Sometimes I think the Vulcans have it right.

Emotions are erratic and volatile things that make us irrational.

I just got an email from an old friend, who informed me that one of my ex girlfriends from high school was killed in a car wreck last weekend. She was 34 years old, and left a husband and three young kids behind.

I haven't seen or spoken to her in almost 18 years, and her existence hasn't crossed my mind in probably 15 or so years, and she ended up living over 1000 miles away from me, but for some reason reason I feel like I'm on the verge of crying my eyes out here. I know on one level that it's silly to feel this way over someone who you only dated for a few months nearly two decades ago, but I can't get over this feeling like someone just kicked me in the gut.

I haven't seen her since 1992, but suddenly I'm grieving her loss. How strange it that...

This is one of those cases where they don;t have it right. What makes us human, what gives us our humanity, is many times our emotional connection to the fellow humans around us. The friendships we form, and the emotional bonds we create. It is our ability to love, our ability to feel compassion, our ability to grieve that forms some of the fundamental foundations of who we are.

Sometimes I wish I could turn these emotions off too, or bottle them up, but that's never healthy. If you need to grieve, then by all means grieve. If you feel like crying, then have a good cry. Sometimes it can do wonders for you.

I'm very sorry to hear about her death. Hang in there :hug:

she was your friend. Go ahead and cry, it's pefectly normal and OK.

I am very sorry to hear this. My vides to her and her family and to you.

:hug:

Unless you're a sociopath, your reaction is totally normal, totally human, and admirable in its way.

It kind of fits with something that I was reading recently. Some psychologist was saying that it's dangerous for married people to interact with people they'd been in love with if the relationships didn't end badly. He claimed that strong emotional attachments get "burned in", and never fade even though they're forgotten. Reconnecting with them can easily reignite that attachment at whatever level it was previously at.

I wasn't really thinking about it, but in that context it makes sense. She wasn't my first relationship, but she was one of the first sustained physical relationships I ever had that I cared about. We only broke up because her family moved.

I guess those connections were still there. Three hours ago I'd have needed to think a minute to tell you her last name, so it's a strange thing to suddenly realize that there were still feelings for her buried deep down inside.

Of course, I'm also IMing with a friend right now. His theory is that I'm emotionally unprepared to face the reality of my own mortality, which leaves me incapable of normally dealing with the deaths of my peers and friends. He thinks her death shocked me because it reminds me that it could have been me. Truthfully, his theory makes sense too. 34 is way too young to die.