The train approached fast. I thought about jumping onto the tracks. I thought about Linda. The train sped through the station and I realized there would be no second chance. Once on the tracks there would be no where to go. If in that split second between jumping and being hit there would be no escape if I changed my mind. I wondered whether Linda had changed her mind. I wondered whether she was here right now.I have wanted to be dead so many times in my life. But I have never been able to pull the trigger. My appetite for what is on the other side of the door is insatiable. In my darkest of darkest hours, balled in a heap with tears flooding down my face I have always had one thing. Hope.
Today I unraveled my compression stocking slowly up my arm, beginning at the wrist, stretching and smoothing out any wrinkles. Brightly colored in pinks and blues. The person sitting across from me said it was pretty. To me just another of the many constant reminders that I had cancer.
In conversation she told me this isn't real. We only experience things as real because we have five senses.
But this is real. I'm real. My life is real.
I appreciate different points of view. I appreciate that this is her point of view. But there is no way I can go through life with the belief that this is just a game of senses.
Someone else looks over at my compression stocking engulfing my right arm. I catch her glance. She smiles and nods in the direction of my sleeve chasing her nod with her eyes. I smile back then cover my sleeve with my jacket. I know that she is just one of many today. I know that if I leave my sleeve on - like I should do - I will be pulled aside and searched when I reach the U.S.
I am a passionate person which I've often considered more of a liability than a strength. I don't just cry. I get into it. Tears stream down my face. Big. Fat. Tears. I curly into a ball and rock back and forth on the floor until I cry myself to sleep or cry every tear I have. And when I'm happy, I'm all in! I exude that joy from deep inside every cell of my body. I sometimes think that people half way around the world can feel my pain and my joy.
When I watched that train blow through the station just a week ago my thoughts shifted to Linda and then to everyone else I've known. Some who've died by their own choice. Some who have not. Some whose lives were stolen by disease. Their words come back to me.
I've made up stories of why Linda stepped in front of that train just before Thanksgiving three years ago. I admired her strength, but hated her choice.
If life wasn't real and I truly believed it wasn't real I would jump. I would get rid of the hurt and the hate. But life is real. And with that hurt and the hate, I would lose the joy and the happiness. I would miss the fun. I would miss my dogs licking my face clean after a peanut butter sandwich. And spring. The fresh smell of the forest after an August rain. I would miss the sea and the rivers polishing the rocks below. I believe life is real. And with that life - my life - I have hope.
