Aftertaste

Of course it isn’t fair. Of course you don’t fucking understand it.

Of course there are incredibly well-meaning people earnestly posting about the tragedy of suicide and the endless influx of numbers that you can call if you feel completely upended and feel like talking to a total stranger about the deepest, meanest, blackest part of you.

They mean well.

But.

You gonna make that call?

Don’t think so.

I mean, I wouldn’t, but maybe other people will, so I am glad for those numbers being shot out there. It’s good to have a place to go if you are in a place where you can ask for an extended hand.

If you are maybe thinking about it.

The first time I was maybe thinking about it was when I was eleven.

I am incredibly shitty at math but I’m pretty sure we all know that when I say this, I am talking about decades of suicide being at the back of the mind, if not being directly on the table. And I think what people get wrong about suicidal people is that they think that it’s a moment–a moment of sadness, a moment of weakness, a moment of despair. It is something that a phone call might repair.

A phone call might delay that outcome, certainly. Please, please hopefully.

But it isn’t a moment, if you’re truthful. It isn’t a period of feeling sad, depressed, unworthy.

What people think is a moment of bad thinking is actually many years of taking sucker punches to the gut, the shaking off of thoughts that you know are bad business, but you can’t shake them. There is something deep down in there that’s just fucking rotten. You see it, you feel it, but nobody understands. Actually, you don’t understand it yourself.

Who are you, feeling all sad-sack useless?

You.

How dare you?

You, who have a beautiful and privileged life?

You.

The one who has a house to live in, healthy children, food in the refrigerator, people who love you. The one who has the Earth in her hands, if she chooses to reach.

Well, sometimes, those people want to die.

Sometimes it kind of feels like it would be a relief, because you are very, very tired of being brave. You are tired of stuffing all of the garbage in your head down. You are tired of making yourself get out of bed when you just want to hide. Tired of making French toast and picking up stray socks and figuring out what to cook for dinner, even when you realize that things like that shouldn’t feel exhausting. Clear-thinking people know this. You aren’t thinking. At least not in a language most people speak.

So let’s talk about speaking, shall we?

Genuinely suicidal people retreat. They aren’t going to dial your hotline. You can post the numbers all you want (and please do) but understand that you aren’t reaching people who are beyond that. What you need to understand is that this is a long time coming. It is something deep in the stomach and there is shame there and there is silence.

When you are gone, they’ll probably say a lot of things about you that you didn’t dare believe about yourself:

-Kind

-Thoughtful

-Witty

-Smart

-Giving

-Caring

-Loving

-Funny

-Accomplished

-Talented

-Alive

***

Like so many people, I loved Anthony Bourdain. I read every word he had ever published and watched many hours of watching him be…well, Tony. I especially loved his later work with CNN and the show “Parts Unknown,” because it was a softer, more vulnerable version of a man who put up a good front but deep down, was deeply private and shy and didn’t like to talk about himself. What he found far more interesting was sitting, breaking bread, and slowly drawing out the stories from people across the table.His snark, his irreverence, his take-no-bullshit-and-take-no-prisoners approach to life fooled a lot of us, but there were glimmers. Glimpses. He talked a lot about feeling like he didn’t deserve his life, that he felt like a fraud. Like he’d been gifted with a really beautiful, expensive car and he immediately put the pedal to the metal while driving away, looking out the rearview, because he was certain the police were fast on his tail.

***

Mr. Bourdain–

Could you have known in that moment?

Could you have known the bitterness of your aftertaste?