Melancholy Monday: How to Lose

Today has turned melancholy for me, despite the beautiful weather. I found myself in a funk after a spotty day of writing. While I could rationalize and chalk my black mood to an unproductive day, or allergies, I think that the real source is a slow realization I have been coming to the last few days. I am confronting my ineptitude to deal with death, loss, and evil. I can't believe I actually wrote the word evil, because I would rather believe that evil doesn't exist. But, it does and I have to learn to deal with it.

This weekend, my oldest friend asked me why I hadn't become a cynic after all of the messed up things I have seen go down. I responded, perhaps too quickly, that I wouldn't be who I was if I did finally succumb to cynicism. But, her question has been bugging me for two days. My Dad loves to say that everyone has to learn how to live life on the life's terms, and everytime he says that I think my rational mind is keeping me real. But, it's not. I am perpetually deluded by the belief that I actually have magic powers to fight evil, right all wrongs, and protect my friends from suffering.

I don't.

I am watching a lot of my friends deal with real, painful suffering right now. Antheia's mother is dying. My friend Emma's mother lies in a coma after an aneurysm. Another friend is trying to outpace the jaws of the black dog. I can't take their suffering away. I am not even sure that I am doing a good job hearing them.

So, I can't help but put my philosophizing mind to work and wonder aloud if the failure to accept that the world is full of decay, death, suffering, trauma and evil deprives us of a part of our humanity? Is my stubborn persistence in fighting these dark forces keeping me from listening to, attending to, and witnessing my friends live through loss?