I found out last night that one of my oldest friends is dead. Suddenly, unexpectedly, and we are not sure why. Might have been her heart. Might be something else.

She is gone when she was finally getting much needed improvements in her life. The last picture she sent me is of her and her husband smiling and happily goofy. He found her dead on their couch Monday. 

My friend, who I have kept in contact with over all these years, is gone. I was maybe 11 or 12 when we first met, she was about a year and a half older. I don’t remember it, but she said I stood up for her in the face of bullies on the school bus. Maybe I don’t remember because I was bullied so hard myself, and it might have been that I found another one like me and simply sat next to her so we could be weirdo outcasts together. As I recall, she looked way tougher than me back then, and I was hoping to find a friend to have my back. 

Whatever happened that day on the bus, it left us friends for life. I moved away, she moved away, I moved closer, she moved away, and then I moved really really far away. It didn’t matter, we still had video chats and made each other laugh til we snorted. 
I miss her. I was wanting to ask her advice on how to make wire work jewellery, since she had been making and posting pictures of her work which was really amazing. I thought we’d have more time. She was only 46, just days away from 47.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this. I’m writing it out as I can’t speak half as clear as I can write. I could write for days about my friend and our shared lives. I can’t do that now.

Instead I’m going to be a bit selfish and wallow in my grief. I’ve also finally broken my veneer that is ‘hard ass’ and let the pressure and uncertainty of my husband’s continuing illness and the sheer fuckarow of the Irish health service. I do NOT want to talk about his issues until the fix what they can, but the messing around we have gotten means he has been in constant pain for over two months, and the opiates he is on barely work, and we still have another week to wait, IF they don’t cancel his surgery again. We can’t even begin to think about how hard it will be to break off of two months of heavy addictive painkillers. We need the source of pain to be fixed, then we can deal with that. 

So. I’ve kind of cracked. Again. I can deal with one major issue and look like I’m laughing it off. But add another and I fall apart. I’m still not over losing Spot, and why should I be? Death is a big bad one for me since my mother died; I have triggers for major depression when people or fur people die, that means I have to watch myself. I wish I was stronger mentally but sometimes the load gets too heavy.

I didn’t write this for replies, but because I had to to get it out of my head a little. Email me if you want to talk. I doubt I’ll be up to a big discussion here.