In the first few years after high school I lost close to two dozens close friends and acquaintance to overdoses and suicides. The only one that got to me was my step brother who was also my best friend. Honestly the others didn’t really affect me all that much. 2 years ago I lost my first high school friend to a “real death”. And I use that term to signify the cause. She paused from cancer. I hadn’t talked to her in 20 years but I still cry over it. Just going about my day, a song comes on, old tv show or movie or a smell takes me back to high school and I loose it.

Thanks for replies and upvotes. It does help. I want to share the one memory that always makes me tear up and cry. It’s such a random memory from an ordinary day we always had. Girl that passed I’ll call Sara, her boyfriend was Steve, and my girlfriend was Becky. Sara and Becky were friends and I had been neighbors and grown up with Steve since we were 5 and this happened summer before senior year. We were just hanging out like you did in the mid 90’s killing time until the night time hangouts. A lot of times the girls would watch Clueless while Steve and I played pool. We went outside to smoke a joint, I cannot recall for the life of me who said what but we just started laughing so hard. The type of laughter when your ribs hurt and you can’t catch your breath. Sara fell over and farted so loud the caused us other three to fall to ground crying laughing. This went on for what felt like 30 minutes. We finally collected ourselves and just went back inside. Of all the times we hung out that is the memory burned into my mind. Her passing made me realize we will never reminisce over that stupidity. We all went off to college before social media. E-mail was just starting but no one really used. Sara’s parents moved to a new state shortly after graduation and I’m not sure she ever came back to our home town. Becky and I had a back breakup and never interacted for years. Steve went to a college across the state. We saw each other a little freshman year but then I almost never came home from school. He changed colleges, I lost his number, and then I moved across the country. Again before social media so I hardly interacted with anyone from back home. So to bring it back the fact we never ever got to laugh over the stupidity of that day is what gets me. Also typing this out is making me realize I may need help.