Gone too Soon

This past weekend, someone I used to train with committed suicide. I hadn't seen or talked to him for the past 6 years but a mutual friend found me on Facebook and gave me the news. It's hard to define how I feel right now. I have lost several friends and relatives but never by suicide.

Rick and I were never really friends but we did spend a lot of time together. We trained together in karate for 4 years but we were more acquaintances than anything else. I always found him arrogant and was intimidated by his bravado. He was one of those macho guys who seemed to take pleasure in causing other people pain and embarrassing them. I imagined he kissed his biceps every morning when he looked in the mirror.

Like a lot of people who study martial arts (myself included) I'm sure Rick was driven by something in his past. Physical or sexual abuse? Shyness? Fitness? Self Esteem? Trying to cope with anger/loss? Hyperactivity? These are all reasons that people I know have given for studying martial arts. The decision seems to always stem from a decision to take control of your life and cope with or escape from your past.

Rick was a very accomplished martial artist, achieving a black belt in three different styles and gaining some notoriety on the amatur mixed martial arts circuit. He married his high school sweetheart and had a good job. He seemed to have it all together but obviously he had demons that none of us knew about.

I am surprised by how much I am thinking about him and reminiscing about the time we spent together. I keep going to his wedding website and old karate pictures where he is smiling and happy. I analyze episodes from our past together for clues of his depression and honestly I can find several but that always happens in hind sight. I know I wouldn't have been someone that he confided in. I doubt he was secure enough to show that side to anyone. I wonder if years of putting on a front and acting like nothing bothered him was too much for him. I wish someone could have stopped this.

It's so strange that I want to reach out to his family. I'm sure he never mentioned me. I had never mentioned him to anyone outside of karate before this happened. I probably wouldn't have ever thought of him again if he were still alive. But there is something about losing someone in this way that makes you appreciate that person's life more. It erases all the negative thoughts that used to come to mind when I thought of him. All I can think about is Rick, a misunderstood 32 year old man who couldn't beat his demons and a brilliant life over way too soon.

Someone Notice me Please

So I had a bit of a breakdown the other day. I started crying for no reason while explaining to my husband why I was in such a crappy mood. After hours of talking through things with the prodding of my husband's best Dr. Phil impression we got to the heart of things: I am still very much stuck in a rut. It's been 5 years in Syracuse now and I still haven't found my niche. I don't have a core group of friends, I don't have much of a social life and my flexible work schedule leaves me with hours of screw around time.

I am vain, I know this. I have always been vain. I have lived by the attention that I have gotten (good or bad) in the past. I have been very active in local meetups for the past year hoping to meet new people. If you haven't tried it, Meetup.com is a great resource if you're new to a place and looking to get a life. There are tons of clubs for every interest that you can imagine. I had hoped that through these clubs I would form friendships with people and start doing things with them outside of the meetups but that hasn't happened. The once a month meetups have provided me with a tease of what a regular social life could be. I wear cute clothes, fix my hair, put on makeup and just carry myself different when I go to these events. On a daily basis it's hard for me to get motivated to do much of anything.

Why get dressed up for work when I'm not going to have to talk to another human being in person for more than 5 minutes? Who cares what my hair looks like or if I'm wearing flip flops and dirty jeans? The lack of personal grooming is definitely a reflection of how I feel on the inside. I just don't care and it's getting harder to get myself prepared for those events when I am going to interact with people because of how different it is from my daily routine. No one here cares that I've gained 35 pounds since I moved here (they probably haven't noticed) but when I see my family and friends once or twice a year it's the first thing that they bring up. So I feel like crap for the week that I see them but then when I get back home it's hard to maintain a regular workout schedule because no one here is going to notice.

My husband thinks that I need to take a certain personal pride in my appearance. I should workout and dress up because it makes me feel good and not because someone else might notice. He's absolutely right, I should, but that's not how I'm built. I am an attention whore and I've been starving for it since I moved here. The solutions: 1. Keep putting myself out there and hope that eventually friendships will form; 2. Do more social events with my husband that get us out of our hermit routine; 3. Join a group that meets more than once a month and take on a role in that group where people are dependent on me and I have to show up, like a job, or I will let people down.

Some ideas based on previous activities and interests:

• volunteer work with kids, animals, the environment or the less fortunate
• get certified to teach a fitness class and/or go back to martial arts
• join a music group
• start a second career that gives me the social interaction that I'm missing from my current job but that I can do on my own schedule

I spent the better part of my Sunday researching different activities and think I have a plan in place to get moving on two of these this summer. In the meantime, I'm going to have to self-motivate because its good for me and I can't continue to walk around feeling sorry for myself. Because I have to believe that even though its lasted for 5 years, this phase in my life is temporary.