That might be entirely too long of a title, but I feel it’s important to get to the point of this story early. Okay, let me explain. I was getting dressed to take a walk to try and clear my head, as my therapist suggested not even fifteen minutes earlier. It has been a rough year (longer if I’m being honest) and an even more rough couple of months. I’ve been fighting with my place of employment for over a year leading up to going out on leave a few months ago- without going too far into detail, it’s been more than a little stressful to say the least. I have not been in the best place mentally. I have worked for the same place for over ten years and most of the time working above my pay grade, repeatedly told that it’s not in the budget to increase my salary or promote me. Meanwhile others have been promoted or hired at drastically higher rates. I don’t want to go to much into detail as it’s not the point of the story, but it’s important to the story. Essentially, I don’t make enough money to live and despite giving over a decade of my life to my employer that have repeatedly refused to fight for me to make enough money to live. When you live like this for so long your subconscious starts to believe that you don’t deserve to live because if you did you clearly would make enough money to do so. No, it’s not a rational thought, but often the subconscious isn’t rational. So I went for a walk, a long walk, which isn’t an unusual occurrence for me. I got dressed, grabbed my camera, put on shoes (couldn’t find socks and stopped trying to), put on a hoodie, grabbed my coat, and headed out. About five and a half miles into my walk and my mindset wasn’t any better, I was somehow even worse. Between the wind, cars of people who must have a life important enough to get home to that they can’t follow basic traffic laws, the sun setting so early, the blister developing on my heel, the ever-present lack of respect, and the sinking feeling that am not worthy enough to be able to afford to live— it was at this moment that I started thinking that maybe I shouldn’t. An intrusive thought that I’ve felt many times in my life before, sometimes at a constant for days at a time; a thought I have been fighting so hard not to think this past year. I consciously knew/know this is a bad idea and started trying to think of all the reasons I shouldn’t; my family would be sad, my mother would somehow blame herself, I’ve had people close to me take their own life and know the pain going through that causes, all the potential good times I’d be throwing away. Yet, as I was walking I wound up crossing the Pulaski Bridge and I couldn’t help but stop and think “a fall from this height would probably do it” looking down at the water below I see the words “Keep Flying” across my chest; I had grabbed the wrong hoodie when I was getting dressed. It was such a small detail to overlook, at this point I decided to at least complete the walk over to Brooklyn and down to the Greenpoint waterfront, and to listen to Keep Flying while I walk. I got down to the waterfront and still wasn’t feeling great, but somewhere between Keep Flying’s Unbreakable and Surviving the Night, the chill in the air coming off the water, and the Manhattan skyline, my mind changed. I haven’t come this far and lived through all that I have to just give up now.
“I mean to live
I gotta see what happens
I have to see what will become of us”