I am sitting here thinking too many things.
Too many things.
I make things up for a living. Create worlds and the characters to people them.
I give them drama and pain and fear to overcome. Personal flaws and external forces. Natural disasters. Dead car batteries in the midst of gale-force winds. Babies born early and parents arriving late. Sibling rivalries. Allergies. Large feet. Hairy arms. Fear of dolls (I have that myself, anyway). A taste for blood. Deft fingers when flowers are involved. Perfect pitch.
The possibilities are endless.
The world is endless. It’s that way on purpose, created by a genius builder who wants us to explore. To embrace and enhance knowledge, to pass on what we learn through spoken word and movement and music and image.
I’m upset. The number of people in the world who are ending their lives prematurely is growing far too quickly. I’m at a loss right now. Struck more than a little dumb. I have work to do, deadlines to meet. I’m supposed to be going to a show tonight. Eating a bowl of noodles before they get cold.
But I’m sitting here. I’m sitting here and wondering why. Why?
I think about the reasons I might have to end my life. There have been days when I’ve considered it, I know. We probably all have. Did I wuss out in the end? Or did I simply choose a different option?
Life sucks sometimes. How else would we know when it doesn’t?
I want to live. I plan to live.
If I were to end my life, it would be one of those days when the loneliness is raw and close to surfacing, when sunshine is painful to the eyes and I wish I could hide from God.
I know those days will happen because they have already, more than once. Those days when things can only get better but don’t. When a strong, familiar arm about your shoulders would mean the world but never comes knocking because it doesn’t really exist.
The strange part is I think I’m supposed to be that lonely, at least some of the time. I’m supposed to be just me. Here I am, just—me. There are days when that is grand and days when it’s a punishment. But if my days weren’t like that, if life wasn’t that varied, what would I write about?
I could make stories up. I do. Borrow from history, from real life. But with what could I infuse them? There has to be passion, reaction, emotion. I have to think about how I would react, what I would do. Is the character me, or someone else? How does this person react? What does her instinct say? Her conscience? Are they the same?
If I go write a story right now about a girl who kills herself… Will that make it better? What is “it” exactly? You’re already gone, so who’s to know? Sorry, I don’t want to write that story. I can’t. I pushed myself to that place once on paper and it was dark and ugly. I’m not strong enough to go there now. Not the right kind of strong, anyway.
Life is too full. Too real. Too unexpected. Maybe I’m selfish, but I don’t want to give that up. I have plans. I’m determined to see them through.
I’m sorry if you didn’t feel the same. Couldn’t get past the loneliness, if that was even your Gethsemane. I can’t say; I don’t know you well enough to guess. I can only think what it would be for me.
If there was a right thing to say, I’m sorry I didn’t say it. I don’t know if this makes you feel better, but I will wonder for a long time if I could have said the right thing.
Melissa Leilani
Sometimes I wonder if I had said or done something different, would the outcome have changed? There is this balance that must be struck between speaking out and being gentle, between reaching for someone and knowing when to let things settle without tromping around, kicking up dust. I don’t know the right formula, the perfect equation, but I am learning… I think that is what life is all about. How to overcome our imperfections. I am sorry for those who suffer in the emotional dark- I have fumbled around looking for that switch, too. It is good to see some positivity even when things are, well, rough.
Thanks for always being caring and vulnerable, Mel. God bless you.
Second the “God bless you” (and I’m a Unitarian now…we’re allowed to believe in God.) I am saddened by the circumstances that have led you to write this, but it’s a wonderful piece of writing, and deserves to be widely seen.
As someone who has both been depressed and known depressed people (and one suicide), I’ve studied this a lot. The suicidal mind is also, biologically, an unfriendly place; William Styron described it as half of the brain being overloaded with the wrong chemicals, and the other half starved for the right one (seratonin). Some people can overcome that biology, but others cannot. It’s cold comfort indeed (and not of the “farm” variety), but the wrong combination of biology plays a deep role in this.
I have been trying to write some kind of response to this post but a coherent comment is just not coming. I just want to thank you for the post.
I agree with your speculation though – I think loneliness is usually what drives people to that point. I would add that I think most people who are driven to that point it is because of days and weeks and years of feeling that desperate loneliness.
Maybe there was nothing we could do this time. But it makes you think about what we can do in the future. I hope to one day be brave enough that, when that loneliness hits me, I wont collapse in on myself, but force myself to reach out to someone else, anyone else. It was a brave friend of mine, doing just that when she thought she couldn’t stand the dark anymore, that saved my life from that crushing abyss of alone.