The Most Important Decision I Ever Made
By: Mika Yeap
Tags: Self, Mental Illness, Mental Health, Suicide, This Happened To Me

The fountain I visited on the night of July 2nd. Source: author.

Sadness feels different when you’re surrounded by joy. It’s sharper. More bitter. Of course, I couldn’t blame the couples sitting around the fountain. Or the mirthful teens trying to push each other into the water. Saturday nights are fun nights, right? Mine certainly should’ve been. After all, I wasn’t sure how many I’d have left.

I had a decision to make that night. Sitting on the steps by a fountain, alone in an unfamiliar city, I had to decide if I was going home. It was the end of a line. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to be. Nothing to be. My body: Weary from travel. My mind: Crippled by jagged memories. Overall, I’d seen better days.

Long messages. Tense confrontations. Familiar voices saying unfamiliar things. The world turns foggy when your closest betray you. Though I wouldn’t call it betrayal. In my case, my best friends simply learned something about me that they’d missed before. And they didn’t like what they saw.

I wonder if they knew what it would do to me. I wonder if they cared. Maybe they never imagined the emptiness. Maybe they didn’t realize how much they meant. I guess you can’t accept the love you don’t give yourself. Then again, maybe I was just writing a story no one wanted to read. Or maybe I let on too much, too quickly.

The buzz of a text brought me back to reality. A couple of lengthy paragraphs. It was one of the few friends I had left. Moments ago, I’d emptied my mind to him. The poor guy was at dinner. He had had no idea what was brewing in a big city far away. Then again, no one prepares to deal with suicide.

Yet there I was. At the edge of the fountain. At the edge, period. Why did losing a few friends destroy me so easily? I would’ve loved to know back then, too. Who knows what tightens the noose? One day, you just find yourself choking when it’s too late. Then again, the past hasn’t always been kind. Maybe you crumble once there are enough cracks.

It’s hard to understand why people give up. Not just on something, but on everything. I guess some of us lose so much that it’s hard to justify the pain of holding onto what’s left. That’s the kind of experience that lands you in that dark place on a Saturday night, looking around at happy people and wondering if you’ll ever feel as light again.

But I’m still here, today. So how did I move on? It turned out to be the most important decision I’ve made so far. Maybe the most important decision of my life. You see, I welcomed the end with open arms. Even prepared to induce it prematurely. Enough was enough. My lifetime was more than dense enough to be over. But the epiphany I had was that I didn’t really mind if it dragged on a little longer. So on the night of July 2nd, I decided to postpone my demise.

I promised myself a one-way ticket out of here on January 15th, 2021. Six months couldn’t do much more harm, could it? Besides, I always hated my birthday. Most desolate day of the year. I usually spend all day wondering who else cares about it but me. So for once, I could actually make it matter. At least a little. Being the last day of life should mean something.

At the time of writing, December 13th, we’re about a month away. I’ve thought about my promise every day. Every single day. Wonderful things have happened since that night in July. Accolades litter the path behind me like fallen stars. I’ve grown in ways I never thought possible. Yet every day, I count down the days. In many ways, everything has changed. In many ways, nothing has changed. I’m still glad I made myself that promise. I always will be. Because everything since then was built on top of it.

But it’s just a ticket. Not a contract. I promised myself an option. It need not be taken. For now, I think I’ll stick around. Because I still have one question I could never answer: What brought me back from that edge? Maybe there are burdens worth suffering for, after all. And if there are, I’ll find them. I’ll find them and hold onto them, every time I go back to that fountain.