Live Life

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Today I am grateful for life. Just plain life. For good or bad, for happy or sad, for rich or poor, life is all I need. My life might not be chocked full of exotic travel, or huge success, or a perfect body, or perfect health, or great excitement, but it is my life and I want it.

I’m sad today. Yesterday the Septa commuter train line was closed near us because of “police activity” according to the TV news. I had a sinking feeling then and it was confirmed in my morning newspaper that a forty-year-old woman committed suicide on the tracks. How sad. How terribly, horribly sad.

I don’t know her story. I don’t know what she was suffering with, or from. I know absolutely nothing about her. I’m still sad. The senseless loss of life is sad. I have known way too many people who have chosen to end their lives, leaving family and friends to shake their heads and try to analyze what happened. . .what signs they missed. . .what they might have done differently.

We want answers but the person with the answers isn’t there to help, even if they could. But the answer might not be grandiose. Life isn’t about black and white. This happened, therefore I did this! That happened, so I did that! It’s often much more gray. Something gets too much for them and the only answer seems death. But it isn’t the only answer. How can you help them understand that whatever life they want or have is important. . .for them? They feel hopeless. They feel helpless. But still, they count. I count. You count.

A friends’ dear husband of 45 years, who suffered from numerous ailments and fought for life every single day, died this week. How does one person struggle for life at all cost and one person despair enough to take theirs? It will baffle me forever. I have no answers.

I get it that it’s really hard sometimes. I’ve experienced seriously hard times. Times when I didn’t know if I could move forward another day, but now, days, months, years later, I have moved forward and I have no clue what it was that brought me to that past despair so many times. . .and less of a clue what brought me out of it, except just life. Life.

There is the too obvious explanation of mental illness and addictions that can warp someone’s sense of self, distorting their true value of life. There are financial problems and ethical problems and medical problems and personal problems and relationship problems and when you’re going through them it seems like the end of the world. But it isn’t. It will pass. It will all pass. And I don’t believe that everyone who commits suicide would be considered mentally ill. For some it might seem like a solution to a temporary problem. But it’s permanent. And that’s the saddest thing ever.

What seems devastating right now, could morph into something totally different in the future. Life’s path is not a straight line and I’m glad. Without the bends and twists and drop-offs and climbs, it would be so boring. Some days I wish for a little more boring. Some days I want more excitement. But every day I want life. I hope you do, too. Please. . . choose life! YOUR life.