I had a long chat with one of my best friends tonight, and she was telling me the story of one of her friends, who is our age and hasn’t dated anyone past the first (and usually blind) date and has had no one she could call a “boyfriend” this whole time. As a Christian, she’s been surrounded by people her age who have been getting married year after year since we’ve graduated from college, and she’s gone to countless weddings and been a bridesmaid more times than she can probably remember by now. She says that she’s come to terms with the fact that she may be single the rest of her life.

The funny thing about hearing this is that while she has no idea what it is like to be in a relationship and think and discuss marriage, I can’t really remember much time in the last ten years when I wasn’t in a relationship. I’ve discussed marriage so many times, yet given the previous failed relationships, it never happened. In some ways, we are on opposite sides of the spectrum, yet I can completely relate to her feeling pressure about marriage when she’s surrounded by married people and babies. It doesn’t really matter whether you are in a relationship or not – the pressure is still there whether it’s overt or not.

I’ve either experienced or heard of quite a number of deaths this year. Ed left me. Two colleague’s parents passed away. Another colleague’s grandmother passed away. And because of the circumstances around Ed’s passing, I am just that more cognizant of suicides and everything suicide-related. Our lives have to go on, though, and we don’t have that much time to feel sorry for ourselves when death happens.

I asked my colleague how he and his family were doing in light of his mother’s passing. Although we aren’t close, it was good to hear him be open about how he felt and all the emotions that he’s been feeling over the last couple of weeks. As he was telling me about the moments leading up to her finally leaving their family, I could feel myself sensing my own inner pain at just hearing another person’s experience of losing someone special in their life. I’m not sure if he felt that I understood, but sadly, I understood exactly what he was talking about.

Volunteering gets a bad wrap when you are from an Asian immigrant family. When you volunteer, especially when you still live at home during your high school years (or during college summers), you will most likely get asked, “Why are you volunteering for [insert X organization] when you could be [insert some mundane household chore] at home for your parents?” They cannot understand for a second why on earth you would do unpaid labor for anyone outside of your family.

Volunteering is one of those things that helps everyone, though. It will usually help other people, whether it’s a child in need, a homeless person, someone with a lesser skill set than you, or just a lazy office worker who can dump some of their load on unpaid you. However, it also can help you, too, because it makes you feel like a) you are doing something with your life, and b) you are doing a good deed, which selfishly (ironically) usually feels pretty good. “It makes me feel good” is even a check box on the list of questions I looked at that asked, “Why are you volunteering?”

I thought about volunteering last year, particularly with either mentoring children or helping less fortunate adults, but with Ed dramatically leaving me (thanks, Ed), I figured 2013 wasn’t the best year to start it. 2014 is a new year, though, and this year, I actually do want to do something for others. I attended a Wellesley alum-hosted volunteer event tonight that gave me some ideas. Let’s see what I find.

Over five years after I have graduated from Wellesley, I finally decided to volunteer my time to interview local prospective students and write evaluations for the admissions committee. I figured that if I am not giving back by donating money (yet, anyway) that I should at least volunteer a bit of my time to helping my alma mater.

Tonight, I met with a prospective student here at a Starbucks just a few blocks away from my apartment. She was an enthusiastic, confident, bright-eyed high school senior who pretty much appeared to have had all the opportunities in the world available to her. We discussed her strengths, weaknesses, and interests, and how she envisioned college life to be. It was honestly a fun experience to see someone about ten years younger so excited about the future, about the unknown in front of her that she can’t yet see. It made me even more aware that I need to continue investing time and energy into people and activities that energize me… not exhaust me.

On the night of New Year’s Eve, I found myself tearing up because one of Chris’s friends asked me about how my family and I were doing in light of Ed’s passing. It was unexpected since I normally never think anyone will ask who isn’t that close to me. She said that she didn’t understand but admired how strong I was because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle it if the same thing happened to her brother. Her brother actually came to our gathering that night, and right away, I could tell he was sweet, fragile, sensitive, and kind-hearted, just the way Ed was. She said that she saw a lot of similarities between her brother and mine, and it broke her up to see the photo album I had posted on Facebook of my memories with Ed over the years, knowing that he was gone. She says it’s her worst fear that she could lose her brother in the same way.

Sadly, I know what that is like. That was my worst fear, too, for so many years. And then my worst fear became my reality.

It hurts terribly to think that this has happened to other people and will continue to happen. It hurts to know that hurt itself has to continue.