Justin Carney, a 2007 graduate of North Stafford High School died on the 27th in a car crash. I didn't go to North, but I had played tennis against him both my sophomore and junior years of high school.

It's a terrible thing to happen. A bright, smart, motivated, friendly, and focused young man getting killed far too early in his life. He had so much life to live yet now the tally of his life is how well he affected those around him.

What scares me is not the potential for me to die in a car crash (3 high school deaths in the past 2 weeks from my area). What does scare me is how I'm emotionally reacting to this situation. I feel sorrow for his family, a loss that he won't be around at the local courts anymore, and it is a very sad event when someone dies so young.

But, in all honesty, where most people break down and cry or vent or generally display how they feel crushed by such a loss, I haven't really felt a pull. There are times when truly deep emotions can be felt throughout your heart and body, not just in your mind. The sadness I feel for Justin somehow is just up in my head, it didn't hit me the way I expected it to.

This isn't the first time either. 7 students from my high school have died in the past four years, yet never has it really hit me hard the way one would expect it to.

I do have a totally bizarre level of emotional control, I can prevent myself from becoming emotionally attached to anything. At the same time I rarely show a great deal of emotion. It's just the way I am. At times it seems almost inhuman, I can just discard feelings and a level of humanity one expects from other people.

I'm not sure why I'm like this. Not sure how it happens to be. But whatever it is, a level of total emotional control can be unsettling sometimes. Sometimes I wish I would be the everyday person who cries when someone they knew died, yet somehow, through all the hellish and wonderful events of the past eighteen years of my life, the last time I actually cried was when I was about six years old.

Who knows what it all means. I hope Justin finds peace, but God forgive me I can't find a place in my heart for practically any powerful emotion other than those I myself truly want to relate to.