Dating : Wubba Lubba Dub Dub

“I thought it was normal for people to want to kill themselves. I mean have you never felt like ending it all? Ever?” Layla asked, raising her eyebrows.

Valerie bent her head looking confused, as if flipping the pages of her two-decade long story in her head, looking for an answer.

“No, I don’t think so.” she paused, her eyeballs flipping side to side, as if still searching, then she firmly answered “No.”

As the color of the sky slowly darkened outside and the whispers of the leaves got louder, Layla gave in to nostalgia. Valerie had known Layla since they were in high school. There were not a lot of things they kept from each other. Whenever they had issues, they would logically analyze as to why an action they committed might have harmed someone else. The goal was to be as dispassionate and unbiased as possible. The reason they could go about solving problems and understanding each other was because they were both empathetic.

When you are close to someone, you think you could foretell their behavior, their reactions, their opinion about something, but the unpredictability of human minds proves you wrong. You can know that your daughter never ate egg yolks her entire life and suddenly she could tell you they are not that bad. You would think your best friend would be critical of the offensive lyrics in a song but they might end up nodding their heads to the beat. It’s not the genetic makeup, the environment, the books they’ve read, the conversations they’ve had, it’s a mixture of things.There are so many variables, one can only try to predict but might fail in proving the hypothesis. The human mind is so brilliant. You just never know.

“Not even when you were a teenager?” Layla asked with a hint of excitement. The kind that one experiences when they discover something new.

“I did feel like I wanted to escape when I felt overwhelmed or anxious but I never had thoughts like that.” Valerie said calmly.

Layla rested her cheeks on her left hand, then looked at Valerie, “Val, I’ll be honest, I thought everyone does, I mean at least at some point. I mean. I don’t know. All my friends. They send memes and snaps and you know we’re laughing about how miserable life is and all those self deprecating jokes. I mean people say it so casually. I thought they were trying to cope with and normalize their pain of existence. You know? I just. I don’t know. You really didn’t?”

“Whenever I felt anxious or knew that I would, even during the darkest of times I would immediately talk it out.” Valerie asserted.

They had known each other for almost four years now but had not been this close. It was the college stress and the desire to belong, that strengthened their bonds. Valerie had heard some pretty dark stuff from Layla. This included her traumatic past and the random self deprecating jokes she made during lunch. But this idea Layla had just communicated shocked her.

Layla tried to remember incidents that she could reference from to prove her point to Val.

“I mean you know how Diana and I are always making jokes, and you know how people just randomly say “I so wanna die.” or “I wanna kill myself” or “Oh god kill me.” when they have to go to work or something. I mean people always say it casually. It is said so often I thought it was normal for people to want to end their pain by killing themselves. I thought those desires come up in the form of humor. I think it requires a lot of strength to commit suicide. One might say they would like to do it, but they can’t, they think about all the things that are important to them or things they like or things they would like to do in the future. And there is a fear associated with that. I think survival is the most fundamental truth and no one, or nothing would want to end their existence just like that. Why do you think animals camouflage? Why do they have like venoms and stuff? Why do atoms want to be stable? To save energy, to be mortal, to fight for their existence and survive. But survival is not an easy task. When things are overwhelming, they just don’t want to put in the effort and would like to escape feeling the way they do and I don’t know. Do you get my point?” Layla asked.

Valerie nodded.

“And it requires strength. You are on the edge, or calmly standing with a knife or a rope, but you just can’t do it. I mean what are all those scars then? If not failed attempts? Because a part of you is scared, we all have this innate desire to survive. It’s a necessity, if you will. When people who took their lives are called “cowards” it boils my blood. Like do you think someone would just end their lives for fun or something? Don’t you think they liked things and people and places? Why can others not understand the severity of the issue? Why can people not empathize or even try to empathize? Suicide takes a lot of thoughts, a lot of courage. I’m not promoting this kind of courage or anything, don’t misinterpret me but it’s tough for them. I couldn’t do it, I have attempted to harm myself several times, but every time it hurt, it validated my existence. I know it sounds dark but it’s true. One needs to have had a lot of bad experiences and a really negative impression of reality. It’s not as media or those unprofessional journalists put it.” Layla continued.

Valerie looked at Layla, “That’s true.”

“I mean I thought sadness was the only thing that was real. It’s what brought me closer to most of my friends. That may be just in my head but. I guess it’s empathy more than sadness? I don’t know. You know Jay, right? He was hospitalized but still made jokes about it. I mean, we’d talk about like Descartes or like Mill or Bentham and just include or end with a suicidal comment and it was chill. That’s my normal. That’s all I’ve known. And..” Layla comfortably adjusted herself as words left her mouth. The river of her thoughts flowed unrestrained. Val’s presence had made her feel as if it was okay to let her emotions cascade. Val shook her head.

“… and and Grace? We’d send memes to each other at 3 am and talk about how depressing life is. And when I went to Chicago, Shanks, Ben and Shrey, you know I met them for the first time and we got high and laughed at sadness. We talked about the direction of friction caused by walking till midnight. One of my friends, he got a snake, he told me how hard it was for him to cope, how much the mere pain of existence was haunting him. And I could empathize, you know? And I wanted to help, help them all. Because I myself wanted to be helped. My awareness, my perspective was dragging me to this deep pit of self-loathe. And…”

She paused to take a deep breath. “I don’t know to what degree people really mean it when they casually joke about it. I mean some people they just say it without meaning it and some people joke about it in search of conformity, some are just sad, some are actually depressed, some are just angry. We just want to exist you know? And it sucks physiologically, psychologically, mentally, I don’t know if the two words mean the same, my point is, it sucks to feel like that but having to talk to someone about it, helped. You know? It was like saying “The world sucks. People are just fighting and bringing each other pain and destroying the environment and things can be really bad but I mean having to relate to someone just motivated me to not end it. Because if they’re doing it, then why can’t I try to look at the beautiful side of life and empathize. Right? Having people to share our thoughts with someone who will listen is comforting, it really helps.”

Valerie was calm, her presence melded into the ambiance of the evening. She straightened up a little and smiled. “Umm…”

“And I don’t know… it just… At times you just want someone to listen, to tell you that things are not as bad and that you matter and you are not as unworthy as you think you are. My friends still share memes and we still laugh at our sadness but it’s like saying ‘Yeah. That’s the true nature of things but what can we do? Let’s just enjoy the time we have.’ kinda. Like optimistic nihilism. I don’t know.” Layla muttered.

Valerie offered no judgement and listened with unconditional acceptance like Roger would have liked.

“When you realize that you’re not alone, it feels liberating. Sharing the sorrow lessens it, the suffering shrinks. Like Mr. Meeseeks says ‘Existence is pain.’ but I think we don’t have to suffer alone.”