one step forward one step backward

Still sad about my friend, listening to Plainsong wasn't necessary helpful, but also a bit cathartic, but then I did this thing, that I always do, why oh why, the comparative thing, when you realise the guy you rejected as being conceited/smug/boring is now married to a doctor/has a child who is a doctor/is a doctor. It's all the worse given that my friend wanted to be a doctor and almost got there, and it's such a brutal industry, but, for some, it bankrolls holidays in Japan and sailing every Saturday. I also, still, feel regret at not making it to a funeral two years ago, at a time when my self esteem was south, for what now seems irrelevant, but in turn, that helps me realise that we can let circumstance form the measure of us, and make decisions that are stupid (me-skipping a funeral; my friend-suiciding), when it doesn't matter. No-one that matters, minds. And those that keep their distance, are only human. 

Work, aka placement, aka unpaid time that I will never get back (my son had his first basketball game, so cute, but I missed it and had to pay his babysitter $35/hour instead), was okay, my colleague didn't want to read an 11 page document, hoped that there was an AI bypass, there wasn't, I admitted in the hearing of the entire office that I am a speed reader, but, however, did not offer to speed read the 11 pages in hope of helping them, as they'd already admitted defeat. This colleague is a favourite with sporty little kids, who claim they prefer him to a colleague that is an ex-emo, the clients are always suprised to discover they have the equivalent level of experience, but the ex-emo was a mature ager, so comes across with a different level of gravitas and seems (to me, and others) the more experienced, because they are more cerebral. Both are good at their jobs, and kind and lovely in different ways. The ex-emo was complaining about his youth, and I asked for photos, but he said he burnt them all, due to the bad hair, acne, etc. 

The ex-emo revealed that my supervisor, who always wears sunglasses on his head like a headband, is also an ex-emo, and who were we all, age 17? Cool and funny and gee, I wish we could invent a time machine to meet each other, an idea I'd proposed once to Flynn, my friend's son, and discussed with Ricardo, where we found out, age 17, I was into check flannel shirts and The Cure, he was into cut off denim jackets, Metallica, and mullets. Scary.

I was hoping to use the day to Get Things Done, with a goal of Taking It Easier on Thursday, it's a novel idea, but if you can get your work done in work hours, then you can Have A Life, after work hours, anway, my student partner kept saying thank you for covering for them whilst they were on sick leave, and I nodded, gracious about how much groveling I had to do when I was on sick leave, to the point of volunteering to fail myself at midway evaluation for inadequate contributions; you hang in there long enough and the effort becomes visible, but in the meantime I wasted emotions, and I should have been turning up to school pick up and engaging with my friend. 

When I told my son, it was heart breaking-his face changed, tears emerged, he admitted to knots in his stomach, he said he couldn't imagine how it would feel for my friend's school age child, later he described himself feeling 'destroyed' and said "a man only dies, once he's forgotten' and later graffitied a message "rest easy X". I felt as though a bit of innocence was lost, and that innocence was a shard that I felt was cutting into my friend's son. I hadn't realised that males make up 3/4 of all suicides, most often precipitated by a relationship break up, though I did know that LBTIA+ and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are over represented. Then I reviewed resources shared about emotional understanding, and they were authored by a New Zealand based author, in the mould of aroha, and culturally and linguistically, that country has it over us, and I have much to learn, about the movement in words.