Giving Up

The other day I was at the beach and I slowly stepped towards the ocean. One foot in front of the other I tiptoed into the current. I could feel the water slowly rise up my leg as I walked deeper and deeper—starting at my toes and slowly rising to my knee. I felt the cool, wet sand beneath my feet as I plunged forward—my body growing numb to the cold. To my right, the sun was setting and the words of a favorite song played on loop in my head. As I walked into the ocean quietly singing along to the music in my mind and watched the sun drifting away, my thoughts were brought to the closing scene in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin. The character swims out into the ocean without return—alluding to the desperate fact that she had committed suicide. "The foamy wavelets curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace." I hadn't ever understood that scene. Why or how could someone just walk into the ocean and die. How could they allow the ocean to take hold of them and envelop them in the crushing grasp of the waves? Wouldn't they just swim? Wouldn't their lungs fight so hard to stay alive? I remember thinking she just seemed like a whiny woman.

But my life has changed and it has taken me places that I couldn't before fathom. I have been in that depth of despair. I have felt the urge and pull towards the ocean—the release from this life. I know what it’s like when the brain warps and twists your perception on life. You know that suicide is awful and wrong, and yet there is this undeniable pull towards the act. It’s like you’re in a haze and life seems dauntingly endless. It’s when you feel as if nothing you do could ever matter to anyone and you’re just sitting there, invisible. You’re brain goes numb and the only thought that ever crosses your mind is end it. Just end it now. Nobody will care. Nobody will even notice. God doesn't want you to suffer. So just do it. There are so many ways you could do it. Look—there’s something sharp right there. Just jab that into yourself. That will at least stop some of the pain. DO IT. And then you do. And you do it again. And again. Until your body is covered in bruises and cuts. Until you see more color on your skin than you see flesh. It never ends. And when the escape is finally enough, you sleep. Until the next time those warped and twisted thoughts cross your mind again. Trust me, I know.

I can connect with Edna in a way I never could have before. I occasionally do feel like Edna. And it takes all of the strength that I have not to succumb to those temptations. Yet, when I was in the thick of the craze, I felt as if I was weak for not ever fully succumbing to the pressing thoughts. I felt that if I had enough courage, I truly would end it. I was too fearful. So a tiny part of me applauds Edna. She had the guts to do what every fiber of her being felt was right. But... it's not right. I've seen it. It never ends the way you planned. It never quite has the effect that you had anticipated. While you were numb to others around you, they were not. They see you. And they feel you. And when you're gone, they feel the emptiness that once was you. So don't. Look at the waves and don't think of them as a means of escape. Think of them as a reason to stay.