Gone?

I cannot help but realize this - whenever somebody leaves me, be it via leaving my workplace, moving away, taking a job elsewhere, I lose touch with people. They left me, so they are left out of my mind forever. Sure, every now and then a memory or two sneaks in. But this is different. The memory is there all the time. There are two memories. There are the great ones where I recall my 20+ year friendship with somebody. Then there is the memory of the night I heard the news. The day we sat in a circle of friends with our heads spinning around the situation. The day I saw your mother crying out. The day I saw you for the last time.

You left my life, like other people have before, but no in a way I have ever thought was possible. This has come up to me lately as this past Sunday I drove past your old house. The last place you were alive. I looked over while driving down the road but had to look away. 

I have been fortunate enough to get back to focusing on the things I need to do to get through the day like I am supposed to. However, every break or free second I have you on my mind. The family he left behind is very difficult to talk to, even though I know his spouse would talk to me in a heart beat. He is still totally all throughout my mind, but in order to not bring anybody else down I have kept it to myself. Almost like we are keeping no memories alive anymore. 

You know what else I have noticed since his suicide? There are a lot of put-off statements like "I would rather kill myself than XYZ..." It is weird, but I have never noticed. I know I always used to talk like that as well. I don't think I have even muttered these words in the 44 days since I heard about his death. I have heard several other people say it, and I shudder. I know it is just a way of talking and an expression. I know that I will personally never throw away a line like that, though. 

I am rambling a bit. I have tried my best to work through this on my own, but once in a while I need an entry to just get out the residual. I realize that I would also like to help somebody who may have lost somebody recently or help those who stumble across this and can see that it has been painful for somebody who lost a person they loved like a brother. I said earlier it has only been 44 days since the news spread. The past 44 days have felt like months on end. The past few years have flown by me and time has certainly been taken for granted. Maybe I am paying more attention to every detail of every day so that I may keep the image of my friend's corpse out of my mind. These details can be counted down by the second, and I feel like I am living through every second rather than looking up at a clock and seeing another hour or two has passed.

I know many of my friends have gathered their lives back together after this. Sure, I bet many of them have some sort of internal suffering, anger, questions. I have them, and it's because I once stood on a fine line between the choice he made and the choice I chose to make. Those people who know me informally and not necessarily as a confidant would think this was because of a painful divorce I went through. The divorce was painful because it was culmination of things combining in my head that formed who I had become, all coming to a flurry when I thought I was losing what was what I HAD THOUGHT was the best thing to ever happen to me. Eventually, after getting the help I needed, I concluded the best thing to happen to me was actually me, and I have been able to enjoy life since.

I do know the unbearable pain. I know what it is like to wish physical harm on myself to make it stop. I know for a few years I thought there was no other way my life could be. I used to privately live by a motto of "I'm only happy in my misery." It's a line from a song, and it was so applicable. Even after I had caught up with my friends after years of separation, I hid the pain. I still had my bleak outlook. Even though they could tell something was wrong and they tried to lighten my mood, I still came home to the same pain. 

I am still wondering and questioning why I am still hear, typing about somebody who isn't. It is almost like survivor's guilt. I have read a lot that suicide survivors have a guilt, but this is a little different. The survivor's guilt is more like a "what more could I have done" thing. Mine is similar, however more along the lines of "why couldn't I show him what I saw." May not make sense to you, but what if any other person I know crosses similar troubles to what my friend did? How the hell am I supposed to show them keeping their head above water still means they are swimming? That they still have that power within to keep themselves afloat and facing the right direction to breathe in the air of life?

Certainly I did not intend for this entry to take the direction it did. But you know what? If it is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that whatever I said or wrote is what I honestly and truly feel. No need to read through it and delete or change things. If I do that, then I keep them within. Just because I have not written anything in a couple weeks certainly has not meant that I have moved past this thing. His son's birthdays will keep growing in number. Our high school reunions will continually pop up. My family will grow, and he won't get to see it. Our remaining friends will have life highs and lows that we could have been through together. It is still a very real, weird, hurtful, painful reality to think about you not with us anymore. The finality of it always having to be this way is still unacceptable to me. Regardless, I am powerless to change it.

Thank you for reading.