I hate feeling like a freak. More specifically, being the only "wrong" one in a room. Like the only one who isn't married, who doesn't have/want children and people will discuss nothing but, etc.

Samhain turned out to be one of those situations, and I was not thrilled.

Last year's Samhain, for comparison, had about six attendees, all of whom are relatively dry-eyed folk. I think I was the only one who'd had a major loss any time soon, but I'm a non-crier 99% of the time, and I didn't cry then. We wrote out things, burned them, ate some pomegranates, wrapped it up in an hour and went for snacks. All righty.

This year, we had something like fourteen people (only two of us from last year were still around) there, some of whom were from out of town. They wanted to light candles. Lots of candles. For hours. And oh, the crying. There was lots and lots and lots of crying and cuddling on the floor while people sobbed.

Meanwhile, I am sitting on a chair, completely dry-eyed, feeling empty. And not getting how there can be so much sobbing when in some cases, people are lighting candles for people/relatives they didn't even know/know well.

I gather the sobbing thing is really how Samhain is supposed to work. Cathartic grief and all that. Well, that's never been a concept I get (crying makes me feel scrambled and shittier, not "released", thanks), and given how everyone that dies that I knew took about a decade of drain-circling to do it, well, I don't feel like crying. Maybe if I ever lost someone I was superclose to suddenly and at a young age, but so far that hasn't happened.

So....awkward! For two hours!

It actually went on even longer than that, but my ride out left at 3:30 after the sobbing officially ended, and I made sure to split then. Admittedly, I had to wake up early and do a makeup shift at the CC the next morning, but even if I hadn't had that going on, I would have run for it.

Sigh.

Rather wish I had been at a NaNo kickoff instead, especially since due to my working at the CC all day, I didn't even START until 6:45 that night.

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