What's On Your Mind?

I wonder sometimes, as I live, work and socialize with different people, what types of agonies lurk in the front of their minds as they carry on conversations with me.

As I laugh and joke about mundane things, mention newspaper articles or comment on life,..have my friends been mentally and emotionally sidetracked by horrible memories?

Could my friends be making a valiant attempt to respond to my conversation but deep inside their head, they are mulling an internal pain which would silence me if I knew of it?

That happened to me today.
I excused myself from the crowd so I would not make a scene.
Was I angry?
Nope.
Were they insensitive?
Not really,..they didn't know me "before" so don't fully understand the sharp trajectory change my life has taken.
It's not noticeable to the eye.
I have a deep wound which appears healed, but festers under the surface.

My friends would not know that their topic of discussion began a mental train of thought which could not be stopped.
I could not tell them that as they were talking an joking among themselves that I was replaying a nightmarish scene that played itself out in my front yard of the afternoon of March 18th, 2004.
There are some pains which are never forgotten.
It becomes part of us without us wanting it to be so.
The hurt defies description, yet,.. it's ordinary and normal.
We pray to be separated from it, but it's utterly impossible.
It ebbs and fades at times, but we feel it from a distance knowing it will return.
We all say that "Pain comes to us all", but sleeping, waking and living with it is so,......painful.

It's not crippling by any means, but it is lonely.
Very lonely.

Maybe it's the grief of losing someone who we don't think we can live without.
Maybe it's the loss of love through divorce or rejection.
Violence inflicted upon us by another.
Physical illness and suffering.
A prodigal child.
Addiction.

Whatever it is,..it's is never far from the mind.

I must remember that when I interact with people.
I must remember that about me.