sigh and sigh again

The last few days have been a mess.

A friend of mine had his grandfather die in the hospital. I don't even know what more to say to that.

Sanquan came to my house in tears yesterday because of a fight he had with his younger brother.

I helped Phillip get rid of a lot of crap. Mind you, his family has been trying to get him to do this for years by badgering him about it. From what I'm about to show you, this was unsuccessful at best:

After a long time and a lot of soul-searching, he asked me a lot of questions that led him to change his own life. Namely, I spoke to his passions. I didn't badger him, but I guided him gently through the process and let him arrive at his own conclusions.

He brought his things over and the process began. I had him apply the "Hell Yeah!" rule to his belongings, item by item and after almost five hours, we narrowed all of those things down to this:

The funny thing is that his parents (mom and stepdad) seemed to fight his efforts almost tooth and nail. There's never anything more threatening to your homeostasis than a positive change that can't be controlled.

They argued with him about moving unnecessary junk and furniture out of his room. They argued with him because he donated things he owned and didn't want. They argued with him because he didn't explain every detail of his actions and when he finally tried to, they ignored him because they made their wants bigger than his well-being and mind you, he was only making changes to his room, not the house as a whole.

I feel badly for him. I feel badly because the few times he tries to do something positive, no one seems to really have his back. Well, I guess I'll be the first. "A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity."

We talked and I told him some things that... well, I'll leave that for later.

In other news, Noah called me last night. Some drunk driver hit his mom's car. During the accident, one of her major arteries got cut and she basically bled out. The drunk driver, on the other hand, might have a broken arm and that's it. His brother's reply to Noah's call to inform of this was "...and this matters to me why....?" followed by a later text of "...so how much money do I get?"

All the while, Noah is crying in a parking lot. His dad died about a month ago. So now, his dad is gone, his mom is gone, his brother is a douche, and he'll have to make funeral arrangements. I'm the only person he sees as family among all of his friends, so he called me last night and we talked for a while.

I can't even pretend to understand what he's going through or how he feels and I told him that. I told him all I could really do for him was listen, so I did. It seems like that was enough for now and we're okay with that. Hopefully, he'll be well. I told him to call if he needs me.

It's days like this week that cement certain things about friendships and make me glad I've been more minimal. You see, I kinda dropped off the grid. I haven't sent as many texts and instead I wait to respond to the ones I'm sent. I don't tweet as much. Haven't posted as much on FB. I've talked to people in person a bit more and a bit longer and life is mostly good.