Still Standing

I remember when I had hit the brick wall my life had become -- when a friend I had written to told me she was worried about me. Until then, my life was a blur, a mindless routine. I had lost my job. My bank account was nearly empty and I wasn't having much luck finding a job, even though I put my car through hell on endless drives for interviews.
My apartment was a mess, and I didn't much care. I subsisted on music and books.
Adding to my misery was the beautiful woman who lived across from me. I had asked her out and things seemed to be going my way and then nothing. She shut me out over some incredibly stupid comment I made. Phone calls weren't returned; knocks on the door went unanswered.
We came and went without acknowledging each other's existence, and I was left with this aching guilt that I had messed up something that could have turned out to be good.
I felt like a failure and I couldn't at that point see anyway I could turn that failure into success. My friend could see that despair in the letters I wrote.
I could see it myself. I was in one of those dark places we all end up in at one time or another.
You replay your mistakes over and over, thinking if you could pinpoint the exact second things went sideways, you might have had a chance.
You don't think too much that maybe this is as it should be, that this was the way it was always supposed to go. You blame yourself because you don't know the difference between taking responsibility and pounding yourself in the ground.
At that moment, they are one and the same. And so you pound joy out of your life. You pound laughter out of your life. You pound the light out and live in utter and complete darkness.
Your life becomes your grave. You stop breathing consciously because your breathing has become less important.
In those moments, I don't think I ever really considered suicide. But does it really matter? Do you have to pull the trigger or take pills to decide you don't want to live anymore, that it's better to just accept the crappy circumstances life has thrown your way and give up?
I think I was in that place for a long time. We all sometimes get in that place. Some stay there for years. Others slap themselves awake.
I was there in that imagined grave for a few months until I found a job and moved out of that dingy apartment. You can say life got better.
But it didn't really. I got better. I got stronger. I realized that my life wasn't over just because things got dark for a little bit.
Sometimes, realizing that you're still standing is the first step to taking control of your life and finding the light that was always there just around the corner.
Standing means you can walk, and walking means you can walk out of the darkness. There is always a way out. Always.