It's been a long day. I should be back to normal as of tomorrow or the next day.

Things seem to have turned out as well as can be expected. I guess the easiest way to sum up is to tell you guys that a long-term member of my very small town community passed away unexpectedly this week. He wasn't someone I knew well personally, but he had close ties to my family, and my parents were in desperate need of moral support. Today was the funeral and it was one of the more difficult things I have ever done.

Due to a very unique set of circumstances, going to the funeral at all was a chancey thing to do, and not one that was entirely well received by the community. It's a very odd feeling to be in the middle of your friends and hometown and family and feel completely set-apart and isolated.

I guess I'm left with the thought that you can't ever really know people the way you think you do. That even the people you're closest to sometimes are more multilayered than you expect them to be, and that sometimes advice and approval and opinions don't matter at all. People's choices and actions are their own, and sometimes it's not even my call to be happy or sad about the way things turn out... it just is that way.

Sorry to be vague or emo or whatever. :P I've had a hard week, I'm glad this is finally over.