Dealing with Loss and the Infamous One-Upper

            Everyone deals with the passing of a friend or family member at some point in his or her lives.  Some are harder or more devastating than others depending on how close your relationship, but either way, the bottom line is- it sucks.  Well most recently I was unfortunate enough to experience a loss of an older family member.  I didn’t think I would be so affected by it.  I mean not to be blunt, but she was old, it was time, it seemed almost better this way.

     Strange no matter how hard we try, we can’t control our emotions, our thoughts, or our feelings.  Time and space exist only in our minds, but our bodies operate on their own scale.  It’s weird how when someone passes away, guilt comes into the picture.  You wish you could have given more love, you think you should be grieving more, and then a small part of you thinks you’re being somewhat dramatic, as death happens to each and every person.  You cry when you’re not supposed to, and stay dry eyed when you feel like you shouldn’t be.  And why is it you start to miss other people in your life that are long gone?  Isn’t there a cut off date of when the grieving stops? 

I feel like grieving the loss of someone is the only problem people don’t try and one-up you on or judge you about.  It’s almost comical really how people always try to make out their lives to be “so much harder.”  For example if you say: I’ve been really depressed lately.  Boom, the one-upper goes on a rant about how their getting thinking about electro-shock therapy.  I have a sore throat, they have tonsillitis.  I only got 4 hours of sleep, they’ve been awake for 36 hours.  I had 4 wisdom teeth out and couldn’t eat for a week, the one-upper instantly rebuttals: I had 6 out and lost movement in my jaw. Where does this shit come from?  Like come on.  It gets to the point where I just want to say something ridiculous, like “I was once a starving child in Africa for a year.”  You can never beat starving children in Africa. I'm sorry you just can't.  It's an untouchable rebuttal.

But the passing of someone close to you is the one thing we all seem to connect upon and understand.  You don’t have to explain your feelings; it’s just a mutual understanding amongst humankind.  And somehow despite the tragedy, you’re given a much-needed sense of clarity, as if the veil has been lifted and suddenly you see how much love there is in your life.  The little things aren’t worth it and don’t even really seem like problems anymore.  So let the one-upper have his or her moment to be self-centered.  It weeds out the genuine from the non-genuine.  A person who actually cares about what you’re telling them won’t try to one-up you, they’ll just listen :)