Loss

I had a great little blog post all planned out.  I've recently finished this fantastic little book called Proust was a Neuroscientist.  One of the chapters talked about Virginia Woolf.  I've honestly only read a single story by her in high school so I don't remember much.  What I wanted to cover was a discussion about her search for the mind and how all these disparate elements can make up a single person.

A great read.

All of her novels seem to focus on this idea.  And to end my post, I was going to tell how her depression became so crippling that she filled her coat pockets with rocks and walked into the river to drown.  I thought it would make for an interesting little story and then I'd move on to a new topic.  I didn't think I would suddenly be hit by a tragedy of my own.

I lost a very dear friend last week.  It took several calls from various people before I could actually believe he was gone.  He was always my closest nerd friend and my gut reaction was to believe he was actually in a parallel dimension (something akin to fringe which he introduced my family to).  Tragedies are supposed to happen to people who you don't know.  It's supposed to happen to someone else.  Maybe on the news you hear of a death and you think, that's so sad.  But it's never, ever supposed to effect you.

Well I've cried till my eyes are beyond red and puffy.  And I've felt like my chest is going to collapse.  The aftermath has sent me seeking solace in others who knew him.  And we all knew him in a different way.  In each person I discover a new aspect of his personality.  Something that didn't shine as brightly when he was with me but was there all the same.

To some, he was a loving older brother.  Others saw him as a shy, yet smart student.  Others knew him as a hard worker at salt lick or an intense gamer who would pull all-nighters on w.o.w. (world of warcraft) or something of the sort.

I never thought...

To me, he was a constant presence in my life.  A rock I could always call on.  Whenever I saw a reference to star trek, he was the first one I'd text.  If I ever wanted to go see a really goofy action movie, we immediately started planning a date.  Without him, I would never have gotten into Doctor Who or Fringe.  I wouldn't have always had someone who would hang out on a wednesday night- just because we could.

I miss him so incredibly much.  The bad parts of life are supposed to happen to other people.  They're supposed to be stories of people like Virginia Woolf.  But I guess life happens to us all the same.  We suffer and grow and never forget those we lost.  He will never, ever leave my heart.