From 1-10

I have suicide notes.

Over the years i’ve written quite a few. I read them every once in a while. They don’t hold much meaning most of the time, but sometimes one of them will hit . But not in the way that you are probably thinking it does. It makes my hands tingle and my face flush just knowing that at one point, i was close.

There are notes that i have written just for the sake of writing them. And sure, at the moment, i was in a poor headspace and probably didn’t want to exist anymore but more along the lines of just wanting to write them so I could ‘feel close to ending it’ even though i knew i wasn’t going to actually do it.

There are 3 that i have written with intention. Enough intention to clean my room for whoever would find me afterwards. There was one that just says “i’m sorry’ on it simply because it’s all i had to say at the moment, i simply had nothing more to offer anyone.

Now I do. I have words to offer. Words that might make someone feel something. Anything. Not in the name of healing, but moreso as a reminder that the human experience is absolutely fucked but we are too scared to admit it.

I will though. I’ll admit it.
The human experience is absolutely fucked.

The second note that i wrote is a couple of pages long. It has all of the plans and wishes. Matzoh will go to my neighbor’s house, and June and Laurie are to handle all of my affairs.

100k. That’s how much I’ll leave them.

As for Shayna, she can absolutely get fucked…No Really… When I die if she is still alive I want someone to actually say that to her. Out Loud.

She refused to say goodbye to him. My dad. Our dad. Not because she ‘couldn’t , but

because she wouldn’t.

I know that was one of the things that he was waiting for. I put him on the phone with a lot of people at that time, during his last days, before he slipped into a coma. I want to add that his own mother, sister, and brother wouldn’t even come to see him. They all live in Florida about 30 minutes from his apartment. They agreed to say goodbye on the phone though, and while what they said was abhorrent, empty, and meaningless, it was better than Shayna’s goodbye. Shayna’s goodbye came from me. And because she refused, I did it myself. I told the hospice nurse to answer his cell phone and to put it on speaker when it rang. I went into the living room and called him and pretended to be her. I spoke to him in her words, with her inflections, and as much warmth as i could contrive. I stayed on the phone with him until i heard him smile and sigh.

So yeah, 100k.

As for the rest of my “affairs” I don’t care about much to be honest. I want part of me to be in the ocean with my dad so we can travel together. The rest of it is bullshit… it’s more for the people i would leave behind.

Let me stop this diatribe to be perfectly clear. I am not suicidal. I have absolutely no thoughts, plans, or desires to end anything. I’m actually the least suicidal i’ve been in years. That is a hilarious statement to write and to read back. As if it was a scale from least to greatest. Like in the hospital when they ask you “How bad is your pain from 1-10?” It’s similar to that, but in this case for some reason, it’s funnier.

I remember the anguish and pain of so many points in my life. I will bore you with the details at another time, but for now i simply wanted to put on the page something that matters.

It matters because i have seen my fair share of semicolon tattoos. It matters because the people who actually go through with it can’t speak to it anymore. They are gone. It matters because of how close i have gotten to ending things myself. When i say close, i mean ‘i shouldn’t be here’ kind of close.

It matters because it just does.

And as for the third note, it scares me now, not because of what it says, but because of how well it says it. It wasn’t a cry for help. It was an attempt to take care of everyone else one last time. To soften the blow. To prove that my leaving would be orderly, intentional, and peaceful. Because the truth of it all was that I had simply run out of ways to keep going. I knew those that would read it would understand that fact and that fact alone.

I wonder what you are feeling right now. If you’re afraid, sad, if any of it has resonated, or if you have already stopped reading all together. Any of those is just fine and honestly, while i feel pain right now, it isn’t for myself, it’s for you. I can’t really explain why, but i do know that once this is out there, it’s limitless in it’s potential. Typically, the word potential has a polite and positive connotation, but in this case it doesn’t. It’s a neutral and powerful word for me. For this specifically.

I cried about 20 minutes ago. Before i started writing, someone hurt my feelings. It’s quite simple what happened and honestly, not worth the space it would take up here to explain it, but it brought me to a place of pain. One that reminded me in the most subtle of ways that i am capable of being consumed. Again, i am nowhere close to it, but it is a possibility. I also wonder if it is a possibility for everyone or if some people never experience the thought of it for themselves.

Going back to the 1-10 scale. Maybe most people get to a 3 and that’s the extent of it for their whole lives. I wonder if I put each of them on paper, if i numbered them like this:

and so on…

if there would be a way to evaluate if the person was actually at that number, or if they were just ‘having a moment’ … And maybe something like that already exists, but even if it does, i still kinda want to make my own. It would force introspection and would challenge the “why” behind the “what”.

“You’re a 7? … Janet, you were late to work and Starbucks got your order wrong. Sit down.”

My god, thank goodness for medication. Could you imagine the absolute unhinged shit that would come out of me if i wasn’t prescribed anything? I actually have a notebook filled with the answer to that very question. i’ll share it with you at some point, and to be honest, it’s some of my greatest work. Manic Rachel is quite creative.

Dangerous, but creative.

In any event, here i am, on the couch in my little dollhouse on a Sunday evening. It feels like work is moments away, even though I have 14 hours before I need to be there. I’m calmer than i was when i started writing. I feel a bit better, and my feelings are less hurt. Matzoh, my cat is eating. I can hear him crunch away and that brings me joy. I love when he eats.

I’ll end with this. While the word ‘suicide’ was mentioned enough times for me to actually be committed, I’m at a 1, i swear.

I hope you are too.