I am 30. I just turned thirty a couple of weeks ago, and I guess I can say that I never really imagined being 30. It just sound soooo... I dunno, old. LOL But now that I am, it's actually the same as say turning 26... I mean, I no longer care. Of course, I wish that at this point I would know what I am doing, like in my career and . I mean, I never really wanted to be rich or famous... I think what I wanted, you know, was the one thing having a mental and personality disorder prevents me to have-- peace of mind. A certainty if that makes sense. Like I am certain that words on the page would keep me afloat. Like I knowing I NEED to be a witer than anything else. I mean, does that make sense? I mean, an accountant needs to be an accountant, right? Maybe?

I mean my cousin WAS a chemical engineer and he made such a flip of a career change and for a couple of years he was a professional tennis player. WTF, right? Now he's an IT person, and this is of course after he graduated summa cumlaude in chemical engineering and being top of the professional board, then one day, he picked up a racket and said this, I'mma play tennis for a living.

I mean, it just blew my mind, like a nuclear bomb... well not really.

What do you want to do in life? That's kind of a basic question that has been thrown around since you can barely add 1,8379 + 1,739,739. Like basic ing addition just makes the cogs in your head say no, and people ask you what you want to do for a living... like you have this chance to make a wild stab at summation when you don't know most of the variables.

I mean, honestly, like honestly, before I went to university, I really didn't give a with mostly anything, you know, I just, I wanted to be a doctor because doctors were smart and . And I wanted to be smart and , then at 23, I said no, I want to write, that was the one thing I really knew what to do... and when I wrote, it felt like, you know, like freedom.

After another degree, I am here and 30 years after I was wailed to the world, I am alive.

I don't know what life is for to be honest. Like what is it really for? Is it to be happy? Then this . Then this existing business when you consume consumable resources and leave crap that destroys the planet is nothing more than self gratification like you know, a life long existential ion where all you want is just, you know, a moment that you feel content. Ah. .

At 30, I don't know what the I am doing. I just, do as whatever, you know, and hope things would fall in place, like the universe owes me for bringing me to life when I really didn't want to experience all this... all this pain... and you know, insanity... insanity.

I received this message from an old friend asking how I am. And I said OK, and put in some random details in my life, you know, to allow us some connection, and she replies, I really don't know how to tell you this... then it hit me, you know, like a ing ding, lightbulb, except it felt like thunder lancing through me. I knew. I knew. Someone died.

I just knew.

At 30, you don't expect your similar aged friends to be dying one by one. It's just too young, isn't it? Isn't 30 a little too young to die? I mean there's this thing. This expectation when you are 20 that somehow by 30s you'd have your together, and then you'd start living the right way, like you were supposed to... isn't that what people expect, I mean generally? But last December, my friend Eric died at age 27, then last Monday, my long time friend Nikita died at age 29. She just turned 29 too. She has a son, and was still studying to earn her Masteral.

So this news came to me at around 5ish and I was about to head to the meeting. Nikita died. Nikita died, and I didn't know what to do or how I felt... maybe a bit numb, and I keep wandering, like wandering around because for some reason I didn't know where I was or what I should do. I wanted to sit down but I was in a crowded side walk downtown. I mean, I have decorum. I have it. Somewhere right? Then I cry. I mean I don't even understand how I feel but I start to tear up and my chest is full of empty air... and I think a , I promised her, I promised her I'd come home and meet her son, and she would tell me all about, you know, life and . And I still don't know how I feel you know. Like Nikita and I, we were sort of close in university, but not all that close, but still pretty close, and I don't.. I mean, I don't know.

She died out of complications of pancreatitis, or so I hear, and when I was told this, I keep thinking what the is a pancreas? I mean, back then, way back, I wanted to be a doctor. And I really do know what I pancreas is, but I just, I can't figure it out. But I heard, you know, I heard she started vomitting and vommitting and all her organs bled, then she died.

She died.

You don't expect people to die in your life when your thirty. I mean, people should stick with you until you figure your out right? Like... I don't even know. I didn't want her to die.

She was a good kid, really funny and really ually curious it would make you uncomfortable if you knew what I knew about her. We partied a lot. We were drunk a lot. I did many things to her that I never had the guts to apologize for. I was kind of a bully to her, and in retrospect, I should have... you know, did better, because she always forgave me, or maybe she never took much offense even if I was such a lousy tempered drunk who said really bad things to her.

She was good to me.

I mean, I guess you are never meant to know what to say when people die, but I keep thinking you know, that I should know my before people leave me, so I can tell them who I am. I mean, I owe that to people who love me right? Like hey, kitz, I know I was a douchebag when we were 17, but now, I'm a writer... or something. Or something. Or something.

What the was life for anyway?

Maybe it's her, you know, because her life is over, maybe because, you know, she can no longer change her mind and be "whatever" she wants to be... she is a definite. An end of the equation. A mother. A student. A friend.

That's it. Your over.

Who are you? is over. What do you want to do for a living? No longer matters, because you're dead.

I never really spoke to her about her dreams.

I mean, she probably didn't know about my dreams, but she may have gleaned on it.

I mean, it doesn't matter. I want to be a writer who writes. I want to have a novel out before I die. That's all I want.

I mean, I always thought I'd die around 50. I mean, 20 years. I stilll have twenty years.

But nikita, and eric, they have zero. Zero.

I mean, is it bad, you know, to have plans. They're vague, but I had plans to go home and meet up with Nikita and meet her son, and ask stupid inappropriate questions over beers. And Eric, Eric said he would text me over summer when he would go off on the road and live somewhere, anywhere but here. And my head hurts, because I think, ah , I made plans. I mean, plans like I'd probably dring my beers light, and just a couple. Or that I would reply to Eric and ask him to send me pictures.

You know, basic life .

But they're dead.

Dead.

You never associate that word for anything except fiction, like walking dead, or dying heroes... and , but when your friends die, so young and you know they aren't really heroes, or zombies, or anything particularly of note, you think it's unfair because people would forget them, and you ask, why the is there a life if it doesn't matter anyway?

I mean, I love Eric and Nikita. I love them, I just wish they had a chance to be more you know. But they can't because they're dead.

AndI am hurt and I keep thinking, . I'm 30 and I really want to know what the I am doing, you know, being alive and . I want to know.

I don't even believe in god or , but I keep thinking if Eric and kitz where spirits if they could help that would be great, you know. Hahaha. I'm so ing selfish. But my friends dying so young makes me feel so ing lost, and life. Life itself, feels sort of meaningless.

I lie down on the sofa for the whole day yesterday. Crying. And ing wondering why I am crying. I am thirty. I should figure this out, somehow. Right?