I’ve been avoiding writing this blog post, but I know it’s one I need to write. By now, everyone knows that Robin Williams passed away earlier this week. And by now, we all know that it was suicide and that he’d had some physical and mental problems as well as past addictions. I’ve read in articles online that his wife claims his sobriety was intact, so I’m going to assume that was true. I mean, it doesn’t really matter… I don’t need all the details.

I know some people differ on their thoughts about this. Suicide is never something that is easy for anyone to handle. It’s a rough topic. We are all only given one life here on this earth, and the thought of deciding to just opt out of that isn’t a comfortable thought for those of us that are still here. Why would someone want to give up everything? Is this world really that bad that you just want to stop existing? It’s a hard thing to comprehend.

There are people that are quick to point out that suicide is a choice, and that you shouldn’t feel sorry for someone who chose it, and that you shouldn’t celebrate them after they do it. I agree to an extent. Yes, suicide is always a choice. But it’s not always a rational choice. In fact, I’d say in most cases it’s anything but a rational choice. If someone was in their right mind, surely they would realize that this world, albeit painful at times, does have its redeeming qualities. But I think some people, particularly those that have never experienced severe depression or what it’s like to not be in a rational state of mind, just can’t seem to get past the fact that it’s still always a choice.

I’ve never been severely depressed. I’ve never been at the point where I seriously considered suicide. I have thought about it, but never quite to that extent. But I have been in dark places before. I know what it’s like to not be rational. I know what it’s like to feel out of control. I think that’s the best way to explain it. When you are in a place like that, you really are out of control. You aren’t seeing the big picture, and what you are doing is based on how you are seeing things. Obviously, I don’t know that much about Robin Williams. But from what I do know about him, he was a good person. He did a lot of good for people, both on-camera and off. He seemed like a very smart, well-adjusted person who was definitely very well-respected. But apparently, he also struggled with seeing life as the good thing that it is. I can only imagine how it looked to him, but it must have been very dark, judging by the decision he made.

Suicide is almost never a good choice. For any individual leading a relatively normal life, it never is. Even when you’re in a very dark place, it is always possible for it to get better. Do I believe it was a choice for him? Yes, it was. Do I think it was the right one? No, I don’t. Here’s what I do know, though. A choice like this, that amounts to the end of a life, does not discount the entire life. And Robin Williams had a pretty great one. He brought a lot of joy and laughter to a lot of people’s lives, and I think THAT is to be celebrated. No one is celebrating his choice to end his life. We are simply feeling sorry for the pain he went through that led him to this decision, and we are celebrating all the good that he brought to the world before he left it.

I have to say, usually celebrity deaths don’t have much impact on me. But this one has. I remember seeing so many movies he was in that I loved. I remember watching Mrs. Doubtfire with my dad, quite a few times. He loved that movie. And sadly, the way Robin Williams died brings back memories of some very personal, very dark times for me that I usually tend to repress. So this has been an emotional week, and I know I’m not alone in that. The world is saying goodbye to a very talented actor and comedian that seemingly dealt with some very dark times that in the end, led to his tragic demise. We mourn with his family and at the same time, celebrate all he brought to the world.

Goodbye, O Captain. You will be missed.

Okay, so since I’m on a roll and only have one day left to post about for WDS, I’m going to finish it up today. Here you go!

The last day of WDS. I don’t have as many pictures from this day, but it wasn’t really any less eventful than any of the others. I just stopped taking as many because the race was over, I guess. This was the last chance to earn any points, so I went to see the speakers in the morning and then ran around getting a few more points for the race. I ended up, sadly, coming in 4th place by 1 point! The girl in 3rd place was only 1 point ahead of me. Boo. I was pretty upset about this, but, that’s life, I guess. One cool thing did happen… I ran into Chris Guillebeau outside of WDS headquarters. That kind of made up for being so bummed about the race.

After the race, I was feeling a bit let down, so I didn’t really stay for much of the afternoon session. Instead, I decided to head over to Rogue Brewery. It ended up being a pretty cool place, and I’m glad I went there. I am looking forward to seeing it again with Ricky in a little over a week!

After hitting up Rogue, I hopped on the light rail to head to the airport. On the train, I happened to run into someone else coming from WDS. It happened to be Kathy from BlissHabits.com, who I had communicated with on Twitter before WDS but had not run into until then! We had a great conversation, and she shared some of her bots with me since I had missed the session about them. She was so nice.

While the weekend was great, unfortunately, the flight back was not! It was one of the roughest flights I’d ever been on, with a storm going on in Phoenix. Despite all the wind, we made a safe (but rough) landing late on Sunday night. I had survived WDS, had a great weekend, and I am definitely looking forward to heading back again next year!

I know, it’s been a while. But I’m determined to finish this series and tell you all about the rest of my WDS weekend. So, here we go!

Saturday morning I woke up early to head over to Voodoo Doughnuts to 1) see it and get a doughnut there because I’d heard plenty about it, and 2) to check another thing off my race list by ordering a “naughty” doughnut. I figured out what this meant after I got there and saw that the menu listed a “cock ‘n’ balls” doughnut. Yikes, what was that? I was soon to find out. I ordered it and ended up with this massive doughnut in the shape of… well, you get it. I was only able to eat part of it, though. I saved the rest, and actually ended up giving it away. Yes, I gave my balls away at WDS 2014! And yes, this doughnut was also filled with Bavarian cream…

After getting the doughnut, I headed back to WDS headquarters for the first sessions of the summit. The first speaker was one of my favorites, A.J. Jacobs. He’s written several books already, including The Know-It-All and A Year of Living Biblically. I haven’t read any of them yet, but I love the concept and ideas that he gets for them. His next project sounds very interesting too. He’s started using websites to do some genealogy and is trying to show people how we are actually all related somehow. Basically, we are all cousins. And he’s planning a big family reunion for next year. You can find out more about it here. But I loved what he had to say, and he was a very interesting speaker.

Right before the first break of the day between speakers, I got a message from a friend about one of the many Instagram photos I’d been posting. My friend Fia (who is also from Indiana, but now lives close to San Francisco) had realized I was in Portland… and she was too! She happened to be in town for an illustrators’ conference that was basically right across the street from WDS. She was nearing a break time as well, so we ended up meeting at a Starbucks just a couple blocks away. What a great coincidence! It was nice to catch up with her, since it’d been a few years since we’d had a chance to get together. Very cool.

After meeting up with Fia, I ended up deciding to skip the afternoon’s speakers and instead take part in the scavenger hunt that had been posted on the WDS website that would earn me 25 points in the race for completing. It took me a while, but I made it to the last scavenger hunt location, only to realize the last clue was gone! I waited around and finally someone from WDS showed up and fixed the issue. My 25 points was secure! My only regret about this is that I missed that afternoon’s speakers. While my experience doing the race this year was a lot of fun and challenging, the way it turned out was very frustrating for me, and I don’t think I’ll be doing it next year. I’m good at it, though, so I might try it again the next year after that. I mean, it did result in me doing some nice things for people, trying local tea, coffee, beer, cupcakes, and visiting the local library (which had some really cool steps I was very impressed with).

After finishing up the scavenger hunt, I met up with Gwyn! Gwyn is actually someone that I met through gRegor years and years ago. I only met her that one time, but we stayed with her when gRegor went to visit some friends in northern Indiana and I tagged along. It’s silly, but I remember her making us chili with rice, which I still make once in a while when I want an easy meal. Gwyn and I hooked back up recently when she found my blog and realized I was into craft beer. Being in Portland (a craft beer mecca), she is too. So we bonded over that and met up to check out some of her favorite craft beer spots in Portland. I’m hoping to hang out with her (and her new hubby!) a bit more when Ricky and I visit Portland again at the end of this month.

That evening, I’d made plans to attend another WDS meetup, this one for craft beer lovers! (Can you see a theme besides WDS in my visit to Portland?) We visited a few locations, including Deschutes and Lucky Labrador. What a fun night. I never knew I could have such a blast drinking beer with people I’d never even met. But we had a blast, that’s for sure, and then shared a cab ride back to our respective hotels. It was great hanging out with these people, and I hope to hook up with them again at WDS next year.

That’s it for this part. I was hoping to finish it out with Part 3 here, but I actually have more stories to tell from my last day! So stay tuned for Part 4, coming soon. This really was an epic weekend!