not how i expected my monday to go.

i started a post last night about how, in spite of the fact that i'm feeling incredibly overwhelmed by life these days, i'm also - somehow - feeling pretty optimistic about it. (it definitely didn't hurt that i'm coming off of two awesome weekends in a row with some wonderful people.) i reflected for a while on how blessed i am to have such fantastic folks in my life - people who have seen me at my best and seen me at my worst and loved me through it all. people who have refused to judge me or leave me when i've made it so fantastically easy. i waited until the friend that visited me this weekend let me know that he had safely arrived at his destination, by which time i was pretty tired, so i hit save and went off to dreamland, full of plans for this week to grab life by the proverbial horns, and set myself down to do some serious work and get things accomplished.

this morning got off to a great start - woke up early. did some reading for my classes. got caught up on emails from students. went to school. listened in class. taught my kiddos (and they actually seemed engaged!). solved some problems during office hours - was almost considering the horns officially grabbed.

i checked my phone. saw that i had a message from the friend who had just left yesterday. i assumed it was going to be about what an awesome time he was having on the second leg of his vacation.

i was wrong.

our dear, dear friend had passed away. this morning. out of the blue. at the ripe old age of 31. as i'm sure you can imagine, i didn't get the joke. i mean. these guys have a weird sense of humor, but this was a bit much, even for them. i called to tell my friend that i wasn't amused. when he answered the phone, he sounded almost normal enough for me to believe that he was going to explain the joke and why it was funny, and i would not laugh, and i would call him a nasty name and promise to punch him really hard the next time i saw him.

almost.

the whole conversation lasted less than ten minutes, during which i demanded twice that he tell me he was kidding.

he didn't.

my heart sank.

i've had eight hours to process. for the first three, i compulsively checked facebook (i guess this is what my generation does when we grieve), and there was nothing. somehow, i held onto hope that if no one was talking about it, maybe it didn't really happen; maybe there had been some insane misunderstanding. it's really unclear what happened, which i think is making this that much to accept. and then my incessant refreshing paid off in the worst sort of way. my sweet friend posted some beautiful, eloquent, heart-wrenching words. and just like that, it was out there in the universe and was officially true.

the following is a list of things i love about shawn.

he's funny. and quirky. and sarcastic (it's no wonder we hit it off when patrick introduced us). he's unbelievably stubborn. he's an incredible judge of character, although this drove me crazy when he judged the character of a guy i chose to date. it took me almost a year to realize it, but shawn was right from the beginning. the most aggravating part of that particular situation was that he thought it more important to tell me what he saw than let me continue on unwarned. (i did continue, because i match him in stubborn-ness.) when i finally got on the same page, you bet your boots he said "i told you so." but he only said it once, and then we didn't talk about it anymore. he does love being right, though, so i'm sure if i had ever admitted to him that he was right about anything even marginally more trivial, he'd never let me live it down. he lets me call him "shawnathan" because i think it's funny, even though i'm fairly certain he hates it. he's beautifully generous - with his resources, sure, but more importantly, with his time and his talents. i think patrick said it best today: if you're in shawn's inner circle, there's nothing he won't do for you.

i could continue, and in the coming weeks, i likely will. for now, i'm going to leave it at this: my friend is gone, and i'm very sad. i'm sad for me, and i'm sad for him, and i'm sad for everyone who loves him. my friend is gone, and my heart hurts, and i am very sad.

love you, shawnathan, and miss you terribly.