Where do you go for darkness when you've lit your shadows?

I have a song about being happy, and it is one of the saddest songs I have ever written.

My heart hurts right now.

I usually explain this song as me describing to my family that its okay to be happy, that it is natural and not avoiding reality: but today I remember the real meaning of that song.

My dear and delightful friend, Bruce McCormack, a poppa of Creighton Street, passed away today. I saw Bruce basically every day for 3 years. "You'll always have my heart" he would always say. He was proud to be a life long drinker, would do anything for 'his girls" (the residents of the apartment building he managed), and we loved each others company. He loved one lady his whole life, and she always told him "I am going to have to go one day Brucey" and one day she left. He was so happy, though. He didn't mind in the least being himself, smoking copious amounts, speaking his mind, singing his own dirty or silly words to Q104 songs while watching golf or CSI on mute and reveling his own bad habits and the miracle that he was somehow still alive and living in excess.

A friend and I found a beautiful bird dead in front of his home where the cops had broken in after his tenants saw him through the window on his kitchen floor.

I also have a friend who is mentally ill and doesn't really know it or know how to take care of themselves and it is exhausting and I want to do the right thing but I cannot always take care of them.

Plus, my heart is confused. I adore two men and no one all at once. I am learning that love never goes away and has its own version of memory. And I do not know what I want, or who I am now in the context of love.

And all of these things hurt right now.
I have more material for writing music than I would currently care to have.

But I know they need to happen. I know Bruce hurt for a long time and I will think of him fondly whenever I drink Keith's or listen to Q104 or pass his stoop and I am better for knowing him.

I know I need to get over keeping people I care about at arms length and being terrified to hurt people, and just remembered that I can be hurt too... and am figuring out many-a-thing about being an adult who is vulnerable to love.

I know I needed to be the person there for my friend, and it was supposed to be me who they came to and I have to learn self-limits and to practice better self care.

I can easily draw out the meanings and the common themes of discomfort and growth and getting to know myself better.

... but sometimes knowing that there is meaning to everything, that all things are meant and having an internal dialogue about the reasons why bad things are good, and having a high pain tolerance hurts me. Because I just want to feel sad.

I guess I am sad.
And yet realizing that makes me a lil' happy and steals from my stewing.

Where do you go for darkness when you've lit your shadows?

I will miss you Bruce.