Loss in Translation

So for once I think I might write about something less jokey-pokey than usual. 

I know, I know, how mature of me to start it off like that. 

Anyway, I did an open mic tonight that was pretty soul-stealing. And no, I don't mean there were lots of cameras there snapping up the beautiful and hilarious among us. Rather no one was there except a few frown-towns (But who knows if they were even willing subjects in the thought experiment. Let us cast all blame aside!) and a whole bunch of antsy comics. 

A sure recipe for navel-hazing, which is like navel-gazing but meaner. All sets could be summarized as a combination of "Hello? *tap, tap* Is this thing...aw, forget it!" with a dash of "Why, atheism, why?!"

Top that off with some stranger taping my [horrific] set without my permission (and nobody else's), and I was feeling pretty grimly reflective afterwards. 

Then, a bit later, I found out a friend of mine is going through something incredibly hard. 

And it just made me stop and everything turned off. I kept going through the motions, but the wheels were spinning at a gentle whirring pace.

There is something about loss that is so personal, but unifying in that very same aspect. All you can do is acknowledge that it happens, and could happen again at any moment, and it feels like so very little, but it's all that can be done. 

Then we are supposed to dust ourselves off and somehow make the pieces of the puzzle make sense the next day or the next week or the next month or the next year. But they never look the same anymore after that. They don't fit together quite right anymore, but you learn to love them perhaps all the more because of it.

And you seek more solace in the same worn playing cards of memory than you thought possible, shuffling and reshuffling the deck, feeling the ragged corners of comfort in your hands.