It’s literally true that the older we get the more people we lose from our lives. Not from arguments or petty nonsense, but through death. The finally we can’t quite get around.

Recently, I’ve lost people who were friends. One died a few weeks ago and I didn’t even realize they had passed away. They weren’t active on social media and I hadn’t heard from them recently, but that was not unusual. Ironically, I had been texting them here and there to check in, and another friend of mine ran into this person recently in like a Wawa or something. And they were fine, just doing their thing.

And then there was a freak accident, and they were gone.

The second is going to be a much harder loss for me to bear. And I will talk about that when I am ready. Right now I’m not ready. Right now I am in this moment wondering if their subconscious knew something was wrong with them because they had been talking about others who had passed away.

But then there is this whole thing of having a milestone birthday, and in my case, it was recently 60. And then there are the people who you kind of just take for granted are always going to be in your life, and then one day they’re just not. And you don’t mean to take them for granted literally, and in reality you’re probably not, but you just always think they’re going to be there. Until they aren’t.

I remember my great aunts and my grandparents used to read the obituaries every day. That was how they knew who was still around. When you’re a kid that’s almost morbid because of course we’re all immortal and are going to live forever, right?

So now I wonder at 60 do I look through the paid death notices? And there are so few newspapers anymore and the cost of any kind of an obituary is absolutely and utterly ridiculous, so a lot of people don’t even publish death notices. And then, when they pass away, a lot of them, don’t want to be in cemeteries anymore. They want their ashes sprinkled.  so then there’s the conundrum of those were their last wishes, yet you have nowhere to pay your respects, except looking up at the sky and talking to them, perhaps. 

I do quietly mourn the people I’ve lost in my life. None of them ever pretended to be perfect, but they tried to be good people.

And then there are the other people who roam the earth. The ones you wonder how and why they’re still alive. I can think of a few in particular who literally live pickled. They have had so many opportunities and squandered most of them. Often they find themselves at the bottom of bottles or whatever, and it is such a waste. And a few of those people I know have even ended up in jail sometimes more than once for driving on DUI suspended licenses or having DUIs. Amusingly they think nobody has ever noticed these extended absences, or where they’ve been. And there are people like myself who tried to support these people once upon a time, but they don’t want to help themselves and you’re wrong and a bad person if you bring anything up.

Those are the people who are the human albatrosses around your neck who you sadly just have to sometimes let go of. And it doesn’t happen initially. You try to be a supportive friend, and then that turns into enabling. Eventually, a point is reached where we simply can’t watch it anymore.

I have so many friends who have worked so very hard to live sober lives. Life throws them curveballs and they respond with grace.. They don’t make excuses, they take things a day at a time and work their programs. These people are my heroes. They know what hard is and what to have a heart is. And you don’t hear them complaining, they just do what they know they need to do for themselves and the people who love them.

I think after you lose people from your world, through life’s lottery system of people leaving us for whatever reason, you look at the people who are left.

Do the people in your life matter? Are they in your life because they actually care about you and things you care about? If they aren’t in your life doing anything other than taking up space, it’s OK to jettison them. Life and relationships evolve over time.

Any kind of relationship is never going to be perfect. That only happens in Hallmark movies and even then they show you life that as a cautionary tale once in a while.

A friend of mine that’s no longer with us is someone I used to watch Hallmark Christmas movies with. Not literally together but we would watch them and then talk about them and I know that sounds pretty basic and almost mind numbing coming out of my mouth, but it was something we like doing together because we both loved Christmas as much as anything else.

And you don’t need to be afraid of your circle getting smaller as you age. Sometimes it has to.

And then there are occasions you think you are through your grieving process, but you are not. I will note, there’s never a precise time limit on grief. You may have lost someone even a few years ago, and you randomly see something, or you randomly think or hear something like a song that reminds you of that person and you’re a waterworks again. I try not to wear my grief and sadness like a cloak, because that accomplishes nothing positive, But I allow myself to grieve.

I don’t know sometimes however, as we age, how it’s hard not to be bitter at times when you experience loss. The only thing I think I have to hang onto is that they’re gone from a mortal plane, but they’re not necessarily gone and they live on in our hearts, and our minds and our memories. But damn, you just can’t call them up and say “hey.”

I think the best thing we can do to be true to these people is to be true to ourselves.

It’s OK to shed the tears. It’s OK to be sad. You don’t want to deny these feelings that you are experiencing, but then you have to channel that out of an abyss of sadness. For me often enough, it’s gardening. Gardening just connects you with the earth and it balances you. It’s not just about creating beauty and your space, it’s an extension of you and your emotions and your feelings. It’s an activity to get you out of your head.

Now I could just get myself out of my head enough to take my own advice, and go garden. Really dig in. But it has been so damn hot and I am not 25 anymore.

And as you’re going through this process of loss, you naturally get these feelings about we are all here, and they are all gone. And the way life is, is some people always have their time arrive before others and it’s easier to be objective about all of this when it’s not people that you cared about or even loved on some level.

But the people I have lost in my life I know would NOT want any of us to wallow in grief.

They would want us to live on. They would want us to live on and experience things for them. They would want us to see the joy that does exist in the world although it’s really hard some days and why is it hard? Well, it could be loss or it could just be the craziness that exists in the world around us.

I realize this has been a bit of a ramble of a post this morning. But it was just how I was feeling and I am truly fine and not just saying so. Writing has always been my catharsis. And even when I’m really not ready to write about something sometimes I just have to write about it a little bit.

Thanks for stopping by and stay cool.