I don't listen to 30 Seconds to Mars, so I didn't get the reference, and I asked her about it. The answer: "It's a reference to their Up In The Air record with all the colors and stuff." O.k., got it ... although the answer doesn't matter so much as the flashback it gave me when I first saw the pic, which is what prompted me to write this blog post. I've only ever found myself participating in one balloon release, and it was 3+ years ago. I didn't even know they were a "thing" before that. Do they normally do these things at sad events, happy events, or both? I suppose it must be one of those all-purpose activities.
Three years ago, late January 2011 to be exact, my aunt (my mom's youngest sister, Amy) committed suicide. She was bipolar. Coincidentally, it's what prompted me to start this blog ... because I was having many thoughts swirling around in my head about it that I needed to get out of my head somehow. So instead of doing the healthy thing and saying these things to my family, I barfed them all out into the semi-anonymous ether of the interwebs. As a result, I still get hits on my blog regularly via people using the search term "pros and cons of suicide". It's extremely depressing and disconcerting. But, also out of my control, unfortunately. At the very least, I feel fairly certain that my writings on the matter are not going to provide these folks with an argument for the "pro" side.
