I am aware that everyone has weeks they wish they could undo. But I’ve never wished that so much before in my life. I wish I could untake the pills, unsay the breakup, unlive every moment in my life that has brought me to this point.

It’s wishful thinking. The (second) breakup happened, along with everything else, and I did take the pills. And for some reason I’m still here. I don’t know why. Everyone says I should be grateful, and perhaps they’re right. I got a second chance and thousands of others do not.

It’s hard to be grateful when you have no idea why you’re still breathing. It’s hard to be joyful about your life when the selfishness of your action is thrown in your face–as if you weren’t already thinking about that enough. When I undress at night the marks are there, leftover glue and rashes, evidence of the machines that monitored my heart (malfunctioning in so many ways) throughout that long night. There are bruises up and down my arms and covering my hands from nearly a dozen needles. I can’t ignore the evidence of what I’ve done because it confronts me every time I look in the mirror. It’s there in the faces of my friends, in the anxious messages from my mother.

I can never unlive this. Maybe I’ll learn to live because of it. And maybe there’s no lesson at all. Maybe I’m just one more lonely woman who even managed to fuck up her own death.

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