Respite

Once I was released from the hospital - and back into my parents' care - my mom and I went and stayed in a guest house/mother-in-law suite on a church friend's property. The house had light pastel colors and a very peaceful feel. It was clean, it was a little comforting. It was good to not be back in my parents' house yet. My mom and I stayed their maybe 3 nights.

The second day a friend came over. Becca was in massage therapy school. She brought her table and gave me a full body massage. Something about the act and experience was so healing. I think it helped that I knew her. I think she was praying for me and maybe sharing kind words. I felt strengthened.

The first night there, I had gone to sleep craving the nothingness of sleep, still so antagonistic towards the thought, concept and act of existence. When I woke up though, I felt refreshed. I decided I wanted to live. Hell, I even wrote a poem about it. Maybe it was the medication stabilizing me finally. Maybe it was feeling safe where I was. But something good and right clicked in my brain.

I am fairly certain that it was then and there I decided I would never try to end my life again. Then, it wasn't much of a victorious thought. It was more of a, well I failed at suicide, guess I should live. Strangely, I felt like I really only deserved one chance to end things, and that chance was taken. I kinda thought, I dueled with destiny, with fate, with mortality, and lost (by surviving the attempt, living through it). So, since I lost, since I took my once chance at ending things and it didn't work, then I was supposed to live. There was maybe a teeny bit of purpose in that. Or maybe just the basic grit, gruel and dirt of survival - you just have to go on. You just push even if there's nothing left in you to push and you have no direction. It was no longer a choice. I had to live and soldier forward no matter what.