[Miscellany]

I didn't bother checking the mailbox on the way in to see if the postman had been.  I figure if he had, it was years ago and those bills are probably as forgotten as this blog.  It's possibly quite safe to venture in, and sit amongst the dust bunnies and pontificate, or just reflect.  For a while I tried keeping a paper journal.  I made a deal that every day I would write a page of something.  An A5 page.  As small as the task was, it was still a fruitless exercise.  After a while that stopped and while lots of thoughts kept happening, writing them down was a whole other story. I ebb and flow through my commitment to these kinds of things.  All things, let's face it.  I also tried for a while to write using Facebook.  My commitment there is better, but the reflection of true self is probably more puddle deep than ocean deep.  And you, my little trusty forgotten old friend, have been waiting patiently, as you always do.  Password almost forgotten.  Readership doubtful.  And yet, so inviting.

In any case, I was moved to write.  I'm not sure what form this will take but I suppose it won't be glass half full, if I had to venture a guess.  That's the mood, anyway.

Speaking of Facebook, I was reading an article this evening that popped up out of the blue into my so called news feed.  Mr. Man explains how one phone call saved him from committing suicide.  Well, that peaked my attention as I love a good happy ending.  I don't believe in them for me, of course, but boy do I wish like buggery that it happens for everyone else. It's just all too painful if it doesn't.  Anyway, Mr felt it was time to go.  The teen years weren't too great for him and before he knew it, he was in a depressive spiral that was leading him to "make plans".  I imagined him, for some reason, on a trip to Bunnings.  Not sure what one would find there that would help themselves in such a fashion but I imagine that if there is a place to go to buy what you need Bunnings would be a good place to go.  It's big, they are very helpful and most of their machinery would kill someone if they didn't know how to use it anyway.  Regardless, axe in hand and testing the sharpness of the blade using a single hair plucked from his head (I'm extrapolating here, the article mentioned no such thing) Old Mate received a phone call.  It turns out that his crush, and one true love, was on the other end.  She had felt compelled to call, for some unexplained reason.  And just like that she talked him out of his fatal act.  He hung up the phone and sat down and wrote something lovely.  Those same words that he would use to propose to her 10 years later.  The moral of the story, of course, is don't kill yourself because you don't know what delights await you around the corner.

Nice message.
No really, nice message.

About 3 years ago, give or take a couple of months I came to the same Bunnings related conclusion for myself.  My plan was much, much better though.  I'm not sure how one would go about axe murdering oneself anyway - how dumb, (again, I may have the wrong end of the stick here), but plans are plans.  It's nice to have one.  I had a pretty good one and I rehearsed it all very meticulously in my little old head.  It's one thing to rehearse, it's a completely different thing to enact!  Did I mention that I'm a sucker for a happy ending?  I thought for a moment, in that moment (and in the many moments that followed), of a time that hadn't happened yet... a time a year down the track. Perhaps in a year things would be so vastly different that I would look back and count my lucky stars that the best laid plans weren't carried through.  One year, I said.   These happy ending stories always have a big reason to live, it's just not known yet.  The idea that suicide shouldn't be an option because there are other, better options is a compelling thought to a desperate person.  Living is a better option.  Life may indeed bring happiness and joy and ... maybe something to actually live for.  I gave it a year.
And then another.
And another...

And now it's later.
And things are not better.

I'm a sucker for a happy ending but I'm no fool.  I appreciate brutal honesty more.

I don't look back and think I made the right decision in waiting. I don't think that at all.  I regret waiting.  I regret thinking that there would be a happy ending.  I'm not mad at myself.  I want to hug her, that strange girl-woman who put a bit of faith in the smallest sliver of light in that dark room of hers.  She didn't know that slivers of light for a girl like her were just reflections of herself from a whole generation ago and just a mirage now.  How could she know?  She believes in fucking happy endings, for fucks sake! God love her for trying to live, but it was the wrong decision.  That article, and all the ones like it, the 'wait it out' articles... I'm not sure how real they are.  Where are the articles about people regretting not pulling the plug?  Surely these exist too.

Those happy endings don't come to everyone.  There's something more certain than happy endings and that's gut feeling.
I regret not doing it.
I regret it really consciously every time I think of it.  But I have to be honest, in this little safe space that no one visits anymore, I don't think I can go through with my plan.  Or maybe my plan isn't good enough.

I don't believe in happy endings for me.
I do believe in having better plans that you won't back out of though.
I must keep believing in that.

posted by M at 10:08 pm 6 comments