unedited rant

I'm so, so very sick of worrying about whether I'll offend someone. Of course, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but that's different. I feel like I'm people-pleasing my way through life, from the fact that I shave my legs to to the fact that the only people I'm totally honest with are my therapist, my mom, and my paper diary. See, there. Now I want to delete that last sentence because I'm afraid it'll offend somebody. This people-pleasing fear of offending people rears its ugly head the most online. Yeah, yeah, I know we're supposed to watch what we say online, but there are some things I'd really like to write about here but I'm afraid I'll offend someone. Take, for example the fact that 3 of my good friends died between the years of 2001-2004. Two of the deaths were suicides. I feel like I don't have a right to write about it because I wasn't their sister or mother or whatever. Mr. 2001 would  have turned 32 on April 19. Of the three friends of mine who died, I was the closest to him. In the fall of 1999, when we both happened to be in the Chicago area, we were pretty much inseparable.The next death, in 2003, the first suicide, was the death of a close family friend who was like a cousin to me. I mean, I used to babysit for him when he was little, and he taught me how to play the theme song to The Godfather on the violin. Also, back in the day I used to smoke pot (now I only drink and smoke cigarettes) and one of the times I smoked up was after I'd bought an eighth from him and we were just chilling and kind of bonding a little over being high together, and then this other time a bunch of us crawled up this ant-infested hill to smoke up on the train tracks and later we were at a restaurant and he took off his shirt because he was sure there were ants crawling all over his shirt and a waiter came by and told him he had to put his shirt back on and Mr. 2003 yelled, "HELL, no! I'm not putting that thing back on!" And then he proceeded to throw his shirt on the floor and start stomping on it. It was hilarious. Ah, good times, good times.

So. Mr. 2004 killed himself in 2004. I was already pretty devastated over 2001 and 2003, but I was shocked to find I had the capacity to be even more devastated when Mr. 2004 killed himself within months of Mr. 2003. (I know these are lame-ass nicknames.) It was awful. I had terrible, gruesome, grisly nightmares. But the worst part was, I was all alone in my grief. Since Mr. 2001 and Mr. 2003 were family friends, I had my family and their families to grieve with. But I have never felt so alone in my life as when I was dealing with Mr. 2004's suicide, after all the friends who had come in from out of town for the wake and funeral had gone back to their respective states. And as everyone who has experienced the death of a loved one knows, it really sinks in after the funeral. It was so bad. I would call my friends up because I needed to talk, and then when they picked up I had no idea what to say. How were they supposed to know why I was calling? I would just be like, "Um, hey, what's up...?" instead of saying, "I really need to talk about Mr. 2004." And they had lives, which I did not at the time, because I was taking a year off from grad school as a result of emotional trauma about Mr. 2003's death. That fall, I got a job at Borders and I dated a guy for a little while, so things started to feel better. I dated two guys one right after the other right after Mr. 2004's death (one of them I'd started dating just before the death) but I was in no position to have a good relationship with anyone right then... I had a lot of "me work" to do, as they say. I did date someone that summer, and was bummed when that didn't work out, but when my relationship with the guy I dated while I was working at Borders didn't work out, it didn't affect me as much because I had my job to keep me busy.

I can't imagine how horrible it would be to lose a son, a brother, a grandson, or a guy you're in a healthy, long-term relationship or marriage with (like I am blessed to have found with T), especially to suicide. Although, to me, these guys were "just" friends, the loss of them hurts something fierce still and I know it's worse for their families. But that doesn't discount the fact that they were my dear friends and I did love them, and I have a right to my grief. I'm sick of being made to feel I should just sweep that under the rug because they were "just" friends.