Even as a kid, I was obsessed with death and at many point, I've wanted to die. Sometimes it was a just as a way out of a terrible situation, like when I was about 7 and my biological parents were fighting one night very loudly and I was sent to his room. I heard therm and just wanted that feeling to stop, that feeling of hearing people fighting over me. I hated so much that my existence was causing such a scary argument and it made me want to do anything to stop it.
I thought two things:
1. If I were to die then, right that night almost in front of them then they'd stop caring about screaming at each other. Might even bring some peace to people who were involved. I thought that would teach them a lesson too. I thought how bad they would feel if a little kid made them learn a lesson.
1. I just wanted to get out of that situation. I hated hated hated feeling so uncomfortable. I knew nothing about what death was in the grand scheme of things but I knew I would have rather dealt with dying then continue feeling the pain of sadness caused by their fight. It was a soul killing sadness that has bled into my inner thoughts and has followed mr around like a creepy shadow.
That was all just an intro to the point of this whole thing:
For so long I've wanted to kill me and aim all the sadness at ending myself...or at least I thought I wanted that. When I examine why I think and feel the way I do, I learn that the truth is I want to not feel that sadness or pain. The idea of dying is an escape from that and becomes the consolation prize that I convinced myself I wanted more than my true wish.
So I thought today at work about what I truly want and two things happened that made me want to put my shadow to rest.
One was a man came to my register. I said my delivery line that I've been conditioned to say, "Hi, How are you today?" and his response was, "Well, my back hurts and my life kinda sucks..." he proceeded to tell me he has cancer because of agent orange, his wife passed away not too long ago, his son is mentally handicapped and he has back, leg and foot pain. The thing is he was smiling the whole time, not like a joyous "everything is awesome even though things aren't great" kinda smile, it was a painful smile. A smile that told more of his story than his story told, it was interesting to hear him complain because his eyes were almost devoid of emotions in a way that told me he has been through so much emotions that there wasn't much left.
And through all of that, he wasn't complaining the way most people do. Most people complain because they expected life to give them so much and it just didn't. He was telling a story of hardships without blaming life or God or others. Through the conversation, he told me his son keeps asking when Mom is coming home and the best thing he could say was, "We'll see mom again when we move and go to her." It was the best way he could explain her death to his son who will never understand...for lack of better words.
The other thing was a status on facebook that connects this man's story to my subconscious. Blaire White (a transgender political/current events youtuber, one of my favorite channels) posted:
I try to challenge myself to grow when these kinds of things occur; these bits of deep truth that should change our all of our lives. I know I'm more messed up than most but once in a while I see some truth or bit of wisdom that we should all think about and meditate on in some way. "Life becomes infinitely easier once you accept that it doesn't owe you anything." Very smart words.
I'm not one to give out words of wisdom but these are definitely words people these days should think about regularly. Thank you for reading.
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