articulating gratitude

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This year I've had about as much on my plate as anyone with any brain reasonably ever should. I wish I were able to elaborate further, but it's been lots of death, including that of my grandfather, whose arithmetic study habits I seem to have inherited, the killing of a friend for little reason I can discern and most recently an elderly neighbor whom I had the eerie comfort of not knowing very well. Suffice it to say this hasn't really left me the wherewithal to maintain my friendships adequately and I'm not sure what made that apparent, but there's nothing I want more on the planet than to remedy this without coming off as intrusive or dishonest. Sometime in the middle of all this, I was trying to keep up with some valued friends and they began ignoring my communications entirely, at which point I decided it was time to disappear from most of my endangered social life and focus on learning, something I'm decidedly better at.

What I want to know is how to express to my friends, unilaterally, that they're probably why I'm still alive and that I've only become a coding hermit so I can eventually be of more help to them. It seems to me that I owe the great hooligan demographic of Boulder, Colorado some perspective before I'm running around like a beheaded chicken trying to remember who still understands me, changing the outcome by measuring it.

Seems you've had a really rough go as of late. Sorry about all that's transpired that is so out of your control. Personally, verbally expressing my gratitude to someone I care about is not easy. Or worse, my message can come across as too sentimentally soft. I am intense too and I have to realise others are comparatively not. You're right in that maintaining friendships is important - everyone needs friends and maybe especially for you now.

As an idea, maybe you could express how much their friendship means to you during this vulnerable time in another way. Small gestures can mean a lot, and do not require articulation. Could you invite your friend(s) over for a home cooked dinner? Or send them a simple 'Thinking of you' card, with a simple written message that you value them? Without going over the top, for some friends it's OK to give them flowers or a small gift, like a favourite book? Ask them if they want to go out for pizza. Or even a nice facebook message. The most valuable gift is time - ask them out to lunch or a movie this week.

I am not sure I understand your post. Are you trying to express gratitude to people who have stop replying to you?

I would write a note to them explaining everything that's happened and how much you appreciate their support.

I'm trying to restore reciprocity and balance where I suppose I left some loose ends, and pondering how to do so without doing anything out of character for me.

Unfortunately it seems that's about the extent of what I can do. Not that I can't cook, far from it actually, but people have been moving away and shifting focus to school. It's nothing I can keep track of, without forcing myself out of touch in the process, hence the isolation. Otherwise, I'm out of ideas for what to say when I finally see them again.