1 The death of a friend

March 12th

Sometimes I wonder about life. I realize that as much as I hate to admit it, I know nothing at all. I'll give an example. When I was in 7th grade, my friend committed suicide. I knew her as a cheerful, kind, and fun girl. We were fairly close friends when I was in 6th grade, and in 7th grade, we kind of separated because she had to go to high school, and we lost contact over the summer. I remember our last conversation together, when she was finishing 8th grade. At my middle school, we have a graduation ceremony for all the 8th graders, which everyone in middle school watches. I didn't see her that day. Apparently she was in the hospital because she needed some kind of surgery. That was the last time I talked to her. In the middle of the next year, she committed suicide. I always wondered if the cheerful girl in my memories was a façade, a disguise of her loneliness, or if that year was simply a tough year for her. I always wondered: if we stayed in touch, could I have helped her with her problems? Would she still be alive today? Are any of my friends going through the exact same things today?

Now you see what I mean? I have all of these questions that I'll probably never get the answer to. I know nothing; why she died, how she died, could my interference have done anything, and whether or not something like this will ever happen to me again. Heck, do my middle school friends feel the same way that I do? Or did they forgot all about it in their daily struggle? Thinking like this makes me feel that the world is collapsing in on itself. I doubt any good can come of these thoughts.

I don't know what is real and what isn't. I don't know which person is wearing a mask, which person is lying to me, and which person is secretly protecting me. Sometimes I feel that I can't understand my mom and dad. Sometimes I can't even understand myself. I think about jumping off a building, and feel scared. Why do I have these thoughts? Why did I think about jumping off a building? What would become of that? Is my brain even my own? Or am I just silently spectating everything through the lens of a human being?

Sometimes I wonder about other people. What are they thinking, what are they feeling? How do they make a decision? How does my dad pick a stock? How does my mom choose what to research? How does my sister choose what to sing? How does an emotion work?