It was a bright, sunny day on the afternoon that I felt the desire to die. I despised
that walk home, as the scolding sun shined on my face. I could feel the sun mocking
me, mocking me because I lacked happiness, warmth, peace, all the qualities that I
had desired and never received. In my life, I realized that I had been wanting in these
qualities, and so, I had pretended. I had pretended that I was actually happy. I had acted
like a ray from the sun, containing all the characteristics that sunlight connotated- joyful,
cheerful, content. And, in the midst of my pretensions, I had ironically made myself
believe the small playacting of my constructions.
However, on that day, when the oppressive sun shined the most, I could feel the
rays seep down into my inner being and expose my falseness. As it did so, it laughed
all the harder, as if it were saying, "Do you think that you could be happy? I know you;
you're not able to deceive anyone, only yourself." Immediately, I was put on the
defensive. I searched within myself to prove that I was not deceiving anyone, that I had
finally conquered my sorrows. I ran through my memories, trying to recollect an event
which could prove that I was who I seemed to be. I attempted to find a pure, pure from
deceit, free from falseness. But as I began to recall event after event, I found the
omniscent odor of sadness, lingering in each of the "happy" moments that I had
resurrected.
I had failed, and I found that I had known all along that I wasn't truly at peace
with myself. This came as a shock to me because I had truly believed that I was happy. In
this respect, I had succeeded. I had succeeded in deceiving myself, "only yourself" as the
sun had said. I felt like a thirsting man in the desert, running to an oasis. He runs quicker
and quicker, preparing himself for the wonderful relief that he will soon find. There is
beaming glow on his face as he approaches the small pool of water. However, he finds
nothing, only the sand that accompanies him. Thinking that he passed the water, he runs
back for a short distance, and finds nothing once again. The pool of water
was a mirage, only an illusion. He deceived himself into believing that he would
not be thirsty, but he found only an illusion, an illusion which made his cravings larger. An
illusion, I thought to myself. My life is an illusion.
This was the reason that I wished to end my life. I didn't want to end my life
because it was sad, but because I had deceived myself so well into believing that I was
sorrowfree. I closed my eyes to the gaudy sun, the perfect model that I had imitated, but
could never be. I shut out the sun's light and almost crashed into a thorny bush, its prickly
stems pierced my body. I felt completely hopeless. "What do you want of me?" I cried
out to the world. I could hear its laughing voice responding, "I want you to realize how
wretched you really are."
I returned to my house. It was empty, in contrast to my mind, which was
brimming with thoughts. I opened a drawer and took out a knife, a virgin knife that I had
bought only yesterday. My mother had previously sent me to the market to buy a
new cutting knife. I had purchased the sharpest knife that I could find, not knowing why I
wanted to do this, only knowing that I was intrigued with the sharpness, the sure
definateness of its cut. I took this sharp knife and I brought it with me upstairs.
I clambered up the steps, each step seeming to be a monument, a buildup of all the sadness
and disappointment in my life. I would climb each one of them, conquering them, but at
the expense of conquering myself, my life. I stepped off the last step and felt a strange
surge of power running through my body. I walked into the bathroom, and I shut the
door.
I saw my reflection in the mirror, and I stopped for one last self-examination. I
looked at my eyes, large and blue. They shone in a bright way, having the capability to
gleam happily at will. However, this was an observation of my eyes at a superficial,
shallow level. I forced myself to look deeper, look more in depth with reality. By doing
so, I revealed the great wave of my deepest deceptions revealed. The eyes were the
window into a person's soul, and at last, I had looked into my own. The world had
exposed my falseness, and now, I too, saw not an emptiness of soul, but rather a
saturation of it, a saturation of sorrow.
I was ready, ready to finally escape the garish
world, ready to escape myself and my troubles. I flickered off the light. I didn't want to
see myself die. I grabbed hold of my weapon and I raised it above my wrists, ready to
strike. I brought it down, but then I suddenly stopped midway. I tried again, and the same
thing happened. I tried a third time, fourth, fifth, sixth... each time to no avail. I angrily
punched the light switch on and I shouted at my reflection. "Why are you so weak?
You've failed in everything, must you fail in this too?"
An invisible hand grabbed hold of
my throat and I could feel tears about to escape. "No tears!" I hollered at the mirror. To
cry would be to succumb completely to the weakness, to the deficiency that I had hated
the most. "No tears! No crying!" I repeated to myself, over and over again.
Nevertheless, the teardrops came, one after another, and I finally allowed myself to lay
down my guard. I wept, and I felt my chest shaking from my sobs. In my weeping, I
discovered that I wept not for my situation, but for my life, for all those
events where I had wanted to cry, but had smiled instead. I cried for all the situations
where I had deceived myself, I let loose my true feelings.
I looked again at my reflection
and a sudden revelation struck me, like lightning. This, this reflection that I was crying in
front of, this was my true self, without cover-up, without any pretensions. And in my
weeping, I was releasing all my sadness. The overwhelming saturation in my soul was
slowly being drained, tear by tear. I looked again at my reflection, deep deep down, and I
saw a tiny glimmer of hope. I saw a minute glimmer of potential. At that moment, I
realized that I didn't have to pretend to be a person who God had not intended me to be,
for here, here I discovered some strength, small as it was.
Nonetheless, I would press on
towards my goal of true happiness. I would survive. I had finally discovered my elusive
secret. I had failed in trying to cover up my life, I had failed in trying to kill myself, all
these paths that led to nowhere. And the despair in my soul had built up more and more,
until now. I felt a great relief, and for the first time in a very long while, I smiled sincerely.
So strange, so weird.. so beautiful. In the midst of all the weeping and crying, I smiled,
for this was the first time in my life where sadness covered my happiness, instead of
happiness covering my sadness. I had realized how miserable, how wretched I was, and
now... Now, it was finally time to move on.
