tom waits

Not so much looks that bleak in life as I bet it does in limbo. When I wear my sunglasses, every color in this season looks as it should, according to the plasma screens, but when I take them off, everything's brighter. Brighter blue in the skies, vivid, screaming greens in the leaves of the trees, every knot in their trunks and every crack and cobblestoned line more visible.

Point: I find nothing bleak. Not even here, where the surrounding hills aren't as green as most wish them to be.

Funny thing: we lift our eyes unto the hills for our help, for our aesthetic pleasures, and having found none there, sweep our gaze so quickly over the things right in front of us that the computer screen, or the customer's face, or the front of the classroom, is all we force ourselves to focus on. All we know.

Every time, when I was younger, that I thought that I was really going to kill myself, I chickened out. The closest I came was holding a handful of pills--I don't remember what exactly the pills were for; all I remember is that I searched the cabinets behind the bathroom mirrors looking for the most dangerous-looking pills I could find, the ones that they always showed in public service announcements about suicide help, and I was decided on swallowing a copious amount of dangerous-looking pills because there were no razor blades, and razor blades were too quick, and I wanted a chance to change my mind and get my stomach pumped if I really had to. The pills were half red, half white, and as I moved them thoughtfully around in my hand, I almost managed half a smirk at the plasticity of their texture and the satisfying clicking sound they made in great numbers.

I don't remember what my brother and I were fighting about. Fuck, I don't even remember how old I was. All I remember is that I started crying, and I stumbled into my brother's room, and I dramatically yelled that I was going to take them, that I almost took those stupid pills. And all he could do was look at me. I don't know if he didn't say anything because he was shocked, or if he was just weathering the dramatic storm that was me on the floor with a handful of pills, although I'm certain it was the latter. I do know that he knew that I couldn't do it. That I wouldn't do it. I don't remember if he did say anything, actually. And so, about five minutes later, I got up, walked slowly back to the bathroom, and put those pills back into their bottle, and made sure that when I put the bottle back that it looked exactly like how I'd found it.

We never talked about it. I don't think he told either of my parents, most likely because he thought it had been an act. It was stupid. I was a kid. Life was not bad, all things considered.

And since then, I have never considered suicide. I've thought about it, sure, but in the way one thinks about how life for everyone else might be after the fact. I haven't considered it an option since. There is no reason for me to do so. Troubles have definitely matured and gotten a little worse, but there is still, and always, hope. Beauty in life. I love living too damn much. I always thought it was because I wasn't brave enough that I never went through with it, but it was the more obvious reason: I wanted to live. The only point where I would consider death is if the only option is dying, and by then, I will have no say, no choice, in the matter, but go peacefully on my way.

Work sucked tonight. I haven't showered in over a day. I miss a lot of people. I'm as poor as dirt. But I've got "Real Gone" sending me to gritty blues heaven, and at least three full glasses of water behind me, and people that I love who love me, and no gale of a wind and no tree branches scraping up against my window tonight, for a change.

Life isn't unworthy of being lived.