I’ve had a couple different, separate moments of absolute contentment in the past week, for reasons I have yet to understand. That I had one of them on the birthday of one of my old high school classmates–fuck it–that I had one of them on Carmen’s birthday feels simultaneously fitting and criminal.
To say that I miss Carmen all the time or outright would be to overstate the nature of our relationship. We went to church together in high school, we knew each other in that smiling passing way that people who see each other all the time by default know each other, and we more-or-less disappeared off of one another’s respective radars until ten years after we graduated.
And then I realize that pretty much describes the nature of my relationship with my family and it makes me understand why I feel the way I do.
I tried to get over to see her the year she died. I was headed from Portland to Iowa with my then-girlfriend, and we were set to pass through SLC, where Carmen was living at the time. She kinda brushed me off, which was okay–she made mention of having stuff to do, and it was around 4th of July weekend, so I didn’t think much of it. Months later, she hanged herself.
I’m past the stage of “damn, she must have been so sad,” but I still get that jolt every time I scroll past a picture on facebook that she commented on or, even worse, when facebook tells me it’s her birthday. Because the world is a sad, cruel place, and even the luckiest of us feel alone, or that life is meaningless. It’s standard operating procedure for first world assholes to realize after the fact that something should have been done, and that maybe we should have made more of an effort.
But, on the other hand, I believe (and always have) that the right to choose when one goes out is something we can’t begrudge anyone. I don’t care if I live or die. I choose to live…shit, I don’t even know or care why anymore, but I do, but I refuse to hold it against Carmen (or my other high school classmate that took her life in 2012) that she wanted to leave. I still miss her, though, and I still wish I could have been able to build on the connection we’d reestablished on a couple of cold nights in Iowa when we both were back for whatever fucking reason.
So maybe the warmth and comfort stems from knowing I knew Carmen, and knowing that she was a kind, funny, sweet young woman once, and that every moment with everyone you meet can be so fucking great.
Time’s up.
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