The Day Before I Was Supposed To Die.

     Last night was rough. I want to tell you a story, but first I need to tell you why I'm telling it. I finished watching 12 Reasons Why last night, and the final two episodes are gripping to say the least. It opened up a lot of feelings and memories that I've put to the back of my mind recently. I said that I would give you my final review of the show when I was done, and I'm going to do that now. It is fantastic, and holds up through the entire series. I did see a way that they could have a second season well, possibly two paths they could take, so that settles that dilemma. I highly recommend the show to watch, but with a caveat. If you have ever dealt with depression or suicidal thoughts, I don't think you should watch it alone. As I said, the final two episodes are gripping. They go at the story matter with no fear. They lay it all on the table for you to see, and you see it all. If you deal with depression or suicide, you will recognize all of this, and it will put you in a place that you may not want to be in when you are alone. That brings us to the story I want to tell you.

    This is my story. It's from a number of years ago, when I hit my what I hope to be my absolute lowest point. My entire world was collapsing in on me. It was over the Christmas holiday. I was just beginning my normal two weeks off from work, so I was also beginning my winter hibernation from people. I don't intend for things to be this way, but it always seems to work out like this, and still does to this day. I've learned now, that it is a great deal to do with me, that I am this way. I've grown to accept that I push people away from time to time, for no other reason than my own mental outlook. The holidays are more intense because people are all traveling other places, visiting family, or just getting away, so that intensifies my loneliness. On this particular holiday season, I had distanced myself even further from people, and then something happened that tipped my nearly over the edge.

     I checked the mail and got a bill, nothing unusual about that, but this bill was a sad sense of closure, closure that I wasn't prepared for. It was the final bill for a Christmas gift that I bought for my ex the year before. It hit me hard, it was over, there was no longer anything in this world that connected me to her, and with distancing myself from everyone around me, there was no connection to anything anymore. This was it there was no reason for me to be here anymore. It seemed that no one cared, nor did I care. I had nothing except the endless dark spiral into nothingness, and it hurt. All I wanted was for that pain to end, and I only knew one way to end it. I began planning for what I was going to do, and how I was going to do it. I won't go into those details, frankly because I don't want to give anyone any ideas, but let's just say, that what I had planned, there was no turning back from, there was no fixing the situation, and there was no way of saving me.

     The day before I was supposed to die, I starting putting everything in order. I was separating my things with the intent of leaving notes for where and who they should go to. Everyone was better off without me, but I'm sure they would be happy with things. This is the big thing about someone who is on the verge of suicide, they aren't selfish like everyone likes to think that they are. If anything, they are being completely selfless. In my head everyone would be much better without me in their life, they wouldn't have to worry about me, or burden themselves with my presence ( I still have problems with that one ). I was going to commit the ultimate self sacrifice so that everyone would be better off. I was going to save them, and end all of my pain.

     That final full day, I also did one very simple thing, that if I hadn't done, I'm sure that I wouldn't be here writing this for you now. I reached out to three separate people that I considered my dearest and most understanding friends. I'm not going to use their names, but I will address them as their online persona. I've never told them about this, although I do think one or two of them my suspect it. They saved my life that night.

      I was searching for a light in the dark, so I sent texts to each of them: phe0nixinflight, Elie Wolf, and keyofthenile86. This is the first time that they will have a chance to truly know this. I didn't tell them what was going on, but I did let them know that I wasn't in the best place. I had no idea if they would even respond to me. It was a Friday night, and most people would be busy getting on with their lives. They each responded to me, in less than 10 minutes. I texted back and forth with them for a while, maybe it was even an hour or so. The light that had gone out, had began to flicker. They didn't need to do what they did, but they did. I'm not going to lie, I'm in tears right now as I type this out. They showed me that someone did care, and even though they were in places far away from where I was, they were willing to take their time, to just talk to me. I went to sleep that night, not with the plans running through my head that I had, but with the thought that I would simply take it day by day. I've been doing that ever since that night in December.

     At that time, I had taken my friends for granted, and that is something I will never do again. The state of mind I was in was what was doing that to me. The signs aren't always there for you to see so easily. You can look for every sign you know, but there are always ways to mask those signs, and I was very good at that. I doubt that my three friends even knew what was going on or that there were any signs to see, but they still helped me more than they will ever truly know. For that reason, there is nothing that I won't do for them. I'm still great friends with two of them, the third one, I still consider a friend, but like anything in time, we went our separate ways. I have no doubt though, that if we met up at some random place, we would pick up just where we left off. Good friends can do that. It can be like there was never anytime lost between you.

      I don't want this to be all doom and gloom, so I'm going to leave you with something that will hopefully take some of the darkness off of this post. I finally finished an edit of the kayaking video. As I said before, the audio was outstandingly bad, so I was perplexed on what to really do with it. I took a chance, and just made a music video with it to Danielle Ate the Sandwich's Here Today. I didn't even realize until just now, the poignance of that song. Any way, I hope you enjoy it.



Peace in and goodnight.