On April 28th, 2007 – I decided to end my life.
On April 29th, 2007 – I was speeding away from my job at Chipotle straight toward a concrete barrier on 75 north at about 100 miles an hour with every intention of never looking back.
I hear the collective gasp of “why?” whenever I tell this story and it’s always been really hard to articulate.
Honestly, I could probably write a whole young adult novel about that 6 month time span leading up to that whole thing that would get eaten up on the New York times best seller list. It’s by far one of those things that has so many layers to it that it’s hard to not look at surface level and go “well….that was dumb”.
13 years later and I started thinking more and more today about the reasons and the whys and the what the fuck aspects of that whole scenario because it is not as clear cut as it seems (if you’ll pardon the use of phrasing).
It comes down to convenience. It always comes down to convenience.
I met a boy online in 2001. We became fast friends. I was dating someone else, had no interest in said boy in that way at that time. In 2004, after the breakup of said relationship and random flirtations with others, said boy swooped in rather quickly to profess that he’d always had a thing for me and that he wanted to see if anything was possible between us. My feelings had been growing for a while in a rather non-platonic way but I ignored them until he made a move. By 2005, we were going back and forth talking about meeting and seeing if we hit it off in person the way we had talking online and over the phone. He said he wanted to do this as soon as possible. So many pretty words ensued. I was almost 20 years old and naive as all beat all. It started to slowly unravel from there. Should we meet up with a friend in Montreal? I was going to be there anyway. “No, I want to see you myself first”. Okay, great. How about somewhere in the middle? “Okay, we can start thinking about that and pick a place”. Great. When? “Whenever you’re ready”.
In 2006, after a year of this back and forth game, I figured it was going nowhere fast and said so. How could I say that when I wasn’t putting in the effort to do anything? Didn’t I realize he wasn’t ready? Didn’t I read the signals? Didn’t I understand that he wasn’t all that interested? And then the mother of all emotionally targeted insults: “I only talk to you because you’re always there and you’re convenient.” My being there for him whenever he asked me to be got thrown directly back in my face. An hour-long tirade started after that. Suddenly the words were ugly and angry – I’d misunderstood the relationship, I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t sexy enough, I wasn’t going to be intimately good enough and being held down to one girl was an awful concept. Over and over, our friendship, romantic feelings, and subsequent “connection” was a connection of convenience. When other women were around that were ultimately more pleasing, I meant nothing. I was nothing. And any thought I had otherwise was my own fault. I shouldn’t have assumed I was worth any of the trouble I was.
( I should point out that said boy showed back up briefly in 2009 before I moved to California and had the balls to tell me that he “regretted that we’d never tried to be together. I think you’d have made me very happy”. I told him I was in a relationship and happy and we could just be friends. He said that without being able to “talk the way we used to” and get what he wanted, it wasn’t worth it. )
September of 2006, there were more pretty words. Different boy this time. Every pretty word you can think of, every single thing that a girl of 21 wants to hear. “You’re amazing, you’re special, I’m going to marry you as soon as I can”. Talking on the phone every night, discussing the future at every turn. He was getting divorced and my presence alone meant SO much. She was awful and I was everything she wasn’t. We just had to wait until the divorce was final. And then – Let’s meet up happened. In March of 2007, he flies down and spends a week with me. He was the first man I had let anywhere near my body of my own free will since the many times someone had been near/in my body against my will from the ages of 5 until I was 12. It was a banner moment of healing for me. I had pushed past all of that and finally…someone loved me. My abuser had been so wrong! I wasn’t just meant for 1 thing. I was good and desirable. I was going to be happy and that was the best revenge of all.
He went out of his way to make that week together perfect – hotels and restaurants, going and looking at houses that were for sale and talking about what ours would look like, talking about the paperwork needed to emigrate to another country because I would be doing that. And then he left to go back home. Pretty words again – “this was amazing. We’ll be together soon. The divorce is almost done. I’ll marry you as soon as I can”. He stopped answering his phone the next day. Stopped answering his instant messages and emails. Wasn’t online at all for 5 days after getting back. Finally! An email on day 6. He was so busy getting back to everything that he’d completely forgotten to let me know he was leaving town for a few days. Way, way less pretty words. No “I love you”s. No “you’re amazing”s. Nothing at all. A few days later – an email finally. His wife was pregnant, due to give birth any day, and he wasn’t going to leave her. Don’t call me. Don’t write to me. This wasn’t love. I just needed to get this out of my system.
Once again, I was a matter of convenience – though I did and do question how convenient it was to fly all that way for a really expensive booty call, basically. All my thoughts that I had finally overcome my issues with intimacy and that my abuser was wrong was…toast. The thoughts came in like rapid fire – She had been 100% correct. No matter how many times I gave my heart freely, and then my body freely, it was going to turn out the same. And when I realized I was pregnant for the first time by a man who did not love me, only wanted my body to use, and had no interest outside of that? It was – again if you’ll pardon me for the phrasing – the coffin nail that sealed the deal. I was pregnant, though. And I’d always wanted to be a Mom. And I was 21…I could raise this baby myself. I didn’t need him. We’d be happy without him. My baby would know he or she was wanted, always. And then I miscarried over the course of the night between April 28th and April 29th, 2007 without any real understanding of what was happening. Even my body had betrayed me. It was like even the universe was saying I wasn’t worth the trouble. My decision came very shortly after.
13 years post my decision to not go through with it and I can tell you that I have largely accepted those scenarios for what they are and while I still feel the sting of it when I venture into this story, I accept that it was a different time and I was a different person.
I have had a lot of happy things after that that I would have missed had I gone through with what I wanted to: had I believed I was, in fact, not worth the trouble and was just convenient. It hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. And when Alex died in 2016, I had a lot of fighting my own demons to do. I still do sometimes.
I am a lot of things. Convenient isn’t one of them. Worth the trouble though? Oh. In every way possible. And I know that now.
Keep up the good fight, all. You never know how wrong you are about this life until it sneaks up on you. And you’ll want to be here to find out how that will pan out.
