I had felt like a fraction of the person I once was for such a long time, going unnoticed, and now I wasn’t even a fraction. I was just gone. It seemed right at the time, the perfect solution to the problems that plagued me daily. Because no one would care, right? I wouldn’t be missed. So I did it.

The next morning, that was the first time in nine months I awoke without the reminder of the person who left, the very thought that kept me in bed crying every morning. Instead, I stood up from bed, hardly bothered. Yet, when I looked back, I was still lying there. It was a relief to not feel that pain for the first time in forever. But why was I lying there? Why wasn’t I moving?

I made my way to the kitchen, hoping to go on about my morning. What I found when I turned the corner seemed typical at first: my mother, head in her hands, staring at an object on the counter. That had to be her crossword puzzle book, I guessed. It was always the book. I expected her to look up, to tell me good morning as she reached down to take a sip from her coffee mug. But she didn’t. She was crying. She was staring at another piece of paper. Numbers from my college. She had to call and tell them what had happened. What a trivial thing.

I stood there, watching her cry. I wanted to reach out and hug her, to tell her not to stress. But I couldn’t, because I was gone.

When my dad came home, he had my grandpa with him. He was eerily quiet as he stepped in through the back door. His eyes were red—he had been crying, too. “I don’t understand it,” he said, and then his body started wracking with sobs. “She was doing ok.”

I wanted to scream, to tell him that I will be okay, that I just need help to get there. But I couldn’t, because I was gone.

My family came not too long after. My brothers kept crying. They should have known. I was too quiet whenever they saw me. I stopped smiling as much. They should have known. My niece and nephews kept asking where Aunt Maddie was, asking innocently why everyone was crying.

For weeks on end after that morning, my best friend sat in her car listening to music as loud as she could, wondering what would have happened had she noticed that something was off. We always used to sit in her car, and I’d rant about the Boy of the Year. But now her car was silent. Because I was gone.

The friend of mine that I had fought with just weeks earlier kicked herself for not noticing the obvious. But she was so busy with school, her boyfriend, her family, how could she have? And our friendship was basically over, anyway. How could she be expected to…

When my friends from school found out, they cried. But none of them would go into my room. No one wanted to look at my things, sitting just where I had left them before I left for the weekend. I had just been there, smiling and laughing with them and my sorority sisters, completely ok.

When he found out, his world didn’t shatter. But he sat on his bed, cross-legged, reading the letter I had written him for his birthday, again and again, trying to fit the sound of my voice to the words. That was all he could do. It was either that, focusing on something, or punching walls, demanding answers that he should have asked about long before now. It wasn’t his fault, and he knew it, but still, something nagged at him. All I had to do, he thought, was ask her if she was okay.

But all of this was okay, right? Because I was not miserable anymore. I didn’t wake up sad, feeling like I didn’t have a purpose.

My life did have a purpose. My friends loved me, my family loved me, and I mattered. But I allowed temporary pain to dictate my fate. We may feel as though pain is the be-all, end-all, but there is a whole world out there to explore, and an abundance of experiences to be had. Life is a blessing.

Please make sure that you’re around to see it.

Suicide Prevention Lifeline:

1-800-273-8255