Let me explain.

With the release of the long-awaited series "13 Reasons Why," I feel compelled to let my own morbid little tradition out of the closet. Now, as a disclaimer, I want to say that this is simply something I've kept doing purely for my love of writing and to satisfy my tragically romantic side and that I am now completely passed this part of my life.

But, I'm sure you're already frustrated with my rambling, so I'll get to it.

Ever since junior high (when I had my first girlfriend and some rough times that only a select few know the details of), I've been struggling. That's when I wrote my first one. My first suicide note. At that point, it was something I thought I was going to need, but as time went on, I wrote more, and it became a way to deal with those negative emotions. It became one of my best outlets, and I eventually made a tradition out of it. I've wrote one for every single one of my friends, and some of you even have several. I write them for a variety of reasons now, and perhaps they've even become a reflex. I meet some new people, we get close, and I write another note. But they mainly explore the concept of life without me in it. An idea I don't think people think about enough today. In a world full of narcissism and instant gratification, I find that taking myself out of the equation gives me a very interesting perspective on my actions.

Every time I finish a note, I'm reminded of just how fragile life can really be and how much we can really learn from our mistakes. You often hear: "Learn from your mistakes." And yet so many of us, myself included, are guilty of learning the same lesson from the same mistake over and over again. This, in all honestly, isn't a bad thing, but for me it's another reasons to write. All too often I think people learn from their mistakes, but they simply choose to ignore the results. Maybe they find it too painful; they are genuinely living in blissful ignorance, they're afraid of change, or maybe it's both of those.

Regardless, this observation fed my tradition, and I credit a good bit of the person I am today to it.

Now, some of you might say that I'm cheapening the concept of a suicide note and that I should just write "open letters" to my friends and on some levels, I definitely agree with you, but I haven't changed it for two reasons. First, I find that it is much easier to be honest about things when I'm writing as if these are the last words they'll ever read from me. Second, this tradition was born from a very dark time in my life and it helps keep me from going back down that road. Finally, I want to encourage any of you who are in that dark place to fight through it. You have no idea what things you'll accomplish in the future and the world needs those achievements. So please, reach out to a friend because no body deserves to walk that dark road in the first place, and they deserve to be alone even less. I wish you all a happy and safe life.