Tough lessons

Well this blog is my outlet of emotions, good or bad and tonight it definitely is tough for me.

Most of you know about my friend Ross from California that I came out to visit for a spring break during college. Well, his parents emailed me to tell me that he took his life recently.

I've never had news hit me so hard and have never cried so much for a person that I've only seen a total of about 8 days face-to-face.

This is rough for me for so many reasons. When I first met him, we had an amazing connection and we both discussed about a year later that had we not lived on opposite sides of the US, we probably would have dated. We had so much in common and never ran out of things to talk about. One of my favorite memories is walking around Boston with him until 2 or 3 in the morning, getting lost and not really caring because the company was so great. Ross was one of those people that I had a really good online relationship with - you know the people that you rarely talk to in real life, but who you keep in touch with through AIM and have meaningful conversations with despite (or because of) a lack of a phone. It's always been easier for me to express myself in writing and I love the ability to change my mind about saying something once it's already been typed out. But I digress.
When I came out to Santa Barbara, I was psyched that I would be so near where he was going to school and was eager to find out if we had the same connection. When I visited him, I found a changed person. Apparently, he was struggling with a lot of things in life. I felt so helpless, especially since he seemed so intent on pushing me away because I reminded him of a time that he now regarded as a time when he wasn't really himself. We parted and he made it pretty clear that he just needed to work things out on his own - so I wrote him a letter saying that I didn't want to just end our friendship there and that I would be there if he ever needed to talk.
We weren't that close, and there's no use blaming myself, but I can't shake the feeling that there's something else I could have done.

Every time I say it out loud, it just hits me fresh in the face.

Well, I know many people don't read this, but for anyone that is reading it, sorry for the heavy stuff. It helps so much to just write it, to make it more real and to get some of my feelings out there.

A few memories that I will never forget:
The beanie/tobogan that he crocheted for me
Making pizza and having really really sticky dough
Going to my first drive-in movie
Getting lost in Boston

R.I.P Ross Crabill