Five options, one result. Should I blow, hang, gas, drown, or throw it? Let’s blow it. I am sitting in my room, Marilyn Manson playing as loud as the volume can go, door locked, and curtains drawn…loaded? Yeah…1, 2, 3…^&*% it. Bang!!!
"Kanji open up!" He shouted.
"I'm coming in!"
"Oh! My God no!" He sobbed away.
"Why…why!!" He asked, as more tears poured out his eyes than I had ever seen them in my lifetime.
"You really want to know why?" I asked though he couldn’t hear me; I am dead.
"Well let me tell you why…the things you all said," I continued.
I was just a normal girl growing up in a world full of hate and pain. I had to pretend all my life that I was happy when I was not. Each day that went by brought so much pain to my heart that it built irreconcilable anger, apparent to all those who saw me. I became depressed and didn’t want to take anymore of what your world continued to feed my mind. I hated sitting around hearing echoes of the things my parents, brothers, sisters, boyfriend, friends, boss, and the church said to me.
I found it hard to reconcile how a mother, the one person who is supposed to unconditionally love you, could utter words such as "…sometimes I wish that you were never born! Why did God give me you as a child? What wrong did I do to deserve you? Get lost you little devil..." In my eighteen years on earth, I had learnt to take all of these comments and regard them as normal. With all regard, I was not a perfect child. I recognised that as a child, I had brought pain on them through the things I did. The worst was when I became a teenager and I got into all the chaos. But despite all my atrocities, I believed that I deserved a bit of love from my mother. All children do. You might be thinking that despite the hatred I received from my mother, my dad would have been different. The answer is no. My father was one factor that contributed to my mother’s hate and pain.
My father was not a rich company executive per say, but he was just an ordinary man who ran his own contracting company in water engineering. Being the sole owner of the ‘company’, he was able to raise his share a bit and with favour going his way most of the time, he was able to sign big contracts with large firms such as the Water Corporation and many other mining companies. To say it in one bit, my father was not a millionaire, but had quite a fortune under his belt. That being the case, his testosterone couldn’t find rest or appeasement in one woman only, my mother. My father would go on having sexual relationships with different women, and the least he could have done was to try and conceal them. Instead, he would at times, especially when drunk, curse my mother and boast about how better other women were in bed, and how she sucked at the same. Horror struck me at most, and I often wondered why my mother couldn’t just leave him and get on with her life; because candidly speaking, I think she was better off alone. Then again, there were us, the children. I was the eldest of four children, three girls and one boy.
At times my father could be gone for more than a month and all we could do is just wonder if he had just walked out on us, or if he would be back. It was during that time that things got worse at home. My mother was almost having an emotional breakdown. She was so torn apart that she would often voice her frustrations about dad on us. She would yell at us and scream at my younger siblings over petty issues. Sometimes she could go for days without eating or getting out of bed…all she did was sob and wail for my estranged father.
One day, I overheard her talking to someone on the phone saying that she was just holding on for our sake, but despite that, she would not have been going through all of this and would have left my father a longtime ago. That really pierced my heart. Just as much as it soothed me that at least she cared for us, it placed a burden over me that we were the cause of her pain. If we never existed, she would have moved on and had a better life. It might sound stupid, but it really weighed me down.
In the house everything was a total mess. Many things were missing, at most, it could be one of my siblings or me. The emptiness could be felt in the house. That feeling of love flowing; that sense of security and happiness were gone, and they had been gone for a long time. Each time they could almost be felt, mum or dad could chase them away…never to return for sometime.
During the period of love drought, I would run away from home. I couldn’t take it anymore…staying at home was like a living hell. Sometimes I would wish that I could just spread my wings and take flight. I lacked a sense of belonging. As they say, human beings are meant to connect. If you don’t connect to at least one other person, you will connect to something else so as to have that sense of belonging within you. As a result, I got attached to some people; most of them were my friends from school. When I was living my life of fear and sadness, teen life was passing me by. I had not yet had a boyfriend in my life; it just wasn't the thing on my mind when things were all right at home. I had a few guys trying to get to me; I had not opened up to any of them until later.
Due to my many mood swings, I was not able to hold onto friends for long. Most of them just cut ties with me because I had so many problems and they couldn’t take me in because I didn’t ‘fit’. My boyfriend was the one person whom I thought would stand by my side no matter what. But apparently things were just the same with him as well. He took advantage of my position, knowing that I needed him by my side; he used to beat me up, curse at me. At times, he would call me a fat b*&^$, say I was a whore and all sorts of other things. Instead of bringing me comfort, he brought further discomfort, pain, doubt and hopelessness into my life. In the long run, I ended up being hooked to smoking marijuana just to seek solace.
In my search for succor, I at one stage, made friends with a Christian woman, who introduced me to the church, saying that only God was the answer. Finally, I thought that I had found what I had been looking for. When I got to the church I could feel the peace, the inner peace which is beyond description in human terms. I felt great and was willing to search and get to know God more. God was awesome, the greatest experience ever. Unfortunately, I was not accepted. Not unaccepted by God, but by some people who go to the church. As I started to get familiar with the place, people became segregative. They viewed me from my outer appearance, they judged me from my outward appearance. At times I would feel as if I was being laughed at; I felt judged and I couldn’t bear it anymore. I really wanted God; I really thought that was the answer to my problems. Actually, if you can't imagine anything better, think of God; I would definitely recommend this. Not all churches are the same, I was just unfortunate.
There I was, I looked around and thought that the world was closing in on me. I had no solution…. I was born to be loved, cherished, uplifted, inspired and motivated. I was born to make friends and be befriended. I was born to be a daughter and to have a father and mother. I came to this earth to find peace and comfort, none of which I found. I am dead now just because of what you uttered. Another person could die from this, be cautious about the things you say.
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