I’m somewhat at a loss today. Last evening upon arriving home I noticed cryptic messages about a classmate of mine. From what I gathered in the carefully chosen words and the messages to “call me, I can’t talk about it on facebook" she died suddenly – leaving friends and family stunned and amazingly saddened.
I finally reached out to another friend who was with me the last time I saw “R” and she informed me that she did indeed die suddenly – due to committing suicide. She followed it up by telling me that the cause was a relationship with a guy.
The last time I spoke to her was the weekend of our 20 year high school reunion. We stood outside a restaurant in the rain after lunch just chatting. She laughed the loudest, and talked the fastest. She was her usual wild and upbeat self, planning outings and happily being in the middle of the event.
I’ve always believed that the person laughing the loudest, and putting themselves in the middle of the action is most often the most depressed and lonely person in the room; and once again I am proven right. The majority of my shock is reserved for the fact that she actually did it, and that at our age I thought we were past this. I thought that after the age of 30, we were no longer children, and no longer prone to the mental mood swings that plagued us in our teen and twenties; leaving us to believe that we would die without them.
Yet here I sit on a Thursday morning, mourning a childhood friend who was so sad and depressed that she regularly hid it behind wide smiles, loud laughter, and did such a good job that nobody saw what was going on behind the funky style and the over exuberance. Yes, I am stunned, because today, we’re all once again emotional teenagers at heart.
