Ice pick enlightenment…

I'm thinking that this is the point where people worry, where they say, "I don't think you working on this book is such a great idea."

You see, writing this book takes a great deal of research. Since it has to do with my life, the research is in all the emails, letters, etc., that I've saved over the years.

Well, last night, I was reading the emails that led up to when I left for the Grand Canyon. Up until this point, I could read them fairly objectively. Then, I read one I write to Rosa, one particularly thoughtless, cruel one, and I could feel that ice pick in the chest feeling, where if it wasn't for that you'd collapse into a ball so you don't know which is worse.

I wasn't expecting something to hit me like that. It took several hours before I felt like myself again. (A strange way to look at it since I was myself back then, too…) But everything seemed so hopeless back then and I sounded so helpless. And is it any wonder that when people hear about Vicky, they say, "I'm so glad you're happy!"? Because the underlying message is, "God, you were so pathetic." And I was, I'm not denying that - I guess I just never realized that I was.

And I had always mentioned that nobody bothered talking to me about suicide until after I went to the Grand Canyon but, in fact, that's not true. Turns out that both Annie and Lori emailed me in the weeks leading to my trip out there, saying they were worried about me. I wrote back and lied to them, telling them everything was fine - and then went to the Grand Canyon anyway…

One thing about this whole experience, writing a book that no one is likely to read and will probably never get published, is that I'm seeing things a bit clearer. And isn't that why we write?