The Pros and Cons of Death, Doing Laundry, and Shaving Legs

**tw: suicidal ideations

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Last night I cried. Or maybe it was the morning before? Or possibly last week? The days and nights blur together when you watch so many of them pass through tear-filled eyes.

On that day, or night, or both, or neither, I sit in my room. Alone and lonely, experiencing an all too familiar sense of despair. I stare blankly ahead. Shirt on. Pants around my ankles. Unsure if I stopped in the middle of putting them on or taking them off. I’m spiraling downward, anxiously awaiting my rock bottom. Am I there yet? No, I wouldn’t have to ask if I were. I seek escape. I contemplate the pros and cons of death.

Pro: I’ll never have to wear a bra again.

Con: I’ll have never seen the northern lights.

Pro: No more nightmares or flashbacks of the acts or terror committed against my mind, my body, my spirit.

Con: I would let the kyriarchy win.

Pro: I will no longer have to deal with this loneliness and isolation.

Con: I’m so alone and so isolated that there is no one who would mourn my death. My ghost would be very sad.

I sob with greater intensity.

My mind drifts.

I contemplate on the lives of Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. If only I mattered enough to be memorialized as they. I wonder if their ghosts are sad.

My mind drifts.

I decide a heroin overdose is the easiest way to go. The oven is too dangerous, and pockets full of stones seem so painful. But where would I get heroin? I don’t even have a weed dealer, let alone a heroin dealer. Besides, shooting up seems difficult. How does one find a vein anyway? If I had the energy, I’d google it. I don’t.

My mind drifts.

I go through my mental rolodex of bridges in New York City. Brooklyn Bridge: Not tall enough. Verrazano Bridge: Might be tall enough. Golden Gate Bridge: Clearly not in New York, but I wish it were.

My mind drifts.

I miss the Pacific Ocean. What I would give to view it in this moment. To peer out into the vast nothingness before me. To watch the waves crash against the rocks. To feel the salty breeze on my skin.

Pro: Why simply view the Pacific when I can be a part of it? California is calling. It seems an appropriate end. Going home to go home.

My mind drifts.

Moonlight or sunlight or street light streams through the window, illuminating the south side of my room. Across from me sits a large box I should have shipped to my sister weeks ago.

Con: My sister. She’s already lost her mother to death, her younger brother to drugs, her older brother to delusions and hallucinations, and her father to his own ego and disregard for her safety and well-being. It’s not fair that she should lose her sister, too.

A pile of clothes has amassed on top of that box. Clothes too clean for the hamper but too dirty for the closet. We all know that pile of clothes. The one we all keep sitting somewhere in our apartments. I stare at it, hating the sight of it. Having not the energy nor the motivation to address it.

Pro: I wouldn’t have deal with those clothes. Nor the dishes in the sink. Nor my unshaven legs.

My mind drifts.

The police, the coroner, and whoever finds me will judge me. They’ll look about and shake their heads.

“Look at this mess. Did you see the pile of dishes in the sink?”

“She couldn’t even shave her legs for the occasion.”

“What is she wearing?”

Con: I can’t be found looking like this.

When they discover my body, my apartment should at least be clean. I can’t have people thinking I’m a slob. And I have to be wearing a decent outfit. Nothing fancy, but definitely not this. My underwear don’t even match. They never match, but if I’m to be found with my pants around my ankles, they should. At least this once.

My mind drifts.

To nothing this time. I simply sit. For how long I cannot say. My heart feels empty. My body feels heavy. Eventually, I lay down. Crying has exhausted me.

My mind drifts.

I sleep.

That day would not mark the end of my journey. I’ve yet to see whether it would be the end of my downward spiral. On that day, or night, or both, or neither, I sat, and I cried. I contemplated my end, and I decided it wasn’t time. On that day, my life was saved, if only temporarily, by a pile of not quite clean, not quite dirty clothes, with the help of a sink full of dishes, and a pair of unshaven legs.

I sleep not knowing what my world will be when I awaken. Not knowing what tomorrow will bring. Maybe a night’s sky filled with northern lights. Maybe the ocean’s salty breeze on my skin. Maybe another day, or night, or both, or neither of tear-filled eyes. I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that this time there will be a tomorrow. And I look forward to the sunrise.