community
2005-08-18, 9:59 p.m.

it seems that we as a people want so badly to be a part of a community that we will often do things that we don't truly mean. i am thinking particularly about the 4 people that drowned in, as the news so stupidly called it, the 'cave of death.'

i have never really known anyone that has died, besides my grandparents. i was young then, around 12. there was a girl in my high school who died in a car crash. i was a sr. and she a sophomore. i had really only talked to her once or twice. i moreso had known of her. but when she died it seemed that people were coming from all over, crying and expressing their sadness over her. some were people who were very close to her, others not so. i am embarrassed to say that i went to the viewing and cried and cried. i say embarrassed since i did not know her very well. and embarassed because though the crying was real, i am not sure if i was crying for the right reason. whether i was crying to be seen, or the thought of losing a loved one, or because of the life that had been lost. i think it was a combination of all three.

today i would catch myself wanting to feel part of that group of people who were mourning in front of our neighbor's house. i wanted to be able to say that i knew those people, that we had talked and hung out. that if someone were to ask me i could say "oh yeah, i knew those people." and how selfish and thoughtless that is. but at the same time i wanted to say it to feel part of that community. i wanted to feel that closeness and realness that they were experiencing.

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