My parents leave for their next leg of their trip and I am not going with them. Today when I checked in with Little Kate, she told me she was sad, and that it was happy sadness. I stopped myself from thinking more about my parents’ departure to prevent myself from wailing like a separation anxiety laden baby.

The other type of sadness I felt today hurt as well. I signed into FaceBook for the first time in ages, to pass the time, and was met with three posts with significant impacts.

The first post was from a guy I used to work with. He was the Graduate to my Undergraduate. Even though we were the same age, I started uni later than him. I learned so much from him. He was strong and stern and helped me understand myself more so that I could better at my job. I think I liked that he was a straight shooter. His face would flush bright red in some situations, and oddly, even though I have never done that before, my face would also flush red too.

He posted a GoFundMe. He never posts. It was for support for his twin brother’s family. Their sweet son had died. He was only 22 months. He choked at daycare.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-the-spletters

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14657529/Boy-dies-childcare-donates-heart.html

What struck me most about the article, and the parents’ comments was their ability to forgive the situation. They don’t blame anyone. They express sincere thanks and gratitude to those involved in trying to save their son’s life. It left me holding a very mixed bag of emotions.

Yeah, I am still processing that one. I’ll have to come back to that one another time. I just can’t right now.

My mind couldn’t help to go to me wishing I was never born, or if I could just die in my sleep, or disappear without a trace. I couldn’t help but think how devastated my parents would be if that did happen to me. How they would never recover, truly. I don’t think loss on that scale is ever able to be mended.

Then, I see I have been added to a memorial page. A guy from our community has passed away. He was my ketamine dealer for a short time. For a short time until he gave me the contact details for someone else as he couldn’t restrain himself from keeping stock and not sampling the product. I remember visiting him a few times and each time he was in excruciating pain from the build up of ketamine in his bladder.

I couldn’t help but think, many times when he was alive, I was going to end up like that. The rate I was consuming ketamine was too quick for my own good.

I feel bad for reducing someone to their drug usage, but this was my limited experience with him. He talked about it openly. He talked of his dreams to get sober, to quit for good. Every few months he would relapse, unable to get free of Ketamine’s grasps at his being.

I also don’t know how he died yet. The awkward question everyone wants to know. Time will tell.

That also could have been me. Though when I thought of myself dying in this way, I didn’t think of anyone else. I thought of how sad I would be to leave my life unfinished. To have caved to a drug that helped me until it didn’t.

He was such a bright spark, incredibly intelligent. His intelligence was probably a hindrance, like mine is to me. Too smart for your own good. Trust me, it is a thing. He brought so much joy to everyone he encountered. He will leave a big hole in many hearts.

The third thing was about a girl I went to uni with who was celebrating 12 years of being alive still. At uni, the day after a night out, she went to pick her car up at about 9am. Somehow the car caught fire and she was severely burned. She survived, after months of rehab.

I didn’t know her well. I wouldn’t call her a friend. But I didn’t go and see her in the hospital. My stomach turns in knots now thinking about it. If you think I am insecure now, you should have seen how I was in uni. There is a lot of sadness there for me to feel for that poor girl. I didn’t have the courage or the will power or any sort of inner strength to go and visit this girl in hospital. This has made its way to my Taking Stock of the People I Have Harmed list.

I thought about doing it with a friend, but that friend chose alcohol over me. So I kinda gave up on that idea. This idea comes from the AA programs I have loosely heard about. Make it right with yourself. Make it right with others, if they will allow you to. I really want to do this. To set myself free. Process and feel the feelings.

I get to live another day. I still have control over the choices I make on how to spend my days.

Checking FaceBook this morning clouded my already muddy brain. It greeted uninvited heartache into my wheelhouse, when I haven’t even addressed my own suffering. I am in a very selfish part of my life. No, correction: I am in a very introspective part of my life.

I need less. I need quiet. I need to be with myself. I need to cry. Cry for myself and cry for those hurting.

Happy sadness came to visit me today in many unexpected forms. Happy sadness is new to me. Happy sadness feels like mine.

What an impactful 5 minute scroll on FaceBook.

Lots of love,

Kate