that must (and certainly does) continue. My friends are dealing with the most shocking and horrific emotions they will ever face and I am swallowed up by their grief as well as my own.

While that extreme grief is playing itself out there are other things going on in my life that are difficult to deal with, too. They are certainly smaller, less important, but they exist nonetheless and I'm not sure how to muddle through some of them. I feel completely selfish for even worrying about issues that are so comparatively tiny, but the thing about life going on is that life really does go on - the happy parts, the sad parts, the goofy parts, the parts that let you know you're still alive - and I know that our friend would be one of the first to remind me of that. So, when I'm chastising myself for getting sad that the man I'm crazy about is moving to the other end of the country, that I hate my job, that I'm lonely more than I've ever been and how-dare-I-be-so-selfish-and-wallow-in-my-own-self-pity, I need to remember that this is part of my life and if I am sad and angry about something, well damnit, I'm sad and angry about it. Just because it's a tiny little thing in the scope of this whole life doesn't discount its validity at this moment. Just because it's not the death of a loved one doesn't make it untrue. Just because it's not the kind of pain that makes you feel like you're the one really dying doesn't mean you shouldn't feel it.

I feel it. I feel the sadness and the anger. Is it the kind of sadness and anger that invades you when your friend is killed? No. Is it still sadness and anger? Yes. I feel it. I'm alone a lot and I've realized that it's the kind of alone that comes even when in a room full of people. Alone doesn't have to mean lonely, but lonely is what I feel a good portion of the time lately. I'm dealing with it as best I can, but I'd love to talk to someone about it and sort of get it out of my system, off my proverbial chest. Unfortunately, this guilt I have about my "insignificant" problems prevents me from confiding in my roommates a whole lot because they have enough on their minds and hearts without listening to me jabber on about how I'm lonely and upset because my long distance relationship is about to get longer. So for now I write about it, and I talk about it when it's bothering me so much that I can't hold it in. Significant or not, pain is pain and everything is relative. Nothing should be shoved aside and dismissed for fear of its relevance.