I’ve been in a not so good place for a few weeks now.  I keep running through the list of possible reasons, and I’ve settled with the prognosis of “it is what it is”.

I have friends with Jerry Springer lives that I want to solve, or at the very least ease their discomfort.  Helping is not an option, I have to just walk with them and love them as we go along.

Sometimes it is as if I am walking through a world of grenades, and I have to be constantly aware of my position.  Everywhere I turn, there is unbearable crazy and if I am not careful I will fall into one of the pits.

Maybe others just shrug off their crazy family and friends.  I try to do that, really I do.  Some days it’s an obtainable option.  Pretending that I am somehow trapped in a book about the lives of others and it’s all some type of fiction.

One person has quit their job in order to pursue the life of BDSM, not worrying about the future or about their children and the effect it will have on them.  Another can’t stop shooting dope, has no interest in sobering up for her child.  A man that told me his sisters had sex with each other after drinking entirely too much alcohol.

The soccer mom that drinks and smokes pot before she picks up her kids from school.  A friend that  in order to bear the pain of losing their nine year marriage is looking for solace in the online sex world.  A person told me recently that if Obama had run for president a few years ago, he’d be dead by now (because of his skin color) and the person speaking wouldn’t be upset about it.

A person that blames their ex spouse for everything that’s ever been wrong in their life for the past forty years, debilitated and held prisoner by the hate and resentment.

Parents with over sexual children that usually indicates some type of sexual abuse, but unable to investigate further.  People who lie all of the time, so much that they’ve lost the truth in it somewhere along the way.

A man who must hide his sexual interests and live a double life, a man who’s been depressed and unhappy for years.

(Some of the details are changed to protect their identities.)

I am personally connected to living post secret postcards.

More often than I’d like, I wonder if I will eventually drown in this sea of crazy.  I wonder if the whole world is bonkers and I am the only one that sees how insane all of this is.

My friends trust that when they are speaking with me that I will listen to their deepest secrets, knowing they will not receive any judgment from me.  This is very important to me, to provide a safe place for my friends to unload their burdens.

I am not judging them as I write this, I love each and every one of them, and I accept them for who they are.

Sometimes, it just gets really heavy and I start seeing too much, hearing too much, and feeling too much.   I’m not complaining, I’m not unhappy with them, I’m just writing it out because things are not always as clear when they are stuck in my head.

I don’t leave things alone as much as I should.

I love too much.

I care too much.

I feel too much.

I worry too much.

I project too much.

My brain is a computer that cannot stop processing, processing, and processing over and over until I fall away with exhaustion and have to leave the world for a few days.

When I don’t answer the phone or return emails or go outside, it is because I am regrouping, I am resetting my controls, I am finding peace.  I’ll come back.

Eventually.