Hating myself and my life

When I was 20, I tried to kill myself. I sometimes tell people I was 16. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I had more reason at age 16 and should have tried it then. Maybe I would have succeeded. At age 20, I failed. But it wasn’t because I didn’t try. My plan was fine; I just didn’t take into account everything that might happen. There’s no way I could have. Because not in my wildest dreams could I have know that someone who hated me would ultimately save me.

I was 20 and my world was crumbing or had crumbled. There was nothing left to live for. The man I loved was slowly going crazy. I had no job, no home. I could find no warmth. Everything was cold and frozen and dirty. I was more alone than I had ever been in my life. There was so much nothing.

I’ve always wished for a different life. I’ve always wondered why everything has to hurt. All the time. Why memories and ghosts and the coldness of my past is always there. And why the people I think I love seldom are. At least not when I need them. Which is always.

Life could have been over at 20. And yes, I would have missed out on some magical moments. But magic is an illusion. I sometimes wonder if it all isn’t an illusion. These feeling that I think I have to write about and this love in my heart that threatens to tear a hole through my skin and scream its existence to the world.

I hear it sometimes, in the sound of a city bus pulling away from the curb. A train whistle in the distance. The muffled thud of a door closing as someone walks in, and then out.

I shouldn’t be here. And yet, I am.