It seems that ‘I’ am some sort of synthesis, an aggregate of many conflicting messages and impulses. I can believe many mutually exclusive things at one moment or another, yet never enough to fully commit. ‘I’ am uncertainty.
How can I live, after doing what I’ve done? Knowing that I will likely do it again. Wanting what I want. How could I allow that to continue to exist in the world? How could I live with the shame, the guilt, the self-disgust? Knowing the pain that such impulses cause. How could I tolerate that continuing to be, in my mind?
But then how could I do it to my family? Those who have given me everything, breaking themselves in the process. How could I give that one final slap in the face? Leave them broken and desolate, having to confront my loss. How could I be so ungrateful? How could I ruin their chances of peace, inflicting misery, to end my own?
How could I give up on my hopes and dreams? My indescribable, ineffable longings. Those promises of happiness that linger, always beyond reach. How could I close the door on finding meaning in this life? How could I ever truly give up?
How could I turn my back on the addictions, compulsions, pleasures, obsessions, that consume my mind? Giving up the highs, rushes, surges of excitement. The anticipation that all will be made right with the world at the end of this path. The brief feelings of satiety, of wholeness.
But then how can I go on facing the world, when every excursion out in public brings on disorientating panic? How could I hope to go on surviving, when I struggle to even cope with the basics of society? How can I endure the shame of my failed existence, as the years pass, and life passes me by?
How could I ever overcome my fear of death? My fears of missing out on something important in life? Fears of judgement, and punishment, in some imaginary existence beyond.
I suppose that I will end my life when/if the balance shifts. When my hopes are finally so crushed by time and events that my mind lets go. When the guilt, shame, self-disgust and regret become so overwhelming that they overcome my fear and push me to end things. When my concern for my family has lessened, or enough of them have passed to relieve me of the guilt. When I have become so numbed to my addictions and obsessions that they no longer provide any diversion, or are overwhelmed by pain. When I am so unable to function that I can no longer survive.
Until then, I guess I’ll linger on. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing. Maybe it’s a mistake. Perhaps it would be better all round if I went sooner. Maybe it would spare me (or others) much needless suffering. But I’m not sure I’m in a position to make that decision. ‘I’ seem to be a synthesis of multitudes of conflicting messages. ‘I’ am nothing.