Epilogue - This is the One I Choose

{CW : Mental Illness}

It was the last thought I had. Maybe if I had a child it would not have to be like this. Oh well, it's all in motion now. When someone commits to things the way I do, there is no room in your life for friends or family.

Family. Mine was the laboratory full of chimpanzees that we used to test our treatments. We gave them names, implants, euthanasia. I liked Sally, the way she grinned at me with her yellow teeth when I jabbed needles in her arm. She was like me, she knew how to handle pain.

Pain. The pain of losing someone dear. When I couldn't bear a child, my womb as barren as a desert, he left. I can't even sound out his name in my mind. I still often think of him, the He in my life. His face won't leave my subconscious, his smiles and jokes make me want to cry and beat my fists against the floor. So sweet, so selfish.

Selfish. I had to win. I had to conquer. I vowed to smash the glass ceiling into a million pieces. After my internship at the Mayo clinic, I burrowed into research at the university. I had done my thesis on the expression of genetic markers in pancreatic cancer. It lead to the discovery, a chemical I spent three years developing. Three difficult painstaking years and there it was, a cure. I could not get a single pharmaceutical company to back me. It will cost too many millions to test it they said. It's not an absolute cure, but in oncology 60% is almost a miracle.

Miracle. That's what my mom called me. She called me the other day. She could tell I was off, off more than usual. I couldn't tell her. She couldn't bear to hear it. She always said I was her little miracle. It must be genetic. She was finally able to get pregnant with me at 36. I could be that old in 7 years. If only.

Only. I was an only child. My parents poured love into me like water from a fountain. It gave me a powerful foundation. Straight A's in school, never tardy, never in detention, never once in trouble. I was in junior college when I learned of Dad's cancer diagnosis. I committed to med school. Watching his wounded body turn ashen and seeing the cancer destroy it, I vowed to make it my life's work to find a cure.

Cure. There is no cure for depression. We can control it, they said. Powerful treatments can corner it and beat it back into its awful cage. The doctors tried everything. No matter how much counseling I received or how many pills I took, I would lie awake at night clutching my pillow to my chest, heaving sobs into the empty night. It was the other reason he left. He kept apologizing like it was his fault.

Fault. Growing up I never had any, a perfect little girl. Angel. Sweetheart. Princess. The apple of my daddy's eye. I was ten when I realized I had it. I covered it up with make-up, band camp, besties. I covered it up until I was told I would never bear a child, then the flood gates opened. A deluge of pent up emotions, a river of sorrow, a vast lake drowning me. It was then that I wasn't sure about life.

Life. The most bountiful gift. The scar of a soul hurled from the eternal to endure this mortal coil. The long suffering and perpetual sorrows give way to never ending trials and maladies. Banished from the afterlife to suffer the indignities of a cruel world where disease chews up the body.

Body. He told me he was dumb struck the first time he saw me naked. I guess everyone looks good at twenty. Our four years together were some of the best of my life. I wonder what he will think when he finds out. I hope he doesn't blame himself. We all make our choices. This is the one I choose.

Choose. I never got to choose. You are going to do great things. You are the best. You are depressed. They never said that. I had to tell them and tell them and keep telling them. Oh you'll be fine. You have the job you always dreamed of. You have enough money to buy whatever you want. You have major depressive disorder. When the psychiatrist said it the words sounded foreign. You mean I'm not just sad.

Sad. I hope it makes them sad. All of them. They know who they are. Fake crying while staring at me then laughing to their friends. Narcissists can't empathize with others, who am I kidding. I remember the first time I felt it. Like a dark shadow had fallen across everything, I could only see the dying leaves, the broken dreams, the damaged everything. My eyes were drawn to all the death in the world.

World. I guess I have given something to it. Not many people can say they found a cure for something, especially something as deadly as pancreatic cancer. My life's work. A legacy. Not even 30 years old and I still need more.

More. That is what we all want isn't it. More. More status, more power, more money, more. We can't always have it, yet it doesn't stop us from trying. Reaching. Longing for more, but what if all we need is love.

Love. It's like a cancer. It's needs to be fed, it borrows resources from around it to survive. Latching on to your heart in a symbiotic dance of death, it becomes entangled with your insides and if you remove it, it has the power to kill.

Kill. I never got to do that. Hunting with his Dad, he did, he said it made him sad. Gruesome convulsions accompany it, flopping and squirming agony. That made me want to kill even more. I've snuffed out bugs and spiders but never a full grown mammal, something like me, something with blood.

Blood. I don't want to spill any of mine. Guns and knives are messy. I never liked messy. He always said you could eat off my bathroom floor. You could when we were together. As the years ticked by after he left, I let that go too. It started with a few dirty dishes left over night, then dusting fell to once a month. Now I don't even remember where I left the vacuum. I guess I've learned to live with the dirt.

Dirt. I wonder how long it takes to turn into dirt. I like dirt. It is made from things dying and disintegrating, the leftovers of life. We walk on it all day long and never appreciate it, until we are dead, then most of us will be facing it, with it filling the open holes in our heads for eternity.

Eternity. I hope there is some relief in it. If not, that's a long time to keep being depressed, a forever of empty sorrow and guilt, an endless sobbing fit of despair, a never ending pang of sadness torturing the soul.

Soul. I wonder if I have one. If I do I wonder where it will go. I know what I have always been told and that scares me. I want to make sure nobody thinks it was an accident. I want to use a belt and a door knob. As I slump down I want to feel it slowly leave me, drain out of me like my depression drained me.