It’s Suicide Prevention Week.
If you battle depression or suicidal thoughts this is for you:
I want you to live.
I want you to grey, and wrinkle, and fall in love.
I want you to walk beside me on this earth.
I want to run into you in a grocery store line–when your hair’s a mess, you haven’t eaten all day and there are bags from not sleeping for two days under your eyes– and have a conversation with you where you can show me how you really are and don’t try to put on a face.
I want to breathe but a moment of joy into your heart.
What is happening for you is real–it is not a story.
There are people who love you who will always listen.
They will still love you after they know.
Give someone the opportunity to know.
Give someone the chance to take care of you.
To pick you up on the days you cannot pick yourself up.
But more than that I want you to forgive yourself on the days you feel you cannot lift your body up from your bed.
Knowledge comes from a secondhand experience, wisdom comes from experience.
I have no wisdom here–I do not walk in your shoes.
I know that sometimes it helps to be held while you cry.
I know sometimes you might need to say, “I can’t keep living like this,” out loud.
I know I cannot make the choice for you to live–but I want you to know a stranger is rooting for you today.
(*Someone that I love dearly took this photograph a week before they take their own life.)