Sometimes I feel so disconnected

Emotions are such a strange thing, to me at least. As a Black man, Capricorn, extrovert, son, educator, brother, friend, godparent, and everything else that I am, I look at literature, film, media, and the reality around me, and I feel different from much of what I see. Yesterday, a terrible tragedy befell an elementary school in Newtown, CN, and as I read about it at 8:30 PST. I almost cried- which is wierd. I never cry. When I say never, I mean almost never. I think I felt this so significantly because I was exhausted. (I feel many emotions more stongly when exhausted, I think it's common. My Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of people expressing that they were in tears. This even undoubtedly left me speechless. I have a god daughter who will be in kindergarten soon, I have friends with kids, and my life's work revolves around working with youth in educational settings. Just imagining this happening puts a slight fear in my heart. It could literally happen anywhere.

My question today, however, is about me. I can come close to tears when seeing a sad movie, or reading a text that elicits strong emotion. At the death of a friend or loved one, I've cried. But I also am aware that I am most likely to cry when I see people hurting around me. As an uber-rational individual (both an asset and a liability), I accept that sad things happen. My grandmother will be 80 in February. I know that she will pass away, hopefully later rather than sooner. My aunt passed several years ago after battling illness for quite sometime, and my mind was fully prepared. I didn't lose it until I saw the pain in my mother's eyes. I empathized with her losing a sibling, and one who she personally cared for until the day of her death at that. I cried for me too, because she was one of my favorite aunts and loved me like I was her son. I cried because there'd be no more Thanksgivings or Christmases at her house. I cried because her son would not be able to spend his later years with her when he was already so fragile and in a precarious position.