today brought me another step closer to saying goodbye to the physical portion of one of my oldest friends. i've known colin for almost 10 years and while we steadily grew apart during the last 5 years of that time, he is still one of the few friends i kept in touch with since my pre-richmond years. he's someone on the very short list of people that i knew from danville that didn't continue along the path of such unrelatable fuck-up-ness that our friendship fell apart.
we still grew apart though. at a glimpse, he made a lot of new friends and i kind of wound up being closer to his old ones. there have been moments during this past two years where i felt pangs of regret at the fact that we weren't very tight anymore. but it seemed too fake to try and force us to be close again. following different paths is a natural part of life and it doesn't mean that you love someone any less. i know a lot of people have struggled with these thoughts recently - the worries that they "should've, could've, would've" ... "if, if, if, if".
but throughout the course of colin's diagnosis and to this very day, i stand by the opinion that this is a selfish and unhealthy way to view the situation. i suppose you could say that i don't find it terribly beneficial to dwell on the past and how things might have been different had you done this, or done that. i don't think that anyone should feel sorry for themselves or like a bad friend because some of us grew apart from colin. and if anyone does, i hope they can reconstruct those feelings in a manner that allows them to learn from whatever mistakes they feel they've made and help them to avoid them in the future.
i've struggled with combating feelings of acceptance, desensitization, denial, sudden outbursts of tears, anger, regret - amongst other emotions - for the duration of colin's diagnosis. over the last month i've moved much closer to an acceptance of the probable fact that colin would leave us much sooner than any of us would've thought appropriate. i still turn into a huge pile of wet emotions pretty regularly when i think about it, but my heart still feels light and i believe i'm taking strides toward genuine acceptance of the situation.
never have i had anyone close to me die before. since i was a young child i've dreaded the deaths of my grandparents and parents - i've cried my eyes out at the mere thought that one day these things will happen and i've worried that i would completely break down and sink into an awful pit of despair. never could i ever have imagined that colin would be my first loved one to go: my first romantic love, my first real boyfriend, the boy i lost my virginity to, the one who taught me how to drive, the friend i spent the most time with during some of the most sensitive developmental stages of life, the relationship in which i learned from so many mistakes that will continue to shape healthier future relationships... dealing with death is all so new to me. i've never gone through this before. and sometimes i don't know how to act. sometimes i feel guilty for crying when i think i should be strong. sometimes i feel guilty for appearing strong when i wonder if i should be grieving more deeply. this latter thought is one that has been plaguing me a lot lately: worrying that i seem to be taking this too nonchalantly.
i didn't begin this post with any sort of end in mind, but i just wanted to document a snippet of what i have been feeling since july of 2009. i haven't spoken to many people about it and i usually just try to keep the conversation relatively simple when others ask me how i'm doing regarding the matter. i'd like to think i'm doing well and that i feel at peace about it. i think i'm jumping the gun a bit to go so far as to say that but i do believe i'm well on my way. i can tell you that my philosophy of how life and death function has greatly contributed to my ability to cope with everything. my strong belief in remaining positive about the seemingly shittiest of circumstances helps me to keep my head up and not wallow in the sadness that inevitably surrounds a death to some degree. i feel like all these personal philosophies and religious/spirtual views are what really guides how we're all handling colin's death - but these are not the types of conversations that most people are willing to readily delve into.. so some of still feel a little lost and alone in determining where we stand. they're hard topics to bring discuss and most people don't actually give a shit about hearing about them. but i can say that i feel grateful for having so much time to prepare for this first death. today christine touched upon how lucky she was to have had a year and a half to say goodbye to colin rather than having him taken away in an unpredictable accident of sorts. i can't agree more. i hope anyone who has been grieving over colin's death can keep this in mind and not dwell upon any regrets but rather how rare of an opportunity we've all had to slowly say our goodbyes. and at the very least, utilize this experience in a way that pushes us to show others how much they mean to us before it's too late.
