Guest Post.... By P

I wish the saying "There are two kinds of people in the world ..." would really just pass on. There are LOTS of different people in the world. In fact, it's my belief that no two of us are made alike. We don't think alike, things don't look or smell the exact same to any two people in the world. You find those you have things in common with, and those you don't.

Now, I DO think there are two different ways to look at a lot of things. People that like chicken, and people that don't. People that believe in aliens, and those that don't. Ghosts, the same. People that are racists, people that aren't. I'm yes on the chicken, but a firm no on the alien thing. Ghosts, probably. More like lingering spirits, but y'know. I'd like to believe I'm not racist, to every once in a while I do find myself holding a preconceived notion when I need to not hold it.

There are two general opinions on suicide. Those that are disgusted by it, don't understand how someone could leave their loved ones, their obligations, jobs, co-workers. How someone could take the "easy" way out. And those that tilt their head, and let the glamour of an escape linger for a bit. Some of those latter people go though with it, some let it linger for another day.

This is the perspective of someone in that second group.

First of all, killing yourself isn't exactly easy. And it's not the "easy way out." Yes it's a simple solution, but it's by no means EASY. And the decision is never reached lightly, at least it's never been by me. Now, of course I've never gone through with the idea of killing myself, obviously, or I'd be one hell of a "lingering spirit." Plus, spirits can't have internet in their name very easily, now can they?

But I have reached the conclusion that the only way out might be exactly that. I can't tell you how many times in my life that solution has dropped from the sky like a spider in a web, dangling, spinning, dancing for you to see all sides. Or really, not even that many times in a day. Living with thoughts of suicide isn't a once in a while thing. For me, every time something goes wrong, there it is. Dangling. And every time, I think to myself how much I want to go home. But I know in my heart if I ever did, I would leave chaos and heartbreak behind me. The people I would leave behind, the things they would think, the feelings of guilt and despair that I would watch from that other place, just beyond the veil of reality. Are things really that bad? Sometimes, yes they are.

It's never one thing. It's this customer or that bill or this call or that text, or this stupid cartoon on facebook designed specifically to make me feel like crap, and it works. Every. Damn. Time. No one decides to kill themselves because This boy doesn't like me or that girl thinks I'm fat/gay/straight/dumb/ugly. It's those days when you wake up late and the hot water doesn't work and you see a spider in your bathtub that makes you knock your straightening iron onto your foot and then it makes a blister and people drive slow on the way to work and your boss is on your ass because it's 9:01 and BY GOD YOU AREN'T ON THE FLOOR YET and you go out to someone else's bill problems when the guy next to you is selling an iPad and internet and $200 in accessories and giving you the stank eye the whole time and you go home to your internet being off because you can't pay the bill because all you ever get is damned bill problems and you can't sell squat and at the end of the month your bank account is overdrawn because you do your best to pay all that stuff but it's still not enough and the phone just keeps ringing but no one really wants you they just want your money and Man I missed the Vampire Diaries again and I'm hungry and I'm sick and why can't things just be easy for once? Now, that was exhausting wasn't it? Imagine that for...oh, 90 or 100 days in a row. Pills seem so easy. I could run a warm bath and drag the really sharp potato knife across my wrists, no one would find me for days. Until it started to smell. Maybe my mom would come by if she couldn't get ahold of me, but I bet that would take a week or so at least. Sam would probably come by first, but not until she could find something, so that's at LEAST a day, I'd be gone by then. How many trazodone would it take to go to sleep and never wake up?

These are the things that go through my mind, once, twice, three or four times a day. Every time someone laughs at me not with me. Every time someone else is happier than me (and that doesn't take much). Every time someone wants to scream at you for working for a company that charges HOLY CRAP $36 dollars to do an UPGRADE my GOD we must be the DEVIL. But it's not just the one instance. It's wondering how many people that one person interacts with a day and how many days he's ruined. It's knowing someone beautiful inside and out and seeing someone hurt them. Knowing there are people out there that have millions, billions of dollars and I can't pay my $80 directv bill. Every time you give your heart to someone and they just shrug and say, Eh. No thanks. These things build up like water on a damn. Every once in a while you spring a leak, and every once in a while, that leak gets out of control and someone hurls themselves down the gulley.

Then, there's that game changing But.

But, what about my Mom? Will she feel like she failed me? Like she didn't call me enough, or couldn't help me enough.

But, what about Sam? Will she feel like she should have known? Will she think the same thing? She's lost so many people, I can't be the one that breaks her. I'm the one that holds her together. She needs me.

But, what about the beautiful things God put here for me to enjoy? The trees, the way they reach toward the sky, wanting home just as much as me. Beautiful people like my friend Sam, my Mom, Dixie (my gramma for all intents and purposes), Amanda K at work; that I swear is one of the most positive people I've ever met. Ian Somerhalder, an actor who devotes MOST of his free time to his two charities and working on a show I genuinely enjoy. And he's just so beautiful, his love for animals and our planet is inspirational. What about my job, my customers, my FAVORITE customer who comes in and turns my day around like a snap.

It's truly amazing when God knows I'm struggling. He knows exactly what to give me to turn me around, stop me from looking at the dangling idea like a light at the end of the tunnel. Today: he sent me one of his messengers. I asked him, Stanley, how do you stay so positive? He said to me: "it's only by the grace of God." Isn't that so true?

I was put here for a purpose. I haven't found it yet, I've spent a solid 30 years really mucking things up. I cannot turn my back on the purpose He's given me. I can't turn my back on my friends, on my family. I can't dwell on the things I don't have and ignore the AMAZING people I've been given in life to enjoy and see through trials.

Mom. Sam. The two solid reasons I can write you this today and give you the perspective of those of us that see that idea, admire it as it tempts us. I don't stay for me. I stay for them. I stay for Him.

So if you've ever battled with the dangling Option Two, think of those in your life you'd leave behind. Those that will have to tackle your chaos in your wake. Those that will wonder: Did I do everything I could? Did I really understand?

Don't leave your mess behind for someone to clean up. You have something to live for, you just have to look hard enough to find it. If it was EASY, it wouldn't be worth it.