Content Warning: Death
I wouldn’t say I’ve had a difficult life. In all honestly, it’s been quiet, calm, nice. I’ve never been inflicted with painful hunger that wasn’t caused by myself. I’ve never been forced to work endless and sleepless hours for little more than pennies due to anyone other than my own hubris. I’ve seen what may have laid in front of my path had I been born into a less privileged life, and I’m reminded of it by just looking down the street from where I park my car. I’m reminded of it when I’m told of my own luck, what’s been given to me, that nothing was earned without the help of others.
But that never quelled the deep sadness that I felt below my skin, the hollowness between bones, the muffled sound that felt too far away and hard to understand. I felt fleeting and small, like nothing I had belonged to me, yet everything expected something in return for simply existing in its space. What could I give it to secure its silence, what else other than my borrowed life?
Oddly, my first lull was before I even understood what death was. It was a hard evening for someone who was 8, someone who didn’t know the world beyond the walls nor any suffering past myself. I remember vividly though. I laid on the cold tile of my bathroom floor with my back against the toilet, staring at the door. I wanted someone to notice my loud sobbing; I wanted someone to test the knob and find it unlocked.
No one cared though. Not after they screamed to an 8 year old about expected responsibility and maturity.
I should’ve helped around the house more instead of causing trouble. I was ungrateful and knew nothing about the sacrifices made for my sake. I wasted money, food, air. I was older now, too big to act like a child—yet I knew I was too small to even reach the counter.
Still, I remember so well.
“I wish you were never born. I regret giving birth to you.”
The memory pricked at my eyes again, starting a dull pain in my chest that lasted for years since. I laid on the floor of the cold bathroom because my legs couldn’t hold me up anymore, because the coldness of the ground made me feel anchored, because otherwise, I would’ve made their wish come true.
I remember hours after, there was a harsh knocking at the door. I was sore from laying still, but I quickly opened the door—I had a brief sense of hope, you see. Did they hear my crying? Did they want to warm me up? But it was just to be called for dinner, to be told I’m wasting the electricity from the lights, to stop being lazy and set the table.
A thought glimmered just then, in spite of myself.
“I want to die.”
Since then, I hung onto their every word. I became someone they could call accomplished, someone successful, someone they couldn’t ignore anymore. I was told to win awards at school, to succeed in my grades, to work hard and work even harder the next day. It was the least I could do to repay them for raising me, for their wasted time, for their conditional love.
But at least they would give it to me—their conditional love, that is. Until it wasn’t enough anymore; I wasn’t enough anymore.
My performance became expectation. My debts for living grew larger and success stretched further away. And by the time I realized the burnout that bent my spine and weighed my eyes, I was too far deep into my self-made stage. There were too many eyes that joined my parents in the audience—my teachers, my friends, my acquaintances who expected nothing but great things from a young teen who was expected to grow up too fast, too smart, too wise beyond her years.
But that wisdom came at the price of loneliness, and that loneliness compounded into isolation and trauma.
I became a facade. I became someone who I wasn’t quite proud to be anymore, but I couldn’t stop or else my efforts would’ve gone to waste. I really then would be unworthy of praise, unwanted and unsuccessful, left with nothing—nothing but the quiet yearning for death, for it to stop, for a peace left alone.
“I want to die.”
This time, I knew the consequences of such thoughts, and in spite of myself, I welcomed it.
As I increasingly isolated myself, the more words swirled in my head. Words, thoughts, writings. All of it. I found comfort in letters and texts that I could twist and mold to fit my needs, in black and white characters that understood my sorrow and plight, in the silence of lines and walls that trailed beyond what I could see.
I began to dwell in memories, in regrets. There was so much I wish I did differently, what I could’ve done better. I could’ve handled my younger self nicer, kinder—sweeter. I was despondent because of who I used to be, yet I couldn’t forgive myself for it either. I became sorry for people who still stuck with me, who saw my spiral downwards, so I pushed them away, too.
That moment in time was short, but it felt as long as a complete lifetime.
I blinked once, and a year passed with regret. I blinked again, and more years passed with even more regret. I closed my eyes, and suddenly, I was out of school and out of time. I wasted my opportunity, my potential, my chances. All that was left in my hands was a piece of paper who’s worth I couldn’t quite place.
What was the point, really? I didn’t become who my parents dreamed of for me, who my teachers pressed and prodded my mind for, who my former friends expected me to be. I could hardly recognize myself either. I wasn’t anyone who would’ve been proud to be standing nor someone who held anything to note. I did so much before, and for what? For who?
I continued to write lines into my own skin. I traced words, thoughts, and writings into my flesh and turned them into something I could see, could feel. I was sharp with my voice and twisted deep within pain, within me. Everything was caused by me; I knew that.
“I want to die.”
But did I even deserve that?
I didn’t, because I believed death would’ve been selfish—I would’ve been called selfish—even if I felt it was a gift I could give to others, to be free of someone who caused so much burden. It was logical to me. I, me, who I used to be. I couldn’t stop thinking about me, unable to look beyond what I wrote into myself.
Just like any other memory though, I remembered. If nothing else, I had at least one thing that I knew was mine, no matter how negative or feral the emotion was. I figured that with this, at least, I could last for a little while more. With nothing other than spite for myself—my life—I wanted to see how much longer I could go.
I told myself that until I reached my 28th birthday, I would stay alive, just out of spite. And if after I turned 28, if I wanted to die, I can let myself die in spite of myself.
Strangely, as I learned to live selfishly, it became easier to breathe. The less care I put in others, the more I had for myself. I drew closer to my self-expected deadline day-by-day, but I didn’t think about extending my time, my promise to myself. I merely reminded that it was based completely on want, on whims. When I turned 28—if I turned 28, I wouldn’t stop myself from doing as I pleased anymore.
As close to the age as I wanted or as far as I wanted, the reprieve was what mattered.
In that extended time, I eventually forgot about my anger and my sorrow. I thought it was exhausting to live with only hurt. Wouldn’t it make sense to spend the time I have left with joy? Why can’t I? Why not?
I slowly began to make plans that went past a certain date. I took pictures that included myself so that people would have them to remember, and I printed those out to save for myself. My world and my friends became smaller, but tighter, closer. I didn’t know them for the sake of knowing them; I didn’t know them because they brought me value either—I simply enjoyed their company, and I think they enjoyed mine.
I tossed my dreams away so I could accept reality. For that, I sought employment unrelated to my degree. But in it, I found fulfillment in mundane and everyday work. It wasn’t what I wanted; by all means, it wasn’t grand. It was enough though. As small as my actions were in shaping smaller lives, it was enough.
Then, as 28 grew closer, larger… I still cared less. I had other things to do, things to love, things to become. And someone to forgive.
How fortunate am I to have a brother who trusts me with his worries, to have a 10 year partner become a spouse, to have friends who know and nurture my interests—to have a life full of yearning. I realize that now. Happiness for others is fleeting, and happiness for myself is even more so.
But I have unfinished books to read on my shelves. I have recipes I want to try in my own kitchen. I have naps in the sun and I have a lifetime ahead to simply sleep and wake up again.
There was no profound change that impacted me to suddenly crave life. Even now, after I’m a month past 28, I don’t know why the silence is quiet rather than deafening, why company is comfortable rather than grating, why despite my tiredness, I want to be restless.
Just like a decade before, when I promised to die if I wanted to after 28, I’ve made a new promise with the time I have now. I think about my luck, the gifts that life has given me, the nothings that make up a meaningful day; I think about whether I’ve earned it, deserve it, or am worthy of it—and it’s silly, but it’s mine now. It’s mine, so I get to enjoy this privilege, right? To live hastily and be messy. To be aimless and free.
I will waste this precious life I have, use the space I was granted, be so loud that it crushes the silence. To love and forgive the little me who couldn’t love herself.
To the me who most wanted my death,
Aren’t you glad we are still alive? If you aren’t, that’s too damn bad.
Diving in the Deep 