The one thing we all want in life is to feel worthy, to know our worth. We go through life with one question that we try to answer: WHY DO I EXIST, WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF ME BEING ALIVE? We go through life trying to understand the reason why we truly are worthy of being alive. For me, all it took to answer that question was one night at the age of 23. I took matters into my own hands and decided what that question meant for me. I had decided that I wasn’t worthy of being alive, that I was nobody, that I didn’t deserve to exist, and that my existence on this earth didn’t matter. I had no purpose. With all that roaming in my head, I decided one night in Spring of 2008 to shoot myself in the heart. I wanted the pain I felt in my heart to disappear, to vanish, to melt away. At the time, that was the only way I knew how to make that happen. I forgot what it felt like to not be in pain, to feel happy, joyful, free, to just feel anything but pain. I just wanted to remember what that felt like… The pain that ran through my body was like no other type of pain I had ever felt in my life. Every beat my heart took would send shooting pain throughout my entire body. Every breath I took was followed by the most excruciating pain a person can feel. I wanted all that to go away. I wanted to feel nothing even for just a second, and to not have the pain consume my entire body. I wanted to remember what it felt like to feel nothing. Drinking alcohol, painkillers, sleeping all day– you name it, I tried it. But nothing worked. 

 

                                            Till I decided to take my own life.

                                          I  thought I had truly found the answer. 

The night it all changed… That night, I waited for my husband at the time to leave for the night, and I finished giving my babies a bath before their bedtime. I put Tanya, my three-year-old, to bed. I tucked her into bed and went to feed Tony. He wasn’t more than eight months old at the time. I gave him his bottle and waited for him to fall asleep, I proceeded by tucking him into bed. I looked over at Tanya as I cried, knowing that they were about to wake up without a mother and their entire world will be turned upside down. I went over to her side and whispered in her ear  that mommy loves her so much and that I was deeply sorry for what was about to happen to them. I went back to Tony’s bed, I laid next to him and held him for a minute and whispered in his ear how much I loved him and how I was so sorry I wouldn’t be there to watch him become the amazing, gentle, caring man I knew he would become. I thought if I whispered it, that somehow deep down in their hearts they would always know I loved them. I left the room and went back to my room to look for my husband’s gun to shoot myself in the heart. I desperately wanted to find the gun, but I couldn’t find it because I wanted to die. I didn’t let that stop me. I found a bottle of prescription pills and a bottle of whisky, Black Label to be exact. That was my husband’s favorite drink. I started drinking, first pill followed by a sip, second pill followed by a sip, third pill followed by a sip, after that I lost count. I kept drinking till I lost consciousness. The next ten, twelve hours of that night I have no recollection of. When I came to I remember seeing everyone around me crying. I thought I had died. I looked at them thinking “Oh now you cry because I am dead…” But then I remember hearing someone say “We almost lost you.” You would think that would have made me happy, because now I was able to see my babies again. But no. 

 

                                             The only thing I remember thinking was,

                                            “Fuck, bitch, you couldn’t even do this right. 

                                                    You couldn’t even kill yourself.” 

You would think that being a mom would be enough of a reason to not want to die, or to know that I am worthy of being alive. After all, I did help create two humans. If that isn’t a good enough reason, then what is?! Why do we need a reason? Why can’t it be enough to just know you are enough without a reason, without knowing your purpose in life? I am here to tell you that you are worthy of existing, of being alive even if you don’t know why. I had so many reasons in my life to show me why I did deserve to be alive. But none of them came from the right place. No matter how many times the universe shows us our worth, if we don’t see it from within us it will never feel enough or true. Just understanding why my soul picked this body for me started to change my understanding that I am enough. For the first time in my life I started to see myself. I started to see what I am, who I am. I started feeling happy with just being able to say that I am breathing and that my heart is beating for me to be alive. That started to be enough for me. I truly think that the goal in life is to be able to see that we are worthy of existing for just being ourselves, because being ourselves in life is the biggest purpose. We are all unique in our own way, and that should be enough to love that person. We all deserve to love ourselves unconditionally and not to think we are broken or damaged. That’s how you block yourself off from allowing others to love you. It took me over thirty years to understand that, to understand that just being in my own skin is enough. Yes, to this day I still have moments of needing to remind myself that I am enough as I am. I am grateful for every moment, good or bad. It all comes down to finding freedom from within, by freeing yourself from all expectations.