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N T S P R I N G 25
Unseen Teachings of a Father A Place To Be Me
The first time I thought about it I was 12, and the last time I thought about it was yesterday. Each year as I creep closer to another birthday I remember how I attempted suicide. When I was 12, I was sitting on ...
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I love to travel and go on road trips, but my favorite place to “travel” to is my home away from home, just 15 minutes from my house. Now you must be asking ...
Not out of spite, but I figure I can find something else to spend $200 on that she would enjoy more. Something we both can enjoy more. I can’t refund the tickets unless an emergency is relevant to the cause. I’m not putting that bad karma on us for later.
The day arrives. It’s warm. Muggy. Humid. Thick. I keep the venue’s location a secret from Jalynn. I know I still have that up my sleeve for us to experience, regardless of our shared distaste for the music. I fill up the tank of my white Corolla and set the GPS. All she knows is the band names and that the trip takes an hour and a half to get there. The Caverns, nested in–well under–Pelham, Tennessee.
The trip itself isn’t too exciting outside of stopping in an S-curve of a town, with a length of no more than a dozen buildings. Name? Viola. Population? We see four people. In the South, expect to see some classic architecture. We pride ourselves on placing a cementblocked square Dollar General at a one-to-one ratio of stores-to-people. Being the biggest building in Viola and the only one open to the public that we see, the rest being covered in a layer of pollen or separated by corn fields, we seek a quick stop. We take five minutes to relieve ourselves and scour the aisles for drinks. We get back into our vehicle ready to depart once more. This place will look so creepy once we pass back through here later.
We keep seeing signs for Bigfoot-related events. I assure her more than once that I didn’t change the plans. Winding down a single-lane gravel road, we get flagged down by traffic control for the venue.
“You’ve arrived at your–”
I cut off the GPS before it finishes. Early enough to get a close parking spot too. The actual venue is still out of sight. I hope it’s not too long of a hike. We prep in the mirrors of our respective sides. I pull the tin of mustache wax out of my pocket. I made sure to grab it out of the bathroom at home before we initially left. I will have the best mustache here. I give myself a couple of curls and wait patiently for my passenger to give the signal. “Ready?”
We leave the vehicle, lock the car and head toward the crowd that is slowly starting to form.
In the distance, we both stare at a gravel slope and move alongside a small crowd moving downward. The crowd is full of people we wouldn’t typically associate ourselves with. Not due to hate, only due to lifestyle. Dreads, tye-dye, retired individuals riding a ‘70s high, the works associated with funk. I spot a guy in a captain hat, shirtless; he smells of BO and weed. One of which I think could be me. I casually check to see if I put on deodorant–if there is a way to do that casually.
We approach two stations in this order:
1. Ticket checking.
2. Security.
I show the tickets to the attendant.
We move toward security.
There are signs labeled “NO SMOKING/ VAPING ON PREMISES” and “NO WEAPONS PERMITTED ON SITE.”
I stare at the security guard’s sidearm. He tells me to move forward after I set my belongings on the side table. He traces me. I set off the detecting wand. Again. And again.
He asks me to move over for further inspection. He wands my pocket. He tells me to pull out what I have in it. I see my phone, keys and wallet on the table. That’s all I ever carry.
I reach in and pull out my tin of mustache wax. Oops. “Open it.”
I comply. Usually the wax is in its solid form. The heat of the day and the time out of the airconditioning causes it to melt. It’s now viscous. It looks like some sort of drug or dab residue—essentially cannabis concentrate.
“What is it?” the guard firmly questions. I flourish a curl on my mustache, “Oh! It’s for this!”
After five seconds of being stared at, my naive thoughts vanish.
“Nice mustache.”
“Thanks.”
A common area comes into view with shops, food and even the different bands’ buses. She finally spots it, “The Caverns,” posted on a sign and the 60-yard stretch from where we were to the mouth of the cave.
“Babe! A cave?! A concert in a cave?! This is going to be so exciting!”
I feel victorious.
There are still 40 minutes until the show kicks-off, but there aren’t many people here yet.
work” seemed to instill happiness within my classmates and even extended to my teachers as well.
The tradition continued week after week.
Once again, I collected my colorful stack of notes to put on my classmates’ dull pale green lockers. But as I went to them, I noticed something more disturbing than the dated lockers this time.
Someone had begun to put up notes of their own.
As I went to look to see who signed the note, it read, The Note Maker.
Someone was copying me. Impersonating me.
Have you ever done something nice for someone, only to have someone else take credit for it?
It can be frustrating, right? You think of all the things you’re going to say or do and how you’re going to fix it.
But it never stops it from happening. People will always try to take credit for the good work you try to do. It’s odd how something that happened so long ago can still hurt, even when you’ve experienced it so many times now.
Do you ever feel that way too?
I sat back down in English class, scurrying around my mind, trying to figure out who would do such a thing.
“Why would someone take credit for something they didn’t even do?” I wondered. One of my classmates tapped me on the shoulder, derailing
my train of thought.
“Did you hear that Jessica has been the one putting sticky notes all over the lockers?” she said.
I didn’t respond. I was consumed with anger.
“Who would take credit for something they didn’t do and start telling people they were the ones doing it in the first place?” I thought. It was a hard lesson that I had to come faceto-face with. It hurt my heart more than my mind at the time.
I began to think about what I should do next. Should I stop doing what I started and let someone else take over? Should I confront the person who was pretending to be me? My thoughts raced as I traversed my mind of what action I should take next.
As I brooded about it, I began to realize that I had accomplished what I had set out to do in a way. I had inspired somebody to contribute to making others smile, even if they were doing it in their way. So instead of holding on to my anger, I asked if she would like to combine our goals.
“To make a difference, you have to find the good in the bad.”
To make a difference, you have to find the good in the bad. And together, we became the Note Makers, jointly leaving messages for our classmates to find. What began as one person became two, multiplying the compassion that could be spread throughout the school.
“What began as one person became two, multiplying the compassion.”
Some statistics say that only two years after an attempt, a person is likely to attempt again. Knowing this, I avoided looking back. I refused to reexamine the times that led up to the attempt.
Now that five years have passed, I have learned that looking back gives me a new perspective as I continue to look forward. I also learned, by looking at my past, I can see where things needed to change and how I could have reacted differently.
With time passing and a lot of much-needed healing, I’ve found myself becoming an advocate for suicide prevention and awareness. I made the goal to take three million steps as part of a fundraiser with To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) for Suicide Awareness Month, celebrated every September.
As I fell deeper into the pit, I became a person I wasn’t proud of and blamed for being the cause of many failing narratives. The first few months after my attempt, I felt as though I was such a failure that I couldn’t even succeed in ending my own life.
I was angry at myself. I was angry at the people who stepped away in my time of need, and I was angry that I was still alive. I was angry at how alone I was after surviving an attempt. How could I fall so far after being at the bottom for so long?
I made plans again to end my life, but for some reason, I decided to go to a new therapist that same day. I kept thinking I never should have grown up and I never should have been born. The thoughts rang through my head as I checked in at the front desk, and I sat down. I looked around the room and noticed that hanging on the wall right in front of me was the sign I needed to stay.
“The moment you doubt you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it,” a quote from my favorite childhood movie, Peter Pan, hung on a black canvas a few feet in front of me. I sat there amazed. This had to be a sign from God, the universe or even Peter himself to stay.
Whatever it was,the message was clear. I was going to be okay. I continued my appointments with this therapist and found myself becoming the better version of myself. I reached that two-year anniversary and found myself in a position I had never been in before: I was happy.
I found pride in my journey; I made amends with those I had hurt; and I forgave myself. I revisited who I wanted to be when I was five years old. I wanted to be bigger than I was then. I wanted to be a better me.
“I’m one of the lucky ones who woke up.”
I’ve been getting closer to seeing that person in the mirror every day, and some days I think I do. I have noticed gray hair growing that wasn’t there when I was 20, a sight I never would have seen if I had succeeded in my attempt.
Since I have looked back at who I was then and what I was experiencing, I have been able to forgive that version of myself and realize that I was sick. I tell myself now that I would never shame myself for getting the flu, so shaming myself for having a mental illness doesn’t make any sense. I never thought I would be at a point in my life where I thought happiness was something I could achieve. I thought before it wasn’t possible for me. I still have bad days, just like everyone, and sometimes those bad days seem to flash this big red button that says, “the end of all your problems.” But I know better now that I can’t because there are people who depend on me, and my hurt would only be given to them if I were gone.
I’ve found that sometimes taking one step at a time is the best thing a person can do. Fall 2024, I completed my goal of taking three hundred thousand steps in partnership with TWLOHA, and it would not have been possible without taking each step one at a time. Practicing patience like this is a big part of my journey.
I see the progress I’ve made, and I know that it is okay to look back sometimes because it allows me to look forward with more perspective. Now I approach another year and remember to count the grays and the steps as they come because I almost lost the chance to see them.
