Things Were Going Just Fine Until...

I don't really know what causes it, but from time to time I get into a mood of nostalgic semi-depression.  It can be set off by nearly anything that reminds me of the way things used to be.  It can be a picture, a name, a birthday...just about anything.  As a whole, it is an insanely complex concept.  I doubt I will ever understand it as I do a program.  I can only see the results (the feelings)--not the code.

Anyway, today's nostalgia was triggered by looking at Justin's Danielle pictures collection on Facebook.  I'd never taken the time to look at it before.  Perhaps I was just afraid of remembering The Event in more than a superficial, naming way as I normally do.  That's exactly what happened.  I began to mentally spiral through the whole thing again.  The whole, terrible Costa Rica thing.  I remember the people that we lost.  I remember the memories that made them special.  That is what makes me depressed.  It's something I try to avoid when possible.  Maybe that's the only reason it still haunts me so.

That June day of last year, I lost a best friend.  I'm guessing that is what makes the memories so lasting, so dark...so sad.  It disturbs me that I don't have the same problem with other people I've lost.  My grandma and grandpa on my mother's side passed away in 2000.  Haley Hilderbrand was killed in 2005 by a tiger.  I had just spent the entire year with her on the yearbook staff.  My point is that these were people I knew personally.  They are not people who make me feel this way, however.  Out of the four lost in Costa Rica, it is Carlson that really gets to me.  Perhaps it is because he was one of the few people who really "got" me.  He understood what I was about.  I am not simply a gun-loving computer geek.  Those things are hobbies--those are not my personality.

Maybe it is because I always feel so isolated.  The isolation didn't really begin until I graduated from LCHS.  Suddenly, I was thrust from a way of life where I was constantly in contact with hundreds of people, many of whom I had known since early in gradeschool, to an environment where you actually have to make an effort to even see a dozen people you know in the space of a week.  College at a university never really worked out for me.  If it wasn't for my roommate being an awesome guy, I'd probably have gone nutty from feeling so alone.  This is really a subject for another time.  The point is that perhaps the feeling of being depressed because of the loss of Carlson is related to being more isolated.  He was always one of those people worth talking to because they would actually respond to you over IM or phone--a true friend instead of just somebody I'd known.  I've had many "friends" but few have kept me in their circles after graduation.  It's not that I'm no longer welcome.  It's just that without the convenience of being around each other every day anyway (school), we don't communicate.  Hence, the friendship isn't special.  It's not a connection that either of us couldn't live without.

Carlson wasn't like that.  Kyle isn't like that.  I'm running on 50% here, folks.  I doubt that I'll ever manage to make this situation clear to the likes of an outsider no matter how much I write about it.  It would take too longer to ever effectively communicate.  There are others out there that have had the same situation.  If you are one, you know what I'm talking about even though I have failed to communicate it properly.  More detail is best saved for another time.