I feel like I should write something before I go out tonight, but what I was planning to write about didn't happen.

Maybe I'll write about it not happening.

I didn't go to the cemetery today. I'd been kinda sorta planning to, but I ended up not going.

It's not like it's a big tradition of mine or anything. I haven't been since last October, when I went to a wedding across the street from their graves. I stopped by after the ceremony and sat and told them about all of the bullshit that was going on with me. I told them, even though I don't think I really knew what was going on yet.

I've written here several times, and anyone who knows me at all knows this already, but I'm not comfortable in crowds. Give me one person to talk to and I'm golden. Add a third person and I'll start to let myself fade into the background. Add any more people and I may as well not be there at all.

That cemetery is too crowded.

My parents' graves are, of course, right next to each other. Then, about 20 feet away, lie the graves of my maternal grandparents.

There all right there.

So I can't just go visit Mom, because Dad's there too. I can't talk to just one of them. I have to visit them both. Then, I have to go visit my grandmother. And by the time I'm ready to leave what was supposed to have been a cleansing experience has instead left me emotionally exhausted.

The thing is - there are things that I'd like to discuss privately with each of them, but there's no way. Forget the fact that they're all dead and they can't hear me anyway. I mean if one of them could hear me then they all could. I can't tell my dad about the latest hot sex I had because my mom's right there and I can't talk to Mom about how much I miss LaptopGirl because Dad would call me a pansy, and I certainly can't talk about any of that stuff with my grandmother listening in anyway.

It's all pretty silly, and I know it is. Those bodies in the ground, they stopped being the people I loved the moment they died. Whatever was left of them, if there was anything left at all, it didn't go into the ground. So why does this culture of mine place such significance on rest in peace and why do we visit graves and leave notes and flowers?

I guess it gives us someplace to go, when we miss them and we want to be near them. I guess a gravesite is as good a place as any. Until it gets too crowded.