And so it just is...my life is messy right now. Really, really messy. So many things around me, far out of my control, that are affecting me in deep ways. Hurt. Anger. Confusion. They have all settled deep in my heart and for things others have done, things I cannot manipulate or change or even accept with any sort of willingness.
My 20 year class reunion is less than two weeks away. I was not invited. I wasn't a complete outcast in school. Yes, I was quiet and didn't spend much time with my classmates outside of school. I wasn't super popular, but I wasn't hated either. I was super smart and the teachers probably had more fondness for me than my peers.
Aside from all that, I helped plan and paid for our 10 year reunion. Another story for another day. We have lived in the same house for over 15 years and I am on most every social media where anyone could have asked my address.
But I digress...that isn't what this post is about.
One of my classmates died Friday. He's our first. We had a former classmate commit suicide several years back, but I'm not sure anyone cared. Sad but true. The guy dropped out at 16, which was 8th grade for him and had a troubled life.
So, this is the first major loss in our class. We went over 20 years. I know, the older we get the more this will happen. Just like friends with major illnesses and all sorts of huge life issues that nobody ever thought they would see until they were their parent's ages.
The guy who passed away was amazingly talented. He and his parents moved across the street from us when were in junior high. I think this guy was born with a set of drumsticks. He was the most talented drummer I had ever seen. It was rare to not hear him pounding out a series of songs every night.
He was a great artist too. Although his art often came in the form of drawings that involved teachers doing I don't even know what to creatures that went straight from his head to the paper.
He was a nice guy. He helped me several times with car problems when my family wouldn't. He is also the only guy who ever stuck up for me when I was being picked on as a kid.
But he was also deeply troubled. Despite loving parents, a strong churched childhood and a wonderful extended family, he fell in with the wrong crowd during high school.
Through a few conversations with him late in high school and shortly after, I know he suffered from depression and possibly ADD or anxiety. His way of coping was drugs. Because of that, many people distanced themselves from him.
I know he had his demons. I had lost touch with him long ago, but his obituary reads as though he had turned his life around. I don't yet know his cause of death and I suppose it doesn't matter now that he is gone. His obit says he was a spiritual man, praying for friends often. I hope that is true. Regardless, my heart breaks for his family.
My anger, confusion, hurt and frustration is felt in my classmates. When I say we all grew up together, we did. My graduating class was all of 44 people. Of those 44, over 35 of us had been together since grade school and over 20 of us had started kindergarten together. It shouldn't take death for that many people to come together or communicate with each other. It shouldn't take a loss for people to be kind to each other. It shouldn't take considering mortality for people to show heart and compassion.
It would have been easier to understand if our class had been there for this guy during the hardest parts of life, instead of turing their backs. I'm not sure I hear much from anyone in my class unless it is under the pretense of gossip. How sad is that? We spent 13 years in school with each other and we reduced ourselves to communicating only when there is gossip or death? Why must it be like this? Maybe coming from a small town where that is common place, brings us to a place of being just the same.
I'm sad that years pass by and the people who were our first real community become such strangers to us. It is upsetting that what we know of each other becomes largely based on gossip or what we knew 10 or 20 years ago.
Maybe I am in a little bit of shock because he's the first. Maybe I am a little angry and hurt because some people are so uncaring. m
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