In January 2019 I was belatedly lugging some Christmas baggage up from the car that I’d left there for weeks due to depression and indifference. I had one of those classic Chicago winter moments where I slipped on the ice in a pratfall, my feet flew out from under me, and I landed fully on my back. I just remember lying there on that icy sidewalk, breathing slowly and staring at the stars blinking in the sky. I was exhausted and I couldn’t summon the energy to get up.
While I was not actively suicidal at the time, I was still open to the idea of some outside force of nature taking my life away. I felt so lonely and small and tired. I had sabotaged so many relationships, including the one with my domestic partner, through my treatment-resistant bipolar depression. I was still worried about living on my own and about money and about paying off my medical bills. I was as heavy as I’d ever been, partially because of taking sedentary drugs like lithium but also because I couldn’t find much motivation to care for myself, resulting in poor lifestyle habits like lethargy and junk food and excessive alcohol use.
I prayed to God to end my life. I told him I’d done all the good I could possibly do in this world, and now I was just suffering and hurting myself and other people, and it would be merciful to just let me die. I thought about how peaceful it would be if I could expire on the sidewalk in that starry, snowy night, without any guilt or shame. I closed my eyes and felt like if I willed it hard enough my body would just atomize and float into the ether.
Sadly, I never developed that zest and appreciation for life, that euphoria that some people describe after they’ve decided not to end their life, or after they have tried to end their life without succeeding and become motivational speakers and writers instead. I’ve always been deeply jealous of those people. I still walk around with a latent desire for an accident to happen to me or for the world to end. I continue to live, but somewhat recklessly and I never feel any particular desire to protect or prolong my life.
I don’t know why I eventually got up that night. There was no guardian angel or intervention, no epiphany on my part about how wonderful life was. I never stopped wanting to die. The reality of that moment is probably that I was just cold and the ground was hard and it was almost bedtime. It was time to get up. The magic had passed and instead of being absorbed back into the earth, I was going to take some baggage up the stairs. I have miles to go before I sleep.
