Today is an anniversary. It isn't really a happy or exciting anniversary. Although it is, in some ways. It just isn't one that people would ever really want to celebrate with me. It's a personal anniversary, a time when I usually engage in some pretty intense introspection.
You can look at it two different ways, if you like. The first way is the more depressing way, and honestly the way I usually look at it. Three years ago today I tried to kill myself. Every year I look back and wonder and analyze and try to figure out why, and if I really wanted to die, and if I should have done this or that differently. I understand why most people don't want to celebrate this day with me (not that I've ever really asked). "Hi, wanna help me celebrate the day I almost killed myself?" "No, no, not really so much, no."
But there is another way to look at it, and this is the way I am struggling to see it this year. Three years ago today I tried to kill myself...and I didn't die. Three years ago today...I lived. This...this is something to celebrate. I am alive! And given what my life has been, before and after that day, and especially right now, that is something exciting. That is something extraordinary. I am alive. But no one really seems that interested in celebrating this with me, either. In fact, most people seem to think that I should forget about this day altogether.
Speaking of people, there are two people that I always think about a lot on this anniversary. One carries the honor of being one of the few people I have ever hated, though I think I do not hate him anymore. Certainly I cannot hate him on this day. Bradley Menne saved my life by calling the police on me. I can imagine how hard it is to do that; I myself have been in a position of talking to a friend and wondering if they are truly suicidal...and if I should call the police on them, and live with them being saved and hating me if I was right...or hating me for the false alarm if I was wrong. In the end, I've always done nothing. So I can imagine a little of what he went through. The other person is Officer Mike Hoyt of the Watertown Police Department. Officer Hoyt saved my life by sending me to hell...I mean, by sending me to Mendota. I know it wasn't an easy decision for him, either. And I thank them both for doing what they did. I thank them both for my life.
And now, I am going to celebrate being alive. I will celebrate alone, but it will be a celebration nonetheless.
Happy anniversary, Life.
I am grateful that you did not die that day and that you are still around to enjoy life. Even though I think you do not believe me when I say this, I do love you. And I pray for you.
ReplyDeleteI do not doubt your love, Bradley (and Katherine). I do not think I have ever doubted that you loved me, or at the very least you thought you loved me. It is the methods by which you expressed that love that have come between us.
ReplyDeleteStill and all, there is an end and beginning to everything. Old friendships die, but sometimes, like the phoenix, they rise new born from their own ashes. And like the phoenix, they are new, different, not the same as they were before. The question is, are the embers still warm enough to spark the phoenix to new life?
i can't figure out how to log into my wordpress. myh account is messed up and i have to fix it, otherwise your comment would be up by now. O.o I'm quite angry at Wordpress right now
ReplyDeleteZat is why I use ze blogger. :)
ReplyDelete