Suicide is painless......

We’re all a little proud, no? Most of us think we’re not bad human beings. Ok, we have our off days but generally we aim to be nice to our fellows and generally apologise when we’re not and try to make up for it in some way, however fatuous the end result turns out to be. Flowers and chocolates never cut it guys, whatever they say, you should have learnt that by now! :)

Well yesterday I came across something that actually for a few moments set me right back on my heels. Such an outpouring of spleen, vitriol and acid, sprayed with the knowing hands of someone used to storming fortresses with Mauser machine pistols in both hands, changing magazines with their teeth and drop kicking hand grenades into bunkers in between; a one person re-enactment of the Normandy landings, complete with real explosions! No mercy. And for some reason, probably a good one if I could articulate it, was the thought I might, in part, be responsible. Knocks the pride a bit, does that! How did I do that? If I did. Which I now think I didn’t. All I did, as I usually do, was pour a little oil on the fire.

Needless to say, the empathy gland kicked in a while later and unfortunately, dear reader, led me down tracks I seldom walk, to places I try to avoid, thoughts I do not wish to have. One of the tracks bought up the ‘S’ word. No, not shopping, that is a far worse hell then I can ever imagine hell being. Eight hours looking for winter boots, none of which you buy:) and all I want is a beer :) The things we do for love, ay?

So, 10 or 12 years ago, I’m asked to leave. She will not apologise and I cannot forgive the lack of apology. If you get it wrong, you say you are sorry. If you don’t accept that then there CAN be no bond (and no, it wasn’t about shopping! :) So there I am. Nowhere to live, still paying half the mortgage (legal obligation) and she has all the money; a settlement is a longish way down the line. I end up in a six feet square of space at my parents (thanks Pop!) unable to afford anything else.

After about 6 months my minimal share of joint resources comes through and oh, is she so grateful for how much I’ve bent over backwards to ensure she keeps the lion’s share :) After a couple of months, I find a suitable property, very seventies DIY but habitable. Nearly 12 months after the fateful day, I finally have somewhere to live again, that’s mine.

I almost immediately start gutting the kitchen (horrible!). For about 6 weeks I’m living with no appliances, all in the lounge unwrapped; no floor in the kitchen, hopping from joist to joist to get to the loo; no furniture bar a sofa from my niece (can’t afford it) in the lounge with said appliances and living on pizza because there’s no gas supply in the right place for the cooker, no pots and pans anyway! Nor cutlery. Nor cups. Nor plates. :) Oh alright, a mug and a glass (half pint) :(

So, finally after six weeks of unmitigated hell, I’m standing on my new kitchen floor, looking at my new (my) hand made kitchen complete with appliances and thinking “what that cupboard needs is more than a cast iron wok in it” and “perhaps I should buy some real food now” So off I went and equipped my little kitchen with all the tools of the trade I sometimes think I’d have liked to have entered, catering, cooking.

One room at least is habitable! And I can stop phoning out for pizza! So I cook a meal. I cannot now remember what it was. Probably monkfish or lambs liver in paprika and red wine or Moroccan lamb, things I’m good at. (If anybody’s throwing up over the prospect of offal in red wine, don’t! The trick is to ‘flash fry’ it in thin strips, a few minutes. Too many people, my mother included, cook it for far too long. Oh, stuffed baked hearts are nice too. Not too keen, me, on lungs (lights) though.)

And then about 10:00pm something strange happens. I am walking back from my half empty lounge and I look down at the little step that separates the rear half of my flat from the front and I sit down next to the phone and I weep. I weep as I have never wept before and I do not know why. I have no idea why I am crying, I should be happy; I have a functioning kitchen. I can cook. No more pizza! But I’m not.

Eventually I rise, I walk into my kitchen and through into the bathroom. And I run a bath. Returning to the kitchen, I use the butcher’s steel to re-sharpen my chef’s knife and return it to the butcher’s block. The Romans had an adage. ‘the most painless’, a gentle slide into oblivion they say, you don’t even feel the cuts when they are made under water.

I returned to my little stair.

And I wept again.

Five times I walked, from the little stair to the butcher’s block, picked up the knife and walked to the bathroom but then back to my little stair.

And still I wept.

At 12:30am it was too late to phone anyone I knew. I had experienced the late night phone call from someone who ‘wanted to talk’. I was not going to subject anyone I liked or cared for to that! So I phoned the Samaritans. (A suicide help charity)

They were brilliant, very professional! Except they gave me everything I didn’t want to hear. Lots of consolation, lots of “she ‘s a bit of a bitch” lots of “she’s just trying to hurt you” but no “excuse me, you are being a wanker! Get a grip! A hold on your life!” to quote, “pull your bloody socks up!”

So I ended up being angry with the person who was supposed to be helping me?

Yep! And it worked! I was so angry with him that I stopped being angry with her!

I think it's great when you get resolution.