I suppose you could say I’m isolated from the rest of the world. Sure, I have a family, if you could call them that. From the outside, to a stranger looking in, I would seem to have a normal life. But what the strangers don’t see-can’t see, is the way my life really is.
My family, for example. It’s not a real family at all. A family should be a group of people who show their love for each other, who show they care for each other. People who talk to each other, and tell each other how they feel.
That’s not my family at all.
And my friends…well. Friends should be people who can talk to each other, too. Who care about each other.
Those aren’t my friends at all.
Those strangers, those people on the outside of this dark little circle I call a life, they look in, and I can tell what they think. "That girl’s got the best of everything… a loving family, good friends!". Loving? How do they know? Why don’t they look, I mean really look? Then, they’d see the reality.
We used to be happy, my family…I don’t know what changed. Maybe we just grew up, and realised that no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t make it work properly. Maybe we realised that we each have separate dark little circles, each lead different lives. Lives that, no matter what we do, can’t be entwined. Or, maybe, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the only one who isn’t happy, the only one who’s dark little circle has to be kept separate. Maybe.
My sister - she seems happy. When she goes to the movies with her friends, and when she gets up on Saturday to play netball for her team. She seems happy when she leaves for school, and she seems happy when she comes home and tells me all about her latest test, or her music assignment. Sometimes, I just want to reach out and shake her, and tell her why I’m not happy, why I hate my life. Why I want to end it all. Sometimes, I want her to stop, and listen to what I’m doing tomorrow, listen to my stories, hear about my tests.
But still I carry on. Like I’m running on auto-pilot. Every day, I do the same routines, take the same bus to school, go to the same classes, talk to the same people, take the same bus home again. But the whole time, while I carry on like everything’s fine, on the inside, I’m screaming. My whole life I’ve hidden what I really feel. I guess I’m afraid to show my feelings. And I don’t see anything changing. But no-one seems to notice. It’s like I’m the only one who feels this way. So, like I said, I am isolated from the rest of the world.
It would be so easy to end it all. I’ve been thinking that a lot lately. I even decided on the best way to do it. Slashing my wrists would be effective - but I don’t want to die that way. I don’t want my death to be as painful as my life. So I decided that the best way would be to just slip away, in the car, locked in the garage. I always liked the smell of exhaust…while other people find it makes them feel sick, I find it , well, soothing. So that’s how I’d do it. I could just slip away - fall asleep and never wake up.
I did it. I got the hose out of the shed, and fixed it to the exhaust pipe. I locked the garage door, and wound all the windows up on the car. I got in the backseat, and fed the hose through a gap in the top of the window. Then I turned on the ignition and lay down on the upholstery.
I’m lying there now. I haven’t felt anything yet - it’s not working as fast as I had thought it would. But I feel kind of serene, tranquil. Now that I’ve decided, I feel at peace - one huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and I feel so much better.
I left them a note. I didn’t write much. I just said that I loved them all, and I was sorry for any pain I might cause them, but that I saw no purpose for living any more. I signed my name at the bottom, but to tell the truth, it didn’t feel like me at all. I felt like it was someone else’s words on the paper, because even though I was leaving the world, I still couldn’t tell them how I really felt!
I’m slipping away. I can feel my mind separating from my body. Now, it’s me on the outside, looking in….and I don’t like what I see.
* * * * * *
When I got home that day, Mae, and found you in the car, the hose hanging out the window, and that note in your hand, I wanted to die, too.
I stood in the garage for an hour before Mum found us. While I stood, I didn’t cry - I couldn’t cry. I wanted to scream to the world that my sister - my sister - was gone. But I just stared at your pale, gaunt face, and wished it had been me, not you.
As I stared at your body, I knew that you had done what I had never found the courage to do. What I had, so many times, thought about doing, but never found I could.
Mae, your death bought us together. For the first time I can remember, Mum, Dad and I actually talked - I mean really talked. They were so shocked and hurt by your death, and so was I. I wish, Mae, that I had been there for you when you needed me the most. But I wasn’t. And I have to live with that.
Even now, I still say your death. Suicide is such a vicious word. I hate it. I hate its’ meaning, I hate that you were forced to do it. But most of all, I hate myself for allowing you to do it.
But Mae, I’ve found the reason to carry on - you. I have to live my life as if we’re both in the same body - and that’s because we are. Every new experience I have will be for the both of us, Mae. No matter how hard I try, I still lost something more important than any material object when I lost you.
When you left this world, Mae, a part of me left too.