Nasty, Brutish, and Short

So two things happened this weekend that were hard, although in both cases I found myself in the uncomfortable position of helpless spectator. One, the shelter for women in domestic violence situacions where I have just starting giving workshops on family relations and communication had a suicide in the facility. The details were bad (it was a young woman coming from a situation of extraordinary violence, a child who lived in the house found her, she had only been in the house a few days.) It was one of the those situations where there is nothing you can do but go to the service or give people hugs and try to stand in solidarity in the face of the reminder that people do horrible things to one another. The universe is a destructive and dangerous place. People who get lost and are damaged by something brutal beyond our imagining and must come to the conclusion that the pain of living is greater that the fear of dying.

Second, and this is somewhat my own doing, but on the same day, I found myself hopelessly involved in a nasty breakup of two friends here. One person not speaking to the other, one person being summarily thrown out, it was the really unpleasant time in which the relationship ends and the only way to manage the change is to be mean. I say its my own doing simply because sometimes when you are living in another country, you (OK, I) seek to develop the intimacy you lack in your family and friends by making yourself indispensable to those around you. Being a rock for one person, providing the focal point for a couple when there is a conversation that neither of them wants to have, you (OK, I) distract myself from my own demons. And then I realize that what I must avoid at all costs is to be alone in the same room with the two of them, if possible ever again. It´s terrible to have love come to an end, and in some ways even more unpleasant to watch.