And i thank you...

I'm not going to write long because i am tired and i don't want to cry. Ryan is gone. I just wanted to write a little bit about it.

One of the weirdest sensations for me is how different this sadness is. I'm so used to being sad about my life, feeling sorry for myself, having this utterly depressed feeling coming from within me. Now (and thank God for the timing) those feelings seem to be under control. There's a whole different sadness now. I've cried so much, and i'm not trying to trivialize all those tears, because I don't otherwise understand the point of this blog. But what i'm feeling right now makes those tears seem silly. And not because i'm sadder now than i was before--i know i'm not. That sadness was something systemic that i never, ever want to experience again.

I think that what this must be is my first experience of real sadness outside of my own pain. I don't want to feel sorry for myself; for once, i don't want to take what's happened and use it as an excuse to think how bad things are for me. Those days, i think, are gone.

This sadness is just...Ryan's gone. It's more, I hope, a tribute to Ryan's meaning to me than a giving-in to my own emotional weaknesses. It's the feeling of feeling bad because of something that's happened outside of you that you can't control--not of something bad happening because of you. I can't help but think this is healthy, albeit devastating.

The fact remains that Ryan is gone. I'm thrown into shock by the thoughts that I took him for granted all this time and that he is GONE. forever. What will Vance and I do now? I feel like a part of me is dead inside. Is that normal? It's just a friendship...I feel like people are baffled by how bad we feel. But I guess those who know Ryan as well as we do aren't, really. It's just going to take time.

I'm so fucking sad. Like i said today, the best part of my life is changed. The best part of my life was that i lived with my two best friends in the best home life anyone could ever ask for. Now a third of that is gone. How will we go on? Fuck. Ahhhh.

I'm going to bed. And when i wake up, it will be the first day post-Ryan. Better than the day that Ryan left, sans getting-to-see-Ryan. Vance and i are here and will have blasts, and we have a cool new roommate moving in. We got to live with Ryan for two/four years, and man was that great. I am reminded, mercilessly, of how lucky i am to have the friends i have. I am always going to be as lucky as i am sad. I love you all so, so much.

Goodbye, Ryan Darrenkamp. Thank you for all you've done for me, and that's even too much for me to write about here. I love you to death, and you've made my little life easier, and far better. I owe you a million dollars. Millions and millions of dollars for that.