This is a self-indulgent piece. Okay, most of my articles are, since they're written in that haphazard manner, strung loosely together with non sequiturs and bombastic language and a misunderstanding of simple journalistic principles. But I get the job done.
What I mean to say is this is not an article that gets a job done. For once, I have something I really, selfishly, want to tell you. It isn't about anything important, but that doesn't make it not important.
I'm here. Even if I'm just taking up a microscopic pinpoint of space on a cosmic timeline with no end or beginning, it doesn't matter. I'm still here.
Maybe this would sound more impressive if I told you that, every day, I find a new reason it'd be better to be dead. They aren't good reasons, usually; it's just depression whispering in my ear, and I think, "gee, the chemical imbalance in my brain sure has got a good point," and imagine a new way I could off myself if the occasion arose. But sometimes it's everyone's good friend existential dread that asks "why?" and there's really nothing to argue with there. If we're just microscopic pinpoints on an infinite cosmic timeline and I am a sad, uselessly plotted point anyway, what's the point? And then my depression and my dread slap each other on the back and go out for drinks while I'm crying in a corner.
But once those two are out of the room, things start to make a little more sense again. So what, there's no point? So what, I could be dead? I'm not. I'm not, you're not- there's no reason to it, it's just the fact of the matter.
Now, listen. Slow down and read this. For as long as I've had suicidal thoughts, I've never had the thought to compose a note. There are words that can explain situations, explain reasoning and regrets, but there are no possible words that can explain taking your own life. That's something beyond communication.
The only thing left to us is to communicate why we're still alive while we can still do it. Sometimes there's no reason to it- it's just the fact of the matter. And sometimes, after that, we start to find little reasons. Maybe they aren't "good" reasons, but they get the job done.
So I try to leave notes everywhere, notes that I'm alive, whenever I can muster it. Even these articles- sure they're not the best, but my editor thinks they are, so I put in an effort anyway- thinking that maybe if I can get someone to crack a smile or grow quietly thoughtful, I've put another coin in my "worthwhile existence" jar. I know, I know. It sounds like I'm nursing a tiny, little, baby-sized savior complex, or a great big ego, but really, I swear I'm not. I'm just trying to get by.
