Yesterday, or was it the day before?, I got my first taste of hate mail, from a delightful troll named “Joenunya.” Joe kindly pointed out on my post about being snowed in that I was a) high maintenance, b) lazy and therefore should be deserted by my husband and c) probably fat based on the way I “sound.”

Joe, I gotta tell you, you’re right on the nose.

I spend a lot of time wrapped up in my own world, spiraled down inside my head, thinking about what other people secretly think of me while they’re really smiling and nodding and gently patting me on the arm. I think about what is said about me behind my back, or the impression I really have of myself if I were honest and true and I stopped to listen to the voice in my head. And the truth is, no one ever says what they think to my face. Or to your face.

So Joe, for telling me – albeit behind the veil of the interwebs and all their security – straight to my face exactly what you think of me, THANK YOU. I think those exact same things every day of my life but never have the audacity to say them out loud to myself.

Now. Before I get all soap-boxy and holier than thou, I would like to say that I also think Joe’s an asshole for trolling around and leaving anonymous comments – if you’re going to say something shitty, be legit. But in the grand scheme of things, Joe’s not all that important even though he was a milestone in my bloggery. (I’m a big deal now! Big deals get haters, right?)

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One of my co-workers committed suicide this week. It was a tragic, horrific situation brought on by the death of her husband last summer, and all of us that knew her felt that we could have prevented this in some way. She was the housekeeper for our department and we saw her each day, talking to her for a while if we felt up to making an attempt at lifting
her spirits or selfishly avoiding her if we didn’t. Her despair was something I personally have never seen before. It consumed her life, the life of her child and the lives of her friends and family. It caused her to suffer in ways most of us can’t imagine and, in my opinion, it caused a depression so deep I’m not sure professional help could have reversed it. But each day that we saw her and spoke to her, we all heard her references to death or suicide, and so Monday when we heard the news, we were stunned but not shocked. It was a terrible ending to an already awful story, and now there is a young boy who is without the two people most important to him in the world. Suicide is never the answer, but arguing with a mind that is already made up is futile.

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I wrote this part of the post earlier before my computer died. Right here was where I asked you and myself questions about death, blogging, politics, religion and the other shit that’s taboo at the dinner table. I don’t have the energy to rewrite it, but I still want those questions out there. Maybe this weekend.