After someone I know dies, it’s hard to fathom that life goes on for other people. I used to be angry about it, but that’s not what I feel anymore. It just feels so strange.

Like, how could they not know that someone I know has died? How can they be walking around, ordering coffee, or playing baseball, like everything’s normal? How can they be in such a different reality?

Clearly, I’ve been that weird “other” for other people in the world, when someone I don’t know has died, and I didn’t even know about it, and there I went, just casually grocery shopping or watching a movie, completely oblivious. It probably drove them mad. It’s felt that way to me occasionally in my life, so I understand.

I guess it means we are all in our own little worlds, each with its own set of rules and norms, and sometimes we have enough things in common that we’re on the same page, and both know the same person who died, and so we we feel the surrealness together.

An original post by Sarah Auerswald.