if it happens

Hypothetically-

If it happens- it was well-thought out. 

People like to think of endings as impulsive- dramatic, immediate, catastrophic. Often, however- they simply arrive quietly. The slow build-up of exhaustion mistaken for resilience by everyone watching from the outside. Her days have been moving with the peculiar sense that everything has already happened- a déjà vu.

She has thought about it before. As a teenager, she romanticised disappearance in the way lonely young people often do. But back then- there was still performance in it. A desire to be witnessed. To interrupt the indifference of those around her with something impossible to ignore. She had left the bathroom door ajar- and, the cat had wandered in. Curious. It was in the way he looked at her with those bright green eyes- the way he mewed and jumped onto the rim of the bathtub to play around curiously with the water. She had gotten out, dried herself up, and gone downstairs to feed him. She watched, as he ate his food noisily- blissfully unaware of what he had interrupted. 

Outwardly, she remains intact. Functional. Even desirable. Inside, however, there is very little left. Everything following the last one became performance disguised as recovery: the career progression, the relationships, the careful routines, the stint as an expat. She arranged herself into something socially acceptable. Aimlessly rebuilt herself into something presentable. But- beneath all of it- it remained. The hollowness inside. Sometimes- she sits in churches despite no longer believing with any real conviction. Silence feels less humiliating there. She carries on conversations with something she is not entirely certain is listening. Perhaps, faith is simply what remains when people have exhausted everyone and everything else.

There is a particular loneliness in being perceived as the capable and reliable one. People mistake composure for capacity. They hand her their grief, their anxieties, their crises- and, over time, she became a container for everyone except herself. Always the caretaker. Rarely held. And, perhaps that is the cruelest part: how many people have taken pieces from her over the years while remaining convinced they treated or loved her well. 

And then, this feeling, a few weeks back- she was sitting at a beach bar with a friend. They shared a bottle of wine between them. The bar was full of people- in fact, they had waited thirty-minutes for a table. People were surfing. Others, sunbathing. Children were jumping into the waves- playing- building sandcastles. And strangely, just watching all of this- she felt satisfied. After, they laughed at the amount of steps they had to climb up to get to their cars- still coming down the cold Sauvignon they had just shared. She hugged her friend and, she walked off quietly. An eery sense of calm in it all- her life. 

It's this feeling- the same quiet feeling of finality old cats seem to understand near the end of their lives. The gradual withdrawal; the instinct to disappear somewhere soft and hidden. Sunday, she thought- she's free then. 

Fair warning. If it happens- there will of course be people who insist they never saw it coming. But- honestly, the signs were everywhere.  It was in the unopened mail. In the untouched fridge. In the exhaustion mistaken for maturity. In the way she increasingly spoke about herself as though she were already becoming memory.

If it happens- she wants to thank the ones who tried. Although, there is nothing any of you could really do to save her. She acknowledges the strange and uncomfortable position she's put you in- and she's sorry for it. And- perhaps, this is the last time she will be. 

"Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be." - "The Sense of an Ending" by Julian Barnes