all around me, people are dying. nobody i know well has died; but my neighbors friends are dying, my friends parents are dying, my friends grandparents are dying, my friends friends kids are committing suicide. i am not telling you this to bum you out. hear me out for a moment.

i am telling you this because in my short 44 years of life, i’ve never been confronted with proxy-death-suffering on such a massive scale, and though my grief isn’t acute, it is real, because we are all empathetic creatures.

we respond to our surroundings; we are meant to.

social media is designed algorithmically to reward extremity and outrage; not a general sense of sorrow and confusion.

lots of people are sick, sad and dying. the feeling is hard to describe.

i tell you this not to bum you out, but to make you feel less alone.

i love you.