The Blame has Been Placed

Dear Readers,

I was just reading some of my earliest blogs out loud to Shay. We were chuckling and having a gay ol' time when Shay pointed out that my writing has become rather serious. "You used to be so funny!" said Shay. I can't help but agree, I was pretty damn funny (please visit my blogs from 2010 if you don't know what I'm talking about). I feel that the death of my best friend has caused me to lose some of my sense of humor, and so I would like to make it official: I blame you, Loren.

Earlier this evening I was at dinner at the Red Feather with my sweet and close friend Jenny. Inevitably, the conversation moved to Loren. Loren this and Loren that and do you remember when Loren said blah blah blah. Loren, Loren, Lojo. I would be the biggest liar and fraud in the world if I said I don't think of him multiple times a day. I would be an even bigger liar (we're talking career politician sized liar) if i said I didn't shed a tear a least once a day because I miss him to my absolute core. Because I do. And if he could hear me, he would hear me say: "Please, please, come home. I miss you. I love you. My life, my family, is not the same without you."

So maybe I did lose some of my funny. But more than that, I lost one of my closest friends. A book I read recently said that Americans don't let themselves mourn correctly. That it's easier and more socially acceptable to sweep things under the rug, to shuffle the sad days into the deck of life, and pretend like they didn't happen. Get back to work! Go back to school! Keep yourself busy enough that you won't feel feelings anymore! But when you put it under a microscope you can't help but see, the sadness and helplessness you feel when you mourn cannot be solved by a hard days work or a day of busy distractions. As Tom Robbins said, "It is what it is. You are what you it. There are no mistakes."

With that sentiment in mind, I'm still funny. I can make people laugh. I can make people happy. I still make delightful treats and overly lavish my friends and family with an abundance of nurturing and concern. But I can miss my friend at the same time. Because the fact of the matter is, Loren was a part, a huge part, of my day to day life. And things just haven't been the same with him gone and it's better for me to acknowledge that then it is for me to pretend that his death was just another part of life. But one day, perhaps tomorrow or maybe a year from now, I'll be just as funny as I was when I started this blog a year and a half ago.

Sincerely,
h.