Luciano

To all three of you that read my blog (so sad) I apologize for not keeping it updates this past week. Last week was a very rough week for me as I lost a friend to cancer. It's so horrible because he was only 36 and one of the happiest and well humored people I had ever met. What was even more tragic is that he never drank, smoke, or did drugs and exercised everyday. It's so insane that some of the healthiest people can get cancer and at such a young age.

This Saturday I had planned on going to his memorial which I had braced myself for. I thought, I'll stop by just for an hour pay my respects and go but instead I showed up to a full fledged funeral. The minute I opened the door to the little chapel, I knew it was going to be extremely rough. The funeral room was very formal and grim, like a smaller version of the chapel at Fisher and Son's a la Six Feet Under. There were huge red and gold curtains and dark uncomfortable chairs with red satin cushions. Hardest of all, his coffin was at the very front of the room surrounded by his pictures and huge sympathetic floral arrangements. I have never been to an actual funeral in my life. I have always gone to memorials or celebrations of life where people show pictures and sit around and reminisce so it was even harder to go a "real" funeral of a friend and someone who was so young.

After the funeral, I was in a very weird mood, somewhat reflective and saddened which made it very difficult to go the Daft Punk concert that we had planned to attend to for months. When we first arrived, I hated every moment of it. Here I was, coming from an experience of real and true emotions, and I was entering a room with 20,000 people, half of which were in some drug-educed false state of emotions. Walking through a sea of snooty hipsters and drugged out ravers I had so much contempt for everyone. All I could think was "these people spend so much of their life wasted pouring drugs into their bodies or trying to be cooler than everyone." I had contempt for them because they had body free of illness and so much life they didn't appreciate.

I finally knocked myself out of this angry and void state when we found our group of friends and I saw another friend of ours who is in his late twenties and currently battling cancer. Looking at him, knowing that he was in so much pain but living for every moment of the show, I realized that there was no use being angry at strangers and that I should enjoy this experience. The rest of the night I had a great time and danced with my friends but I couldn't help but think occasionally how none of us know exactly how much time we have in our weird little lives. I can only hope that I remember this when I am complaining about stupid things like work, money, etc so I can stop and appreciate everything I currently have.