Empty

Dear online, public diary,

today I feel empty. My cousin died last week and I still haven't gotten over the shock that he chose to leave his family and friends by committing suicide. I was close to that abyss once, but I chose life, family, friends, uncertainty, financial insecurity, unemployment, and this: a futile attempt at making a connection with random people on the internet. I wish I could have been there at the last moment of my cousin's life to bring him back from that horrible wasteland of despair. But I wasn't. I feel from the bottom of my being that I have to do something; there is a terrible urgency pushing me out to seek people, to seek change, to seek help. What helps, though? This helps--writing to nobody, posting it online for anybody to find. Baring my soul and telling my truths are the only things that give me the courage to take my psychotropic medications nightly and wake up in the morning still myself, still flawed, still aching from grief.

Today I feel blue. I've been surfing the internet in my spare time and I realized how insignificant I am and how my beliefs and values are not shared by the majority of people. I would like respect, progress, peace, joy, social integration, equality, fairness, and lots of money. I get none of these things. This makes me feel blue.

Today I must find one good thing to write about. I'll write about learning.
Being in summer school has saved me from a potentially lethal combination of intense mourning and isolation. I wake up, I shower, I go to class and I participate. It takes my mind off the horror of death, and the pain of life. Instead of weeping again I pick up a book and learn new words in a foreign language. I'm learning the Arabic alphabet right now at the University, and I have to say it brings me serenity to puzzle over each word. There is no greater joy in my life at the moment then trying to figure out what the letter "Baa" will look like in initial, medial, and final position in a word. I can practice my cursive for hours. In this learning mode, I am firing synapses, strengthening my concentration, progressing in life, and experimenting with another culture. I get little boosts of serotonin naturally after a 2 hour session of struggling to recall the alphabet. I lose myself in the language.  I study, I train, I memorize. I heal.