On coming home.

Right around a year and a month ago, I indulged a thought that I'd had, occasionally, for at least a year if not more. I moved back to my hometown, which I'd done briefly several years prior, but this time I wanted it to be for good.

I had what should have been everything in Milwaukee - a great job, a halfway decent apartment, but something was always missing at the end of the day. I came home to an empty apartment, and spent most weekends either alone or in my car headed back up to the familiar streets I grew up on, to familiar places and faces who always welcomed me.

For the longest time, I felt like moving home was like giving up. Until, one day, when my mom said something that still sticks with me - "it's not giving up, it's coming home". And in the past year, those words have never rang more true.

I have never had a life so full, as an adult, that I have right now. I came back and found my place - something that I spent many years pining for. I wanted to be in a situation where I had things to do and people to do them with. People who understood me and genuinely wanted to spend time with me. I remember how astounded I was the first time someone held open a door for me up here - it had literally been years since I remember it happening. The people up here are just a different breed.

And I know that I burned bridges before I left town, but if I've learned anything from my struggles, it's that honesty is the best policy, and I have to be true to my feelings, even if it means leaving ashes in my wake.

Milwaukee was not a mistake by any means, because any experience is good, but it was home to some of my greatest struggles. Every time I've been back, I haven't felt anything. No pangs of guilt or like I've made a grave mistake. The few times I've gone and been places I used to frequent, though, I'm overcome with the feeling of being somewhere that no longer belongs to me. Which sucks, but at the same time, growth and the ability to look back on these places with positive feelings is good, also.

While I've had time to look back and reflect on the way things are now versus then, I still don't think I would have changed a thing. I'm in a great place now that I wasn't in a year ago. And for that, I'm thankful. I'm glad that I took the plunge and came home, without so much as a job or a plan, really, only because I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to. Because being hours away from everything I cared about got to be too much. Family and friends are everything to me, and when it got so hard to leave that I was crying in my car on the drive back to Milwaukee, I knew I needed to do something.

I did the selfish thing, for once, and did what was right for me. And I know, now, that it was the thing I needed, to ensure that I can have a good fucking life, and I do, for the first time.

Those left behind.

On Saturday afternoon, I was informed that an extended family member was found dead, by her own hand. While it didn't provide me with a sudden rush of tears or a hypothetical punch in the gut, it did provide me with feelings that I haven't felt in some time.

Two years ago, a friend of mine committed suicide. In those two years, I have felt what can only be described as survivor's guilt, many times. I beat myself up and think, "What if I could have helped? Why didn't he say anything?" Suicide is a touchy subject for some, but in the two years since I got that phone call late on a June evening, I have come to grips with the fact that I had no control over it. It was a personal choice.

Occasionally, though it seems strange to harbor anger towards someone who has passed on, I just feel bad. I feel bad for everyone who ever cared for him, myself included, who will forever ask themselves the same question - why?

Prior to that experience, and this one, I hadn't dealt with much in the way of knowing anyone who'd committed suicide. And I find it unfair to refer to them as victims. Victims of what? Their own hands? Their own inability to handle day to day life? That they wanted out badly enough to forget all of the people who ever cared about them long enough to do the deed? And what does it solve? I've never been dead, but I wonder - does the pain actually end? Is there actually a wizard in the sky with every dead pet and family member you've ever lost, waiting to dance in rainbows, or clouds, or whatever? Can they see the aftermath of their actions? Do they care?

I guess that what I'm trying to say, in light of recent events, is that I feel it's the coward's way out, in a way - as my personal opinion. We've all felt pain. We've all had struggles. But part of life is figuring that out. Getting free of those struggles and building yourself back up is one of the greatest things about life.

There is no mysterious text that dictates that if you have a sucky job or are in a shitty relationship that you have to stay. Life is only, and will only ever be, what you make it. And part of that is finding the strength to pick yourself up and keep going. I have personally done it more times than I can count, and I'm sure I'll do it many more times. It's just the way life tends to go.

But one of the most beautiful things about life is just that - that we have so many chances to do the right thing. To dig ourselves out of graves we've put ourselves into. We have that chance, if only we can find the strength to take it.

While suicide as a solution is ugly and I don't agree with it, in a way I also understand it. It feels like a double-edged sword in many ways. There is no way to make it make sense, because it doesn't. We just have to accept it and try to move past it, hoping, as I do right now, that our loved ones find the peace they are looking for so desperately.