Found Out Earlier Today That a Guy I Graduated With Was Killed On Motorcycle.

"Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies" (jordanwphillips)
04/03/2016 at 23:04 • Filed to: None

He is the first that our class has lost, which as morbid as it sounds, is pretty amazing for having graduated 4 years ago. Growing up somewhere where the aspirations are low, drop out rate is high, and drug related crimes are higher, I’d say we had a pretty lucky class. He was an awesome guy, and even though we weren’t close friends, I can say that every memory I’ve had with him are positive. He was hilarious, and the type of guy that liked to make people happy. 22 is too damn young, and it really makes you realize that life is fucking short. I honestly don’t know how to feel. He’s the first person I’ve personally known to pass like this. I know it has really hit his close friends hard. Stay safe, Opponauts.

DISCUSSION (22)

Sam > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/03/2016 at 23:14

Better way to go than my buddy from high school that got to 20, went out for a ride on his Harley, got home, pulled out his giant Minions coloring book, and shot himself in the head.

Yes, he had a giant Minions coloring book. Yes, he colored most of the stuff in. Yes, it was out when he killed himself.

Kinja'd!!!

Conspiracy? Probably not.

Jcarr > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/03/2016 at 23:19

That sucks man. My high school class has lost a handful in the 14 years since we graduated. Just buried a guy this past January that I was good friends with in Jr high/ high school. It's made me really try to keep in touch with people.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Sam
04/03/2016 at 23:20

When my Dad was in high school, him and one of his friends found another friend dead in a field from a self inflicted gun shot wound. I’m just glad I haven’t had to experience that.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Jcarr
04/03/2016 at 23:25

He’s one of the few that I regret not keeping up with. For the most part, I keep up with like the 5 people I meant to keep up with. It’s pretty amazing though that we all made it to graduation, we were the first in a long line that had not, and the two following us did not all make it. We were lucky I guess. We sure as shit didn’t try our best to survive.

Sam > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/03/2016 at 23:28

Luckily, I wasn’t one of the ones doing the finding. His roommate found him.

To be honest, I was, and still am, less sad and more just pissed that he didn’t give us any advancedwarning. Kinda ruined our plans for the whole week.

(Just so you know, being a sarcastic asshole about him is my way of coping. I’m not making light of suicide, because suicide is the most selfish and awful way to go)

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Sam
04/03/2016 at 23:34

I understand the sarcasm. Though you really need to understand suicide. As someone who has been there on more than one occasion, it comes when you feel that all hope is lost, nothing or no one cares enough about you for it to matter if you are gone, and that the situation will never change. It is a permanant solution for a temporary problem, but that doesn’t make it any less appealing when you hit rock bottom. When you are already fucked in the head, you don’t really care anymore about the consequences that it will have upon others, you just want to disappear. In fact, you feel like everything will be better with out you being there. It’s a fucked up way of thinking, but when you get there, you’re reasoning skills are already gone.

Sam > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/03/2016 at 23:38

That was the strangest thing. His life was going really well. He had a girlfriend, a great job, good friends. It was a really weird thing for him to do. Like, usually there’s at least some signs that something is amiss.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Sam
04/03/2016 at 23:48

Depression is a crazy thing. It’s like a switch. One day you are fine, then suddenly you feel like you are going to drown in emotions, and your day, week, month, year, and so on is ruined. It’s a funk that you don’t really snap out of, and you just have to find a fix, something to get your mind off of it. It doesn’t remove the problem, it just gets your mind off of it. No joke, that is why I could never get rid of my 4Runner. That thing has saved my life. It is my fix. It takes all the shit I can throw at it, and when I’m under, it’s a lot. By all accounts it should be dead in a scrapyard, but it just keeps on kicking.

Another thing about depression is that it’s easy to hide. I get anxious about any body finding out, so I got really good at covering it up. Honestly, I’m probably better at socializing while depressed than I am manic, stictly because I got good at hiding who I really am. It’s not that I would go out of my way to get into a situation where I had to interact, I was just good at being social to avoid questioning. And by all accounts, at this part of my life was going pretty well.

My point is, you never know what someone is going through in their head, and truthfully, even if there is something going on, they are probably going to bottle it up until it explodes.

E92M3 > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/03/2016 at 23:51

That’s awful. We had a guy die ON graduation night. His parents gave him a brand new Accord as his graduation gift. Just a couple hours later he lost control of it on a curvy road, and hit a tree killing himself. I bet his parents regret getting that car for him everyday.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > E92M3
04/03/2016 at 23:53

A man I went to church with had a similar story, a well off couple in town bought their son a new Corvette for his 16th birthday. He was dead within the month.

Sam > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 00:02

Unfortunately, he bottled it up in his head until it literally exploded. All over the place. I’m so sorry.

But jokes aside, depression would have been especially hard for him because he had the whole “tough guy from the South who rides a Harley” thing going on. I’m sure he thought we would think he was weak if he said anything to anyone.

The sad part is, I have very mild bipolar disorder, so I would’ve understood. It, along with depression (99.9% of it skipped, I still have that little bit in me I think), anxiety (skipped me), and addictions (I’m really luck I managed to skip this and be pretty much the opposite, I don’t get addicted to things easily) run in my family. It’s mild enough that it doesn’t really affect me that much, it’s mostly skewed towards high energy ups than depressions so I would’ve understood completely. Luckily, since it runs in my family, I talk to a head doctor about it. Though going to psychiatrists is very difficult for me because it’s kinda hard to be completely honest about myself to someone else in person. (Like, you now know more about my mental health than any of my friends)

jvirgs drives a Subaru > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 00:03

Sorry to hear that man. Unfortunately my HS class was not that lucky. I had been to 3 or 4 funerals by the time graduation rolled around. All for various causes.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Sam
04/04/2016 at 00:07

None of my friends know about my mental health issues, and my family doesn’t really know the extent of it. I also carry the cross of being a big bearded guy from the South that drives a lifted truck, so I understand where he was coming from. The things they would do if they found out that I’m completely okay with homosexuality, am pro-choice, can’t fucking stand Donald Trump, and think that Mexicans aren’t really a that big of a problem.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > jvirgs drives a Subaru
04/04/2016 at 00:09

Every class surrounding us had lost at least one person by graduation, but not us. It was pretty amazing for all of the stupid shit we did.

Sam > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 00:21

Honestly, I think it’s a waste of time to worry about what people will think of your views and stuff in your life. We get like, 80 or 90 years here if we’re lucky. Why care about the other people?

Also, since you brought up the Mexicans, I came up with the perfect solution (it’s not the perfect solution because there is no perfect solution) - charge an admission fee to the U.S.

It starts with building real, but humane barricades to prevent illegal border crossings. Then, if a person from Mexico wants to become a U.S. citizen, they just need to submit to a background check to make sure they aren’t a criminal(we’d have to work with Mexico on this one), pay a flat fee of between $5,000-$10,000 per person (something they can save towards, and it’d be nice income for the country, they could even have one person come here and work to raise money for the rest of the family to join them), and agree to learn to speak English (I don’t know how you’d enforce it as a rule, but we could provide classes). I dunno, that’s just what I think should be done.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > Sam
04/04/2016 at 00:23

Well, part of getting places in life has a lot to do with who you know. If they think you are the Antichrist, it’s not going to go well.

lone_liberal > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 00:28

I lived in a rural area so my graduating class was only 85 people but we lost a friend of mine the summer after graduation when he wrapped his GTO around a tree. Back then they were just cool old cars, not investments. To this day I think about that when I climb in to an old car. It keeps me from getting stupid.

Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies > lone_liberal
04/04/2016 at 00:30

I too come from a small class. We started at like 120, and then it dwindled down to like 95 at the end of the year due to drop outs.

lone_liberal > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 00:32

Yep, we started with something around 100 and ended up with 85 after drop outs.

That's gonna leave a mark! > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 07:29

Yes!

Funktheduck > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/04/2016 at 08:44

That sucks. We lost one or two my senior year, a friend of mine that was a year ahead my senior year, and a few since graduation. I had a relatively big class. It's weird when you're still relatively young and people die. Can put things in perspective.

Dru > Jordan and the Slowrunner, Boomer Intensifies
04/05/2016 at 15:42

That’s always a weird feeling. I was one year removed from high school when 4 people from my graduating class were killed in a wreck. I actually had a class at community college with one of the guys. Then a few months later another girl from my grad class was killed in a car wreck. It began to feel like final destination. Same MO, small class of around 180, from a rural area in NC.