Reasons To Stay (As Told By Someone Who Didn't Want To)

In October of 2022, my boyfriend called my parents to come and pick me up after one of the worst nights of my life. I was white-knuckling severe depression and manic episodes. I was always anxious and on edge, even when I felt my safest. My physical health had worsened and doctors had no idea how to help me. The unknown, quite literally, was killing me. I was always feeling alllll the things. Fear, sadness, excitement, uncertainty, doubt, insecurity, small portions of joy at a time, paranoia, you name it. I was sleeping, at best, 4 hours a night. 

It did get to a point where I felt suicidal, and my mother and step-dad rushed over to take me to the ER in Psychiatrics to get me on meds. I spent 20 minutes fighting tears, answering questions, admitting defeat. The nurse gave me a 50 milligram anti-anxiety pill and it helped. It helped me. It didn't heal me. I feel the need to emphasize the importance of the difference between those two things because if you expect a pill to heal the innermost parts of you as if it's made of magic, you'll be let down every single time.

So, because I know that suicide is a very serious and very dark subject, I've chosen to share the light. The reasons why you should stay here on this Earth, present in this world despite your pain. Please know above all that you are loved, unique, and special in ways nobody else might ever understand. Embrace that anyway. 

• Stay for the sting of summer sun
• The hum of dragonflies
• Hot coffee in the early hours
• Fresh bed sheets
• Ice water when your throat is dry
• New movies with your favorite actors
• Books that help you travel to different worlds
• Lunches with family
• Nights out with friends who help you forget about your bedtime 
• Pizza, fresh out of the oven
• Inside jokes 
• The songs you'd kill to hear performed live
• Calendars that are waiting for you to fill them with plans
• Good bourbon, always.
• Handwritten letters 
• The surprise mail you get 
• Art that demands a space in your home
• The smell of fresh cookies
• The bitter cold of winter and the way you can trace your breath
• Dogs who need humans
• The swish of hotel curtains on vacation
• When the dishwasher is empty
• Your favorite warm coat
• Comfort food
• Laughing until you have tears in your eyes
• A good sunrise
• The way the clouds dip just before dusk
• Fresh rain 
• Photos you took forever ago but forgot about
• The surprise $5 you might find in your pants pockets from two years ago, the last time you fit into those jeans 
• Dog parks. There are zero rules about going in without a dog; I've checked.
• Mama's familiar tablecloths, placemats and old glassware
• New stories
• Old stories
• Nights out in the city seeing your favorite bands live because they had the audacity to come to your town on a weekday night.
• Slow starts to the morning after, with a scratchy throat and a memory high.
• Half smiles from strangers
• The way your mama dances when she's excited.
• Cocoa on blustery, snowy afternoons 
• The soft glow of lights after a movie in the theater, once the magic of the film is gone and the floor is sticky with squished candies and buttery popcorn pieces
• Your pride when you do something that scares you.
• Waves from children on the corner selling mediocre lemonade for a quarter a cup raising money as if they're grown
• The way coffee spills in your cupholder on your hurried drive to work
• Grieving an old chapter while anticipating the next one.
• The sting of a hot shower on a bad sunburn
• When the leaves dance down to greet the cold snap of winter
• Every awkward fall, dance in the grocery aisle with strangers to get to the clearance soups and wave in traffic
• The rush you get from a drink of water when you wake up thirsty at 3 a.m.
• The way the bitter cold brings snow 
• Surprise phone calls, out-of-the-blue texts, and chances for connection
• Your favorite songs playing loud on your way home down familiar roads 
• Seeing the world
• Your existence bringing light, love, hope, and comfort to someone else
• Good salsa.
• Knowing rainbows come after storms
• Nights spent dreaming about what your future may hold
• Birthday cake, because everyone wins
• Voicemail messages from people who love you
• Wearing a t-shirt for the first time after months of blustery cold 
• Venting to your friends
• Putting coins in the guitar cases of musicians trying to make it on the streets of big cities
• The fog on the bathroom mirror after a hot shower that brings life back to your skin 
• Getting to watch people live their dreams
• And most of all..........

You are loved and adored beyond your understanding. People admire your strength. Your smile brings light to others even if you don't know it. Your life is so much more valuable than your relationship status, your bank account, your pride, your mistakes, your insecurities, your fears, your doubts, your deepest secrets. 

Please stay. Here, where you are someone else's reason to carry on when things get rough. Please stay for the better days, the little things, the love of those around you. 

I've been in some dark places, if I'm honest. I don't talk about those moments much, because it's incredibly hard to try and describe to people why I wanted to die for short periods of my life at a time. 

But survival is strength, and if I want one thing to come from my absolute worst days it is that I want others to never find themselves in those places. Those places are scary, and slow, and they steal a lot away from a person. A lot of joy, a lot of peace, a lot of comfort. 

Life is hard. That's no secret. But you are absolutely capable to face it. 

Thank you for being here in my world, thank you for existing, thank you for sharing parts of yourselves with me through the years. Thank you for trusting me, believing in me, and pushing me to be better. 

The value you add to this universe is not something that could ever be measured. I hope you know that.