Monday, September 16, 2013

Walking for Aaron

I originally intended to post a review tonight, but I wanted to say some other things.

You may notice the time I'm posting this is a bit later than usual. I discussed a while ago that I needed to be better about sleep, and for the most part I have been successful. I had been getting to bed by 12:30 almost every night. Whether or not that made any difference, I was able to donate blood recently. The last week has been a little bit tougher.

Tonight I will get to sleep about an hour later. That doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're already talking about less than 6 hours of sleep, it's significant.

So, why the lack of sleep? I realized that it has been a year since I've seen my brother. Not long after that realization--earlier today, in fact--we were at an Out of the Darkness walk for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It was good to see just how many people showed up for this (there were certainly more than 1,000), but I was troubled that the walk didn't leave the park area, to actually bring it out of the darkness and make people notice it. While sometimes awareness is just about making people feel better and trying to get donations, in this instance, awareness is the most important goal.

So all this thinking about my brother has interfered with my sleep pattern. Again. I will get a handle on it again. And struggle again. And get it under control again. That will be the way of it for me.

I guess, the take-away is what you need.

One, sorry I'm not posting a review right now.

Two, suicide fucking happens; so keep that in the back of your mind when dealing with your loved ones, so maybe you can see the threat and do something to stop it.

Three, if you've ever thought about committing suicide, know that there are a lot of people that would affect. And yes, they do care.

2 comments:

  1. I think spreading that third point is especially important. Getting people to think about the effect their actions would have on their loved ones is probably one of the most effective ways to shift their focus and potentially stop them from taking their own lives.

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