It’s late at night. I don’t remember the time, but maybe that’s a good thing. The ambulance is loud but I can’t process any real noises. The woman that is assigned to ride with me in the back of the truck unhooks the straps and the locks that tie me down to the stretcher, she lets me sit up on the plastic cot and it hurts to move. My legs and arms are tight and covered in dry blood. I don’t remember much of the emergency room but I do know that I was there for over sixteen hours, in and out of consciousness. There was a short period of time when they thought I was not going to make it, that my determination had conquered theirs. I was having tiny flashbacks of the lights in the room I had been told to wait in. It had not been my first time on that floor of the hospital, but I sincerely hope it will be my last. At least now I do.

The events of the previous hours were blurry and spotty. What I do remember still haunts me, the hospital gown that had to be untied and loosened to keep me from bleeding even more than I already was. I remember having to pee in a small orange cup and blowing as hard as I could through a straw for a breathalyzer test. I remember waking up in the hospital bed, my grandfather holding my hand but looking away. He was crying and had tried to cover my arms with the scratchy sheets they had given me in an attempt to keep me warm. Part of me thinks the real reason they gave me sheets was because when they thought I was going to die they wanted something to cover my cold and hollow body with.

I do not want to dance around the topic any longer than I already have these past few years. I was hospitalized because I tried to kill myself. This was the second time. The night I went into the emergency room I had taken a small razor blade and lost all of my feelings. I saw the red lines begin to pour on my arms and I could not stop. I was shaking and could not physically control myself. I lost it, I lost myself. I promised my family I was fine and that I would never do it again. Why did I lie to them? Why was I so selfish? There was blood streaming from the insides of my elbows on my arms all to the line of my wrist. There must have been at least fifty on each arm. I was dizzy and numb and I was leaving. I scared myself so much that night. The worst part is, I loved it. So I didn’t stop after my skin was barely visible on my arms. I moved to my stomach, my rib cage, my feet and my hips. I think my legs were the most brutal feature. I let the blade drag from the top of my thighs all to my ankles, a pattern so beautiful yet so horrifying that one could never truly understand. Something within me had been released. A demonic monster full of hate and gore and deathly desires. I no longer cared about myself. I hadn’t showered in days or eaten a full meal in over a week. The small doses of food I was consuming were projected into the sink within an hour of being swallowed. I made myself so sick and filthy. I disgusted myself and to this day I still do. What a monster I had become. My body felt cold and the only sensation against my skin that existed within me was the boiling heat of the blood running against my body. It hurt to move and to breathe and even to think, but I indulged in every second of my self-hate. There was music in the back of my throbbing mind but the words were unclear and the tune reminded me of a song I had long forgotten. I saw my life speeding beneath my eyes. I remembered being five years old and being scolded for drawing on my arms with marker, but then explaining that my other mother had told me it would wash off and I escaped the lecture. I remember picking leaves the size of the clouds and using them to pretend to be a hula dancer on my grandparents back porch. I remembered the crayons that looked like colored pencils and twisted out. My grandma had bought them for my brother, my cousin and I when we went to a cabin somewhere up state. I remembered being in the back seat of the car and leaving the driveway of the apartment buildings that my family stayed at for a while, leaving to go and get my cat that I would later name Mittens. I had come up with the name from being in the tiny, cluttered kitchen and my mother would let me pretend to be a cat. I would ask her what kind of cat and what she would name me. I remembered the first time we visited the house I currently live in with the real estate agent. The first time I stepped into my room and I told my parents that I could see us living there. I remembered the last time I saw my dog, Georgie, the day she died. I remembered breaking down and falling onto the patch of loose dirt that she lay under in her blanket, my father had just buried her there. I had dirt covering my clothing but it didn’t even phase me.

I remembered so much within those few minutes between consciousness and blacking out for the first of many times that night. Immediately I wanted to take it all back. I wanted my wounds sown up and healed just minutes after they were created. I saw my mother crying and telling me she loved me and how I doubted her. I was lying on my back and I could feel the tear drops running from the corners of my eyes and into my ears. It was one of the best and worst feelings I have ever witnessed. I finally could feel. I finally had emotions. But it was within the few remaining minutes of my life that I was finally alive for the first time in so long. That hurt me so much, being able to have hope even though there was none left. I know it sounds stupid but there’s an old episode of The Bernie Mac Show where Bernie and Wanda are trying to have a baby and she can’t get pregnant so Bernie goes to the sperm bank and is tested to see if he’s fertile enough to get her pregnant. And the results come back and Wanda looks sad and Bernie says he’s shooting blanks but then she tells him that she could get anyone pregnant but her. And he’s confused for a second because she should be happy; he can get her pregnant like she always wanted to be. But then he realizes that it isn’t him that’s the problem, that Wanda can’t have a baby. The camera switches over to Bernie and he says something along the lines of “While I thought I had the option to have a kid, it seemed like so much work and I didn’t really want to do it. But now that I know that I can’t, a part of me is missing and I feel that hole. America, you may not be able to tell right now but I’m crying.”

And that’s kind of how it was. While I was alive I took each breath for granted and didn’t pay much mind to the fact that one day it could all be taken away. Then when my life was leaving my body and I was dying it hit me. I only wanted to be alive when I couldn’t. Every day that I was miserable I should have been thankful. The old saying of “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” is so true. You don’t realize how often you use your phone until it’s broken. You don’t realize how often you use your right arm until it’s in a cast and you can’t hold anything or do anything with it until it heals. I was taking so much for granted and I hated myself for it. Some days I still do, but here’s the thing; I made it. I survived. Whether or not I wanted to at the time doesn’t matter anymore. I’m alive and I want to stay that way for as long as I can. It has been over a year since I tried to kill myself for the second time and it has been over a year since the last time that I cut myself or harmed myself in any way. Some days I have to remind myself of that. I have to remind myself that the bravest thing I have ever done was to continue to live when I didn’t want to. That if I could turn back time and change it all, I wouldn’t. I learned so much while I was lying on my ugly beige carpet in my bedroom in my tiny white house in this tiny rude town. I learned that I have to care. I have to care about myself and my family. I have to care about my feelings and where I stand each day with my will to live. I have to remind myself that I was put on this earth for a reason, and that reason is to make a difference.

Life is so beautiful. I’m not going to force you or pressure you to believe me, but I can promise to you that it is. Do you ever sit in the car while listening to music and you look out the window and pretend that you’re in the music video for the song? Do you ever stand in the shower and argue with yourself and act out what you’re going to say to someone when you confront them? Do you ever look at the dirt that you’re standing on and move your eyes out of focus and see thousands of ants moving all at once? Because that’s what life is all about. Life is about realizing how small yet significant you are on earth and then embracing it and making a difference one person at a time. Life is about the moments when you zoom out and your cheeks turn red and your stomach tenses up and fills with butterflies. Life is about feeling your lungs fill with cold and fresh air. Life is so beautiful, it’s sad to see people that have yet to realize this. I can only hope that they do not have to go through what I went through to see life through such a clear and accepting eye. Maybe that’s why I went through what I did, so that I could help others avoid it.

So it’s now 9:30 on Monday morning and I feel better about who I am. I feel better about who I used to be and who I was while I was growing into my current self. Of course I will never fully heal, but I am the closest I have ever been. I feel like myself again and it has been so long. It feels so good to be so happy to be alive.