I think about unaliving myself 3-4 times a day. I never imagined I'd reach this point—I've always taken pride in my emotional intelligence and my ability to pull myself out of bad situations without needing help. But here I am. I find myself fantasizing about stepping into traffic and letting a car hit me, jumping onto train tracks, cutting my wrists, or just sleep until I cannot wake up anymore.
This post stems from the night I stood at my window, ready to end it all, for real this time. As I imagined people finding me in the morning, I was struck by one fear: no one would truly know me. No one ever had, but you. If I died, i'm dead, gone, without a trace, and nothing of the real me would remain. No one to carry on memories of me, because i never let anyone in, but you. But I chased you away, and you will have to forget me, to make new memory, just as I'm trying to forget you. My real self exists nowhere but in these words. So, I’m writing again after a long time, hoping that if I ever can’t hold on anymore, these words might offer some answers to anyone who might miss me—if anyone does.
My whole life has felt like a fight. I have to fight for everything - the highest score, the smartest kid, the most adorable girl, a seat at the table, for my voice to be heard, to play with the "big boys", to prove myself as strong as them men, or being worthy of mom's pride. Nothing has ever come easily to me. Nothing has ever been effortlessly and unconditionally mine. They say if you love something, set it free, and if it’s meant for you, it’ll come back. But if I set everything I love free, I fear I’d have nothing left. I’m feeling that old, familiar ache again, like being the last kid picked on the playground, standing there, hoping someone will choose me. I was a late bloomer, and i meant it. I was never the popular kid. I was lucky if i was not the most hated or the one bullied. Fear of abandonment always made me choose to leave first rather that getting left behind. So I have never learned to stick around until the end.
And then you taught me to hold on. And for a while I was very good at that. And then I got cocky. I thought I was the glue holding things together, but I realize now I was just coasting on your grace. You kept everything intact, and now that you’re gone, I have no more strength to keep it together, no matter how much I try. I watch as everything I hold dear slips away—our friends, our routines, our life. Or rather, I’ve been chased away. And who could blame them? Who would want me? I ruin everything I touch. I hold on too tight and break the things I love. The shards cut me deeply and I stained the remnants of what you built for me with my own blood.
Without you, I feel like a joke. I wear my real face to the masquerade that is life. I show up while everyone else is putting on a show. I feel like I’m speaking a language no one understands. I feel so inadequate I can barely finish a sentence, hating the sound of my own voice. I feel so out of place that I want to shrink myself into nothing, just so I don’t take up any space. Or maybe I will finally become like everyone else, and the unique me that you loved so much will be gone forever - the price of survival I guess.
But I refuse to be anyone’s charity case. I’m no victim. I made my bed, and now I have to lie in it. I realized that it's all in my head. I don't have to be all that, to fight for all that to be enough. I don't have to be beautiful, or nice, or good at badminton, or billard, or even at holding people together to get you to look at me. After all, hell isn’t just other people—it’s me, around other people. And heaven, perhaps, is being alone. Now, I have to rebuild my life, piece by piece, creating new things to care about. I have to carry my own weight now, make my own connections, hold on to the friends who would pick me just because I am the flawed me, make the decision to let go by myself. And if I end up alone again, at least this time, it’ll be by choice. And I am free to be ugly lonely old me, free from blaming you, or you.