Stuck In The Middle Am I

I write this amidst 2 MSN conversations taking place with two people in very different parts of the world, each of them with very different stories to tell. On one hand, I had my friend Sandy who was catching me up with the news from Indonesia. On the other was Lucy-Sarah, a Briton on loan to us, situated out in BC.

Sandy and I hadn't caught up with each other in a few months and he was happy to tell me that he'd been accepted into an MBA program and was busy with work and study but was very excited about his successes. I was very happy to share the news with him while chatting about our friends that we'd made from our trip to China in 2001.

In the other chat window, L-S responded to my, "how was your night" question with something less than a cheery St. Patty's message. She said that she was feeling really shitty. I just assumed that she'd had too much to drink and was just feeling a touch off kilter so I asked her why that was. I expected a drunken-dramatic tale, but was rather floored when she replied, "I just had one of my friends hit by a car and then run over by a truck and die. I also have another friend who thinks that it's somehow her fault".

It all of a sudden became very easy to temper the great news Sandy had shared with the devastation that had just been brought upon L-S's life. Yet here I was, a split persona trying to focus my whole self to each person . I was literally torn and ever so mindful not to get my message boxes mixed up... That's been done before, but the circumstances would have made that a massive faux pas.

I felt joyed and useless at the same time. Worlds so far apart yet brought together in an instant over the net and then with a signed off connection, gone. Almost like they both never happened. Each not knowing what the other had just shared with me and me feeling quite bewildered. So instead of dwelling, I started to write a letter that was almost a decade in waiting.