The End of the Tether

I have tried so damn hard to hang on, to keep going and to not let things overwhelm me, but they have, nonetheless. I have nothing left to live for as far as I can see. The future, such as it is, looks cold and bleak, like an Arctic landscape: featureless and endless with nothing whatsoever to encourage me to go there.

I do not feel I have the strength or the courage to even try again.

When life keeps kicking one’s feet from under you, it’s easier and less painful to stay down. I know that now, and it’s a lesson I should have learned a long time ago. I would have saved myself from a great deal of pain and heartache. What that means, though, is that I have no place to go now. I am out of options.

All except one: the Final Option.

To some it’s a mortal sin; to others it’s the coward’s way out. To me, it’s the logical step. Who is going to be bothered anyway? Alive, I am barely noticed, so why should my passing create any ripples in the fabric of the rest of the world’s daily routine? Unless I make my exit spectacular and headline-grabbing.

But that is not me.

I have been a nonentity all my life, the sort of person nobody notices as I drift through the days and weeks and months, year after tiresome year. Nobody knows if I am happy or sad, healthy or ill, rich or poor, lonely or cosy by myself. It is doubtful that they would even care if such a thought crossed anybody’s mind.

Too many slights have brought me to this point.

All those unacknowledged birthdays and Christmases; parties I was not invited to and conversations I was excluded from and cliques I was not invited to join. They mount up over time until the message is so loud and so clear that it becomes impossible to deny, let alone ignore: you are not wanted.

That message is now received and understood.

So, how to make my exit; take my final bow? Nothing painful, like jumping off a building or off a platform in front of a speeding train or dangling myself at the end of a rope. No, that won’t do at all, nor will anything messy like slitting my wrists. Yuck! Drugs would be my preference. An overdose of something toxic. Sleep my way into oblivion. Sounds good to me.

But I won’t do it.

At heart I am a coward, I know that about myself. In spite of all the knock-backs, all the slights and insults and all the negativity I have experienced, I am no quitter. I have developed a stubborn streak that won’t allow them to win. Damned if I will! I don’t know when, I don’t know how and I don’t know where it will happen, but I will succeed eventually.

Tomorrow is another opportunity to make it happen. I am going to grab it with both hands and run with it. That is the right and proper thing to do.

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