Any story is a happy story
As long as you end it on a happy note
My life’s story makes me irredeemable…
in my eyes.
To some, it makes me a loser.
To others, a champion.
Others still think I’m a coward…
while others think I’m mentally ill.
The truth is, I’m all these things… and more.
It simply depends on where you end the story.
(And maybe, on where the story begins.)
I was born into a good and decent family.
I grew up in a safe, middle-class neighborhood.
I was taught Christian values.
I did well in grade school.
Things went sideways once I got old enough to notice girls though…
Making out became way more important than making plans for the future.
(Truth be told, I’d still rather kiss a girl than make a five-year plan. It almost doesn’t even matter who the girl is… as long as she’s willing to kiss me back…)
When I started to really care for the girls I was making out with…
when I discovered how horrible it feels to have your heart broken…
things really started falling apart.
I’ve never known how to have healthy relationships.
I was blessed growing up, in that I was popular, and friendly, outgoing, and optimistic…
and I naturally drew other people to me.
I didn’t have to try very hard to make friends.
That was good when I was growing up,
because as it turns out,
I don’t actually know how to make friends.
I only draw other people to me, naturally… organically… without understanding how.
Which makes it really hard, as an adult, to go out and find new friends.
I don’t even know where to go.
I don’t know how to approach people.
I don’t know how to make somebody want to be around me, or talk to me, or let me in.
And I want other people to let me in…
I’m so tired of feeling alone.
For a couple of years in middle school and high school, I had some really great friends.
But then I got hurt, a couple of times,
and I didn’t know how to work through it…
and there wasn’t anybody in my circle who I could go to, and ask for help.
I had to figure it all out on my own.
I don’t think I did a very good job.
I know… I know… I did the best I could.
I did the only thing I knew how to do.
I did what I saw everyone else around me do:
Withdraw…
Avoid…
Bottle up…
Ignore…
Anything but actually
confront the pain
and try to work through it.
I still don’t always know how to work through it,
but at least today, I’m trying. And sometimes, I think I get it right.
If my story could’ve ended in sophomore year,
it would have been, all around, a pretty happy story.
I had some issues… and there were already things I didn’t know how to navigate…
but by and large, life was good.
It would’ve been sad to die so young…
but I would have died happy… or so it seems, looking back.
If my life had ended senior year, though… not so much.
Since then, it kinda feels like
my life keeps going through these cycles, you know?
Sometimes I’m up.
Most of the time, I’m down.
If my life were to end today I think it would be pretty tragic.
But if I could’ve had it end two years ago…
when I’d just moved to Lubbock,
and I was actively fighting to reclaim my independence
and rewrite my destiny…
that would’ve been a beautiful time to die.
A wonderful way for my story to end,
and for my friends and family to remember me by,
forever.
There were times it could’ve ended, when I was in the Navy,
and I would’ve known I’d died a tragic death…
but my friends and family would think I died a hero.
Now, because I didn’t die back then,
I have to live as a coward, and a failure…
a pariah on society.
I could’ve died after my grandma died.
I lived with her for the last two years of her life.
I left my job to take care of her around the clock, so she could spend her final days at home…
in the house her and my grandfather had raised their children in…
the house they built their lives in…
the house that held all her memories of her forever love (my grandpa, obvi).
That would’ve been a tragic death for me…
but my family would have remembered the sacrifice I made
to take care of our matriarch,
and that would be more than enough to redeem me.
But if I had died then,
I wouldn’t have been here to help raise my nephew
when he came to live with me and his grandparents,
just two years or so after my grandmother died.
And those were happy days… days that I won’t trade for anything.
I challenge anybody to be miserable when their home is filled
with the joyful, innocent, heartfelt laughter
of a sweet five-year-old boy who just loves you,
for no reason other than the fact that you’re there.
For seven years, my nephew was my best friend… my brother… my twin…
my reason for staying alive.
I could’ve died when me and his parents had a falling out,
which I’m largely to blame for, by the way,
and which led to me having zero contact with my nephew – or his sister,
both of whom had become my only reason for getting out of bed each morning,
and now, that reason was gone.
Surely, if there’s any moment from my life
where I could have ended it all
that’s the one that everybody else in my family would have understood…
even if they never could fully come to terms with it.
I do believe that even God would have understood,
if I had taken my own life during those terrible,
trying years that me and my brother’s family
weren’t even speaking to each other.
But if I had ended things there…
I wouldn’t be his little sister’s best friend, today.
I wouldn’t even know my eleven-year-old niece
if I had taken my life back when me and my brother weren’t talking.
That would make dying at that point in my life even more tragic…
because my eleven-year-old niece is a fun kid…
and without any children of my own…
my siblings’ kids are all that I have to live for, sometimes.
And they’re more than enough, in their own right.
But I can’t hang my own future on somebody else…
not even other members of my own immediate family…
I have to figure out how to stay alive simply for my own sake.
Or so people tell me.
But most of the time, I don’t believe I’m worth living for.
Most of the time, I wonder why I haven’t already died,
and what I’m supposed to do with the time I have remaining.
Most of the time, I really don’t want to be alive anymore.
I was raised with Christian values, remember?
Which means I believe in Heaven
and I believe that Heaven will far surpass
anything we can ever experience in this earthly life…
anything.
So why can’t my life be over?
Why can’t I fall in love in Heaven?
Why can’t I help other veterans put their life back together in Heaven?
Why can’t I confront all of my past pain, heartbreak, and upset, in Heaven?
It seems like that would have to be so much easier…
so much safer…
so much more forgiving…
than to have to do it all here and now,
in a time and a place where it’s possible that I could do everything wrong
and me or somebody I’m trying to help could just end up getting hurt
and I could inadvertently make things worse, for everybody around me.
It’s frightening,
trying to come to terms with the fact
that we can cause each other so much unneeded
and unwanted pain in this life
simply through trying to help each other
find our way back home.
How many people’s lives
have I messed up because I didn’t know
how to handle my own mistakes
or how to cope with my own emotions
or how to admit that I was sorry.
I could die today.
I could die tomorrow.
I could die fifty years from now.
Although if I’m going to live that much longer,
I hope I can find a better way to manage my chronic pain and my PTSD
because it suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks having to live with this all every day
and feel like there’s nothing I can do,
like no matter what I try to do,
the pain will never fully go away.
Fifty years is a long time to have to live with that.
Hell… five years is a long time to have to live with that.
But if I die today, or if I die tomorrow,
and I haven’t even begun to work through
any of the pain that’s keeping me down right now…
I feel like that would be tragic.
That would be unforgivable.
If I took my own life to try to escape the pain…
that would be irredeemable, in my opinion.
My friends and my family would probably understand,
but that wouldn’t make it any less of a tragedy.
And I really, really want my life to be a happy story.
I don’t want it to always be tragic.
I can handle going through rough patches
as long as I know they’re not gonna last forever.
But if the rest of my life is destined to be a tragedy
what difference does it make to me
if I live another fifty years
or if I end it all tomorrow
if all that’s left in store for me
is more heartache.
More pain.
More sorrow.
More anger.
More resentment.
More loss.
If that’s all that’s left…
that’s not what I want.
Even if it is what I signed up for.
(Which, I don’t honestly know what I signed up for,
before I was born,
but I feel like it couldn’t have been this…)
Meanwhile, as I write this letter,
I’m listening to Trick Daddy,
“Take it to da House,”
and I’m not gonna lie it makes me wanna get up out my seat
and dance like nobody’s watching.
So maybe, even when I’m at my lowest,
there are still some things that can put a smile on my face,
and at least for a few minutes,
make it seem like maybe life is worth living, after all.
And maybe if I can find enough of those things…
and string together enough of “a few minutes of happiness”
here and there…
maybe my happy ending is still ahead of me.
Maybe it is early for me to be thinking about checking out.
Maybe I can stick around, and keep trying.
Keep fighting.
Keep holding on.
At least, for a little bit longer.
And maybe
a little bit longer
is all it takes
to really turn things around for good.
Maybe it’s worth holding on
just in hopes of another high point in my life
waiting for me around the next corner.
I want my life to be a happy one.
Maybe if I keep trying,
it can be.
Maybe I can learn how to really do things differently.
And maybe my life won’t be a tragedy, after all.
Maybe it’ll be one that people will be glad to remember
long, long after I’m gone.
Maybe,
that’s worth holding out for…
maybe…