And maybe you do mean it, in the moments when the exhaustion settles so deep into your bones that you can't remember what it feels like to want anything else, in the moments getting up from bed feels like a camel clutch.
But then you put on a mask before hospital rounds.
You say you do that because the AQI is above 200, and that you donât want to catch a cold and that you do not want to infect someone with the flu.
But if there is no tomorrow, what for and why are you protecting yourself?
You study and you cram and cram and cram. You sit for hours memorizing the neural supply of the thyroid gland. You learn the steps of a total thyroidectomy. You force yourself to understand the difference management of follicular thyroid cancer and papillary carcinoma even when your eyes ache and your head hurts and you would rather disappear; even when you disassociate thrice in an hour.
Why spend tonight preparing to save a stranger five years from now? Why learn how to preserve someone else's voice if you are convinced your own story is over?
You say you're tired. You say you don't want another Christmas, another Easter, another year; itâs all extremely exhausting. And yet, in the privacy of your mind, you still imagine being loved. Not in some grand , impossible way (even if it may look like that for you). Someone choosing you everyday. Someone who doesnât make you earn affection. Someone who stays when times are tough.
Why would you dream about a future version of yourself , if you genuinely believed there was no future waiting for you at all?
You say youâre a menace to love. That you cannot maintain relationships. That youâre an awful, awful person.
And yet, your sister wakes up from a bad dream and texts you at eight in the morning to ask if you're okay. She wakes up frightened, and somehow her mind lands on you. She most definitely doesnât have to. She doesnât owe you anything. Hell, she isnât obligated to do that. Itâs because she loves you.
Because your existence matters enough to interrupt her morning.
People do not lose sleep over âburdensâ.
You say you don't want to wake up tomorrow, but you still refuse to wash your hair too often because you don't want the cherry-coke red to fade.
Such a stupid little thing.
Such a human little thing.
Such a small, minuscule thing .
How insignificant of a detail that nobody writes proses about it.
But here you are, actively telling yourself you deserve no love, safety or protection while youâre trying to save a colour. Probably Protecting the version of yourself that will catch sight of it in a mirror and think, for half a second, - that actually looks nice.
The most awful thing about being sad is that the part of you tells you it wants to end things speaks very, very loudly.
It screams and fills rooms and screams again and again, over and over just so that youâre convinced that this is the only voice that exists.
But there is also a part of you that cares, the part that cares about something as mundane as cherry coke coloured hair.
It doesnât scream. It doesnât shout. Itâs very scared. It just hides somewhere inside. But itâs also very stubborn like you; because it keeps showing up in small, very stubborn ways
It shows up in the masks before rounds, it shows up in the exam notes you dont care about, it shows up in the fantasy of being loved, it comes up in your sisterâs concerned texts, it shows up in the red dye you do not want to wash away.
And no this doesnât mean youâre not unhappy. It doesnât mean that youâre okay, and it doesnât mean that everything appears in a way that itâll be fine.
But they mean something. Because despite everything, there is still a part of you that keeps acting as though you'll be here tomorrow. This is the part that keeps the porch light on.
And perhaps that is the most heartbreaking thing of all:Not that you want to die. But that even now, underneath all that pain, underneath all that hurt, there is still a part of you that cannot quite stop wanting to live.
And that part hasnt given up yet.
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