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Thea
To Anyone Who Gives a Fuck,
A knife would be too messy. I don’t own a gun. Thanks to my fibromyalgia pain, I’ve never been any good at tying knots, and there aren’t any decent lakes within 50 miles. Pills don’t always work, and totaling a good car would be such a waste. Besides that, I’d have to ensure that I traveled fast enough for the impact to kill me. I hate driving fast.
No. Throwing myself from some rocky precipice is the way to go. There’s one within walking distance from my house. I look at it every night before I fall asleep.
Free-falling from a cliff would be an invigorating experience. One more moment to feel alive right before I died. Maybe the wind would whistle in my ears and tug at my clothing. My heart might thump, and a scream might tear from my throat.
Then it would all be over.
This isn’t some selfish attention-grab, by the way. I don’t want to hurt anyone or leave anyone sobbing, “I should have saved her!”
No one can save me. The world could fall in adoration at my feet, and I would feel nothing. And this is the conundrum. I. Feel. Nothing. I haven’t for a long while and am simply tired of existing.
It’s exhausting to survive as a shell of a person — to smile and pretend and perform useless tasks day in and day out. I shouldn’t have to keep enduring in this pathetic way if I don’t want to. In a world so flawed and ugly, I don’t owe anyone a thing.
And before you try to bring god into this, I don’t believe in him. Note my intentional use of lowercase letters. Don’t tell me that my individuality and unique perspective are needed in this world as if I’m allowed to truly be myself. Society isn’t built that way.
The rich and important stay rich and important, and the rest of us act as pawns in their sick games. We’re convinced that with enough blood, sweat, tears, and ass-kissing, we can climb the societal ladder and join the ones pulling our strings, but we can’t.
The only moves allowed are lateral.
I apologize. I misspoke. One vertical move is permissible — down.
You are welcome to fall from grace, to plummet to a level of perfect numbness and misery. I’m guessing it’s similar to falling from a cliff. I’ll find out soon enough.
It’s Nothing Personal,
Thea
Tuesday was a good day for falling from cliffs. Maybe I’d do it on Tuesday.
Or maybe not.
I closed my laptop, yawned, and stretched. I should stop writing suicide notes. Half of the details were fictional, like the part about the lake and the cliff. I did live within seven miles of Lake Nighthorse, and there wasn’t a rocky precipice to be viewed from my bedroom window every night. The part about feeling nothing, though, was the most honest thing I’d ever written.
The notes were weird. Why did I write them? Maybe because her note contained only three words. Maybe I wanted so much more than she gave me. I’m sorry, Thea. What kind of goodbye was that?
My aunt Lenny gave me the note a few days after my twelfth birthday and told me the truth about my mom. I burned the note with a lighter an hour later. It set off the smoke alarms and scared the shit out of poor Lenny. In fairness, rage-filled tweens don’t always make the most rational decisions.
After that, I became fascinated with not only my mother’s death but also my own.
I guess it’s only natural for a kid to wonder what would drive someone to take their own life. Lenny said she had postpartum depression, that my mother was a victim of a flawed society, that she loved me very much, and that it wasn’t my fault.
When I asked about my dad, where was he? What did he think about what my mom did? Why didn’t he want me? Lenny released her famous heavy sigh and said, “I have no idea who your father is, and we have no one to ask.”
At the formative age of fourteen, I took to the internet, certain that they’d find my dad for me. When nothing came of that but a few creeps that offered to “be my daddy,” I believed that I came into this world unwanted and that I would leave it the same way.
I, of course, immediately assumed all blame for my mother’s death and my father not wanting me. I plunged into my emo-goth phase at fifteen, complete with black clothing, black hair dye, thick eyeliner, and spiked choker necklaces. Aunt Lenny beat herself up for telling me too much. “Well, I sure fucked that up, didn’t I, sweetie?” She said that more times than I could count while she scrambled through raising me.
Did she mess up? Sure, but no mistake of my aunt’s was unforgivable, especially considering she’d raised someone else’s kid all alone. Lenny never got married, and when I asked about my grandparents, she’d get this dark look and say, “They are not good people, Thea. I’m doing you a favor, keeping them away.” My grandpa passed shortly after I turned sixteen, and my grandma followed a year later.
More death — death of strangers— but still death.
We didn’t go to the funerals. I demanded that Lenny explain her reasons, but she stubbornly stood her ground. “That is not your burden to carry, and it never will be, child.”