“The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.”— Cicero
It’s funny how sometimes we humans decide our fate with our own bare sinful hands. We agree that we are what creates our own future and that destroys the need to grow and move forward. Most of the times it’s the darkness around us that enunciates these kinds of dangerously decisive thoughts like death.
Death is something that can come to someone naturally, or what I like to say ‘when it is time’. In the present time, I believe that it is timed perfectly. A result of all the things that have gone down in your life. You might try to stop it and that is fine but I strongly believe that catalyzing your own death is destructive. The teenage me though had different views. For her the easiest escape from all the trauma was death. A soothing feeling. A calmness. An eerie stillness where nothing can reach you. Neither pain, nor the voices. It’s just you and the stillness which isn’t even interrupted by the sound of your breathing.
“The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague.”
— Edgar Allan Poe
Life was bad back then. A living hell. And I am not just talking about academic pressure and teenage heartbreaks. All those things never mattered to me. You see, I crave for friendships. Bonds that are stronger than just romantic attachments and maybe, just maybe that’s why I went down the rabbit hole of finding a friend in anyone who showed me a little attention. Pathetic, isn’t it? But what can I do? I was always like that. A little loving, and a whole lot pleasing. There was this one time when I had decided that I wouldn’t walk the surface of earth after the age of eighteen. It was a simple thought. A satisfying feeling that all the pain will go away after I turn the golden age of 18.
“When I was a kid; I was convinced that I was destined for the 27 club. I’m twenty-nine, sinkin’ in the bathtub, sippin’ gin, lookin’ for another club.”
– lyrics from ‘Stop the Rain’ by Tablo and RM
My adult life wasn’t something I planned hence. I did have dreams but they were simply a second option. An option only if the first one goes wrong. And I was so dead sure that it wouldn’t. The pain was too much for me. My entire body would ache whenever I thought about the people who brought me to this dark tunnel. I was lost, not a single glimpse of light. The tunnels were never ending. Zig-zag. A puzzle I wasn’t willing to solve. I was just a kid you know. Just a kid. I would walk in the darkness like a vagabond. No aim. Just one simple thought. Death.
As you can certainly tell, that didn’t happen. I did find the light. A tiny flicker that piqued my interest. I had always been a curious kid and maybe, just maybe that saved me. I was out in the light. It took me a time to adjust. My adult life was different. The initial pressure on my chest not exactly absent but manageable. I tried to cope up with it. One day at a time. I wanted to love myself a little. I am twenty-four now and still somehow is lost. It’s a different kind of lost I believe. I don’t feel scared. The nights don’t scare me and death doesn’t cross my mind.
Though on days, when the sun hangs a little low and the clouds fog up my mind, I think about my companion sometimes. I think about the way, the thought of death once soothed every inch of my skin. The way I always knew that when death will come, it will be so soft and gentle that I will cry. That it will feel like being carried to your childhood home’s bed while you are sleeping soundly. The laughter and warmth of your grandparents fading away into the background. I always thought death will be peaceful. A sort of relief that nothing can bring.
“Take your own life. Interesting expression. Taking it from who? Once it’s over, it’s not you who will miss it. Your own death is something that happens to everybody else. Your life is not your own, keep your hands off it.”
– dialog from a Sherlock Holmes Series
And even though I still think about it as a calm exit, I have trusted my fate more. I am no one to decide my death and I hope I remember that. I am not allowed to take my own life because that is not something I have the right to. My life isn’t just my own you know, it is of everyone who has smiled a little when I cracked a joke. It is of everyone who finds a little relief when I stand beside them. It is of everyone who knows that I am one call away. Maybe I am not selfish enough to take away a life that seems mine. But I am glad I am a little selfless when it comes to trying to find death.
Writing something this heavy always feels struggling for me but I have been wanting to talk about this for so long. I have gone through so much in the past that sometimes I get brave enough to share it. I hope whoever reads it finds some kind of peace in it. It’s not that poetic but a raw part of me somehow.
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