Hardest year of my life

One of my best friends (we'll call him John) killed himself at the end of March. Totally out of the blue, no warnings, no history of depression, no note, no journal entries to explain why he did it: nobody has any clue, really, least of all me: he'd not mentioned anything about feeling down at our regular breakfasts together or when hanging out otherwise. He was pretty much the only person I was completely open with, and I thought he was pretty open with me too. He'd just gotten his dream job and was a couple weeks from finishing the onboarding process.

I had dropped out of grad school in the fall, was overseas for about a month, and getting that news was absolutely devastating: the last time I'd spoken to him was a few days prior, when I'd had to share a bed with a stranger due to poor sleeping arrangements on the part of people I'd trusted to organize that leg of the trip. I was pretty incensed and just needed to rant - it's something I regret to this day, that I couldn't have had our last conversation be on a brighter note.

Fast forward a couple months to May, and a dear friend of my father (and I hope, of me as well) passes away, along with my grandfather: who I had a flight to go and see the day after he passed. The memorials ended up being in successive weeks across May and June: my dad's friend, John's (who they'd put off until after his sister's uni graduation), and my grandfather's. I don't remember much of that month: I might be getting some of the intervals a bit off, but it was something like that.

I had a remote (contract) job worked out after I left school, but that dried up around April and I haven't been able to land another position, so I'm back in the part-time work I did before and during my undergrad. I've not dated in close to a decade, but I had started messaging a girl I met while traveling and then stopped after my grandfather's death - at that point I felt I was no longer comfortable being emotionally vulnerable to people (entirely my own fault when I put it like that, but I hope you'll understand.) Every member of my group of friends (who were all mutual friends with John) have moved away, either for grad school or work: I don't really have anyone I spend time with anymore.

This last weekend would have been his birthday. These past few weeks been really hard: seasonal depression is really common around here and the weather is changing dramatically. But despite not knowing this, folks have checking up on me a lot, especially my patrons at work: I've received more questions about what my plans are and where I'm going forward and if I'm doing okay in the past two weeks than at any point since... June or July, probably.

I really appreciate that. It's been really helpful to be able to take those questions even if the answer is "I don't know." It means a lot, even if I can't really tell them why: which is why I'm making this post.

I'm sorry that this whole post is so disjointed: I haven't been able to really think straight most of the year and my ability to write has been profoundly affected.