Suicide or Sunshine: The Eternal Debate

I laid there in a restless sleep, the kind that you force when your body is more than rested, but you’re still not ready to face the world. Every toss and turn a futile attempt at avoiding the sheer misery that was waking hours. Facing the insurmountable pain and disgust seemed impossible, and for what anyway?

What would I be saving? The thought of saving myself felt like saving a slow dying animal that would be better off with a merciful shot to the head. I roll my eyes internally and think of the empty shell of a person that had accepted her fate years ago. A soulless body that had settled for an existence of being a receptacle for excess, just another numb lifeless zombie with a fake smile and empty eyes. There was no worth here, there was nothing to “save”. Who was I to fight; what the fuck was the point?

It was another morning of hoping to sleep long enough to avoid the darkness until the last possible second. Funny how the brightest thing I have in my life in this moment, is a “normal” persons pitch black darkness. I can hear the birds and the wind chimes, serving as a cold reminder that the rest of the world was awake. The sun shining through the blinds lands in just enough spots to be irritating. Irritating like everyone else’s happiness. Irritating like all the people around me who never noticed how fucked up my life was. A constant irritating reminder that I was still alive.

Keeping my eyes forced shut, as if the tighter I closed them, the further away the world was, I desperately cling to that peaceful place between awake and asleep, the only place between my two nightmares. I consider my alternatives to facing the world today.  What would be the easiest way to end it? I need to make sure it isn’t messy of course. What would it feel like?

Picturing it all then, it all played out in my head. All the people who claimed to love me, would they even care? Would they really have the audacity to act surprised? My mother’s face then, I see it, the torment, the tears, her leaning into my friends with grief both blaming them, and herself. My anger softens, dulled by sweeping cold wave of sadness. I am so alone.

Would I regret it as my final breath slipped from my lips, or would there be only joy and relief? Maybe I’d panic with my eyes open wide in my last seconds, like someone seeing the sun for the first time, and realize everything I had given up. Would I know in that second what I had been put here on this earth to do, to be? Would all my suffering make sense, it’s purpose clear, in the last second, when it was too late and none of it mattered…?

I open my eyes, but not like someone in panic, like someone waking from a long confusing dream that seemed so real but yet was already starting to fade. I sit up in in bed and feel the cold of the air conflict with the warmth of my blankets. It is not a magic moment. I do not toss the blankets off and spring to actions. There was no gallant effort or proud declaration.

All there is, all there ever is, is the small quiet voice. The voice I’d heard as a child when the pain and confusion seemed too much. The voice I heard as a teenager when I felt worthless and alone. The voice I hear in all my most desperate hours, when my own voice was lost.

It simply whispers: This isn’t it, you’re not done, there is more for you out there.

Fuck you, I sneer at the voice, and full of contempt, step out of bed.