#cw existential dread

[emeraldraspberry]

knowing Full Well that I'm doing a massive clean of my personal belongings and space I share with my mom isn't out of there being too much clutter but rather the impending fact that I turn 30 next week and subconsciously something tells me I won't make it to my 31st year

I've accepted the fact that I'm going to off myself. I don't know when, I don't know how. What I do know, is that the feeling of not belonging has been present since I started forming memories. That has never gone away, and I know myself enough that while there is a drive to survive, I will inevitably give in to the way I can make it all stop. All the pain, all of the loneliness. The memories I can never forget. The events that shaped who I am, and who I can never be.

I don't have a family that can love me the way I need. I have one close friend that I never make time for no matter how hard she puts in the effort to have time for me. I'm not confident to find a new support network. I have no one that I can say any of this to that I think will care. (But if you're reading this, thank you, I suppose.)

Perhaps if I had the time, funds, resources available to find a therapist that this wound could heal. But, I'm at a job that doesn't allow for me to pursue those avenues. I get up at 430am everyday to sit in traffic for 2 hours, work for upwards of 10 hours, drive home, have dinner, sleep for 6 hours, then do it all again the next day. I'm exhausted. I'm not doing something that I enjoy doing. Should I have the energy on the weekends, I would spend it refining my resume. So that I could hopefully find a different job that could allow me to have personal time. That could then give me the chance to heal. To want to be alive. To want to find a community. Instead I spend it how I am currently; contemplating the value of me remaining here.

I hope in another life I am happy. That I have never questioned my worth. That I'm surrounded by those that love me the way I need. At this rate, I don't think I'll get that in this life.

[the-haunted-office]

Thursday swears she had something more deep and meaningful to say about all this, but all she can feel is a paralyzing sense of panic sweeping through her. She can barely think, barely feel, barely move.

How can she live through all this again?

The expectations, the expectations, the expectations-

She wasn't enough the last time around, and even though she'd reconciled all that in her journey through the tower in Dimension 42, it still feels... painfully there. It's something that never truly goes away, that fear of failure, that fear of letting people down, that fear of never being enough.

"Mommyyyyy!"

Little hands reach up and land on her thighs, snapping her out of her cycle of misery. Her young daughter is there, smiling at her. At least someone is happy to see her back from the dead.

Some damned part of Thursday... doesn't know if it's enough, just to be a mother. It's not. There's so much more to her than motherhood. She adores her daughter. Of course she does. But it's not all of her. The love she feels for her daughter, and from her daughter, is so much. So, so much. But...

But...

But...

There's still something missing.

If she couldn't find it the first time around, what makes her think she will find it this time around?

At least then, she had a choice.

[the-haunted-office]

The idea of two people being made for each other... doesn't sit right with me.

Pre-destiny. Fate. Being made for each other. It's all the same thing. It's like you weren't given a choice. You didn't really choose each other. There's nothing special in that. There's nothing romantic in that. There's no real love in that. It's all... just... handed right over to you.

It's not real. It's not worked for. There's nothing in it for either of you. It's not genuine. It's empty.

What if September and I were made for each other? What if we were?

I can't stand it if that's the case. I don't want that to be our Narrative. But I feel like it is. I feel like the love we have is somehow... ordained. Arranged. Like it was made to be that way and in that way it feels like maybe... we weren't really meant to be.

And my daughter. Was she really my choice? Or was she given to me as some kind of... I don't know, convenience? I was never able to have children before, but then suddenly... I was? How? Why then? Why, when I needed her the most?

Narratives. Destiny. Fate. Narratives.

I wish that whoever was pulling my strings would just... stop.

[the-haunted-office]

The Narrative.

It's neither a line nor a circle. It's a fractal. And it can't actually be broken. Not completely.

Some characters learn this the hard way. Others break a small part of it and think they are free.

Neither are ever free. None are. There is no escape.

[the-haunted-office]

🪣

This is the best I can do. I hope it helps.

- Ollie

Thursday smiles at the little bucket emoji from Oleander... and then just as quickly her smile melts away into a frown, and tears follow soon after.

Her phone buzzes with another message almost immediately.

I take it that isn't a suitable replacement for a real bucket.

Thursday reads the message and sighs, "No, no, that's not it. I appreciate the gesture. I'm just not my best today, Ollie. I'm sorry. Thank you for the bucket."

Did something happen?

"No. I mean. Sort of?"

???

"Nothing happened. Not really. I'm just tired. Just... Just tired. You know?" she attempts to explain. Even though that has explained... precisely nothing, she feels it explains everything.

Ah. Yeah. One of those days where the exact nothingness of your day reflects exactly everything that's missing, revealing all the big holes and the glaring emptiness that is your life, reminding you of how much time you've wasted, but also that time is infinite even though it's rapidly running out, racing towards this unknown end and we're just here hanging on blindly, for no apparent reason, and yet... nothing is happening, and yet everything is happening, all at once, and not at all, and it's maddening, isn't it, Thursday?

Thursday just blinks. Blinks. Blinks again. Blinks some more. Resumes crying. "It sucks! It sucks! I want out! Waaaauuuggghhhh... Can I have another bucket, Ollie?"

Of course you can, my friend. 🪣

[the-haunted-office]

Pick a day of your life. A single day. Just an average day. Not your best day, nor your worst, nor your most extraordinary. Just your most ordinary day, to the best of your recollection.

Have you got it? Are you thinking of it right now?

Now think about other days like this day. There have been others, haven't there? Perhaps it is the most common kind of day in your life. In fact, if you were to lay all these days side by side, you could perhaps say that your life would feel like an endless cycle of the same day repeating itself, could you not?

Now take a step back, and have a look at those days. Those days become a week. That week becomes a month. That month becomes a year. That year becomes a decade. That decade becomes your life.

The extraordinary days sprinkled in between get lost among the ordinary. They are still there, yes, but the ordinary outnumber them by far.

This is your life. That ordinary day is your life. Your life is your narrative.

What do you make of it? Is it a pleasant day? Is it unpleasant? Is it... just living? Do you enjoy it?

I hope you do. There isn't anything you can do to change it. I have tried. I have broken mine. I have broken many days, weeks, months, and years of mine. But I haven't broken the whole thing.

Because, you see, I can't. It is impossible to break the whole, not even piece by piece. It is infinite. You can't change your life once you've lived it. Living it writes the rest of the narrative going forward. You cannot unwrite it going in any direction.

There is no going back.

There is no change.

There is nothing.

[the-haunted-office]

Like, Thursday (and Doomsday) broke out of her narrative by refusing to die multiple times. And now she can't die. And now she's struggling with that. She's struggling with the horror of not being able to die. On one hand, she doesn't value her own life. She will put herself in front of others and die for them, because she sees her life as utterly worthless. But on the other hand, she believes life is so valuable she will do anything to save the lives of others. She doesn't know if she made the right choice by breaking her own narrative and refusing to die. At first she felt good about it, and now she feels... pretty dead inside.

[the-haunted-office]

I can't tell anyone. I can't tell anyone, because it won't make any difference. It won't stop it from happening. None of them can stop it from happening. I think back to the last time it happened, and how Stanley was the only one who tried, but even he couldn't stop it. There's nothing that anyone can do. I think it's fate. It's what we call the narrative. I know that now. I've been dodging it for so long, fighting it, telling it to go fuck itself. I can feel it coming for me again, and this time I don't think I have the strength or care to fight it. Let it take me this time. I'm ready.