Life is unbelievably short. You’re all going to be mad at me (well initially mad but then sad for me). The first time I write in a week and I’m writing about something really sad. So stop reading now if you don’t want to be bummed beyond all belief.

Today I found out that three months ago, my very first boyfriend, the first love of my life, the first boy I ever pictured walking down the isle with died while hiking in Nicaragua. He and a friend disappeared while hiking and their bodies were found about a month later. This happened 3 fucking months ago and I didn’t find out about it until today. How the fuck does that happen? I’ll tell you how it happens.

I’m chatting away with a friend from camp about the impending doom of a camp reunion. I think, “well the only person I’d really want to see is Jordan.” So the natural progress is to google him. What is Jordan up to these days? I know he graduated from Cornell with a theatre degree. He was always a pretty good actor. That’s how we came to be boyfriend and girlfriend. We sang a duet together, “I am Unworthy of Your Love” in a tribute to Sondheim. So anyway I google him and this is the first thing to show up. I don’t believe it. I send it to my best friend thinking “isn’t this weird, this boy has the same name as Jordan…poor kid is dead” but I don’t even begin to think that it might be MY Jordan. I go to the next article…this one is from the Cornell alumni association. “Jordan Ressler, class of ’03 found dead.” This can’t be. Over and over I read the hundreds of articles, with his parents names, hometown and details of this person’s life. It was him, my friend, Jordan is dead.

So I’m left with a sense of hopelessness. What do you do 3 months after the fact? How do you send your condolences to a grieving family that is in a much different grieving stage than you are? Do you send flowers? Phone calls? I haven’t seen Jordan since our freshman year of college. His brother and I remained friends for a few years but I’ve pretty much lost touch with him as well.

I guess I’m most confused because…how could I not know? How could no one have known about this? Even my friend Brianna went to school with him and she didn’t know. It was three fucking months ago. If I hadn’t been bored at work, I never would have found out. Every time I see someone new from camp, I ask “hey do you know what Jordan is up to?” And no one ever does. I know I can’t blame myself for this but I can’t help but think about all the times I wanted to track him down and didn’t. I was in California a year ago and I kept thinking, I should call Jordan. Now I’ll never see him again…life is short. Go call and old friend…give a friend who might need it a hug…and for G-d’s sake be careful!