On a more serious note...

I apologize for the late-night blog. I'm just really having a hard time right now, so I need to let it alllll out.

My body has been completely numb today. I've put on a front, I've gone about my business and done my thing, but I'm feeling completely and inevitably numb. I may have no right to feel numb, but I do and I can't stop feeling that way.

A guy I grew up with died today.

All my mind can form right now, all my mind could form all day, were images of him. It's weird really. I just keep seeing us, both probably 4 or 5 years old, as his mom dropped us off to the swimming pool for swimming lessons. I remember hopping out of the back seat and getting ready to shut the door behind me. But he just kept crying. He didn't want to go to swimming lessons. Did he come with me? I really can't remember. All I can see is shutting the door and looking back at him through the window...at his tear-stained cheeks.

And then there was the time at my grandma's house when we were playing some obscure game of musical plastic chairs. A bunch of us kids were hopping chair-to-chair for some damned reason. And he broke the red one. Or was it the orange one? I just remember he and I were the biggest kids in the group, but he just happened to break his chair. We all laughed at him. I remember feeling terrible for laughing, because it could have easily been me, but I just kept laughing and laughing...while he cried.

My mind flashes to sophomore year and how badly I wanted to go to prom for some stupid reason. He asked me. I found the perfect dress and I was so excited to go. He picked me up at my house in his pickup. I really just remember a couple of things. How his parents made such a big deal out of prom pictures. It was his junior prom after all - the first time he could go to prom. But, quite literally, all I can remember the most is getting in his pickup and looking at his dashboard and seeing this surfer guy roll across his CD player. He had some animated CD player like I had never seen before....should he? Could he? Is it okay that he has these flashing lights on his dash? I had no idea. I knew he had episodes before, but everything always turned out okay...

Today he had one of those episodes. Sometime this week, his parents will have to put him in the ground. No weddings, no babies, nothing... just prom pictures.

Numb, numb, numb.