I woke up to some really sad news today. I was on the phone with one of my friends from Boston and he was telling me that another one of our friends was in the hospital, in very bad shape. As he was talking he was going in out of denial and so was I. He was even able to articulate that he was in denial.

I am still processing the conversation. I have no idea sometimes how to have my feelings, but the one thing I do know is that I want to have them. It has been my experience that if I go into denial those feeling manifest in some other way. Denial is healthy to some extent because it protects the body from taking in too much information too quickly.

When something tragic happens, I always think, why are we here? Life can be so random and oftentimes unfair, so how the hell do we get up everyday and keep going?

And then I always find my hope. I always say to myself, because that's why we are here: to grow spiritually, to be alive.

We are completely powerless over the circumstances outside of ourselves but we do have some control over how we react to them and how we process things. I do believe we can mourn anything, but we have to mourn it. We have to go right at it, feel it and then let it go. We then and only then can find peace with such an out-of-control world.

Because I ask you this: if you consider all the bad things that have happened to you in your life, why do you still get up everyday? Why do you still look for love? Why do you still care?

Because that's why we are here: not to make sense out of it all but to combat our denial. We are only here for as long as we are. We are here to be alive, until one day we are randomly not. We keep going and continue to hope that things get better because they always do…until we are dead, and who knows if that's better or worse?