I used to think the worst way to die was in a tank filling with water, you know? Like in the movies? They keep banging on the glass or the rocks or wherever they’re trapped, and the water’s rising and rising, and at the last minute they escape? Well, if it happened in real life they wouldn’t escape. So I thought that’d be the worst way to go.

But then I realized… I realized that’s what we’re all doing. That’s life. We’re all banging on the glass hoping for something more, trying not to feel pain, trying not to drown. Everyone secretly thinks their life is that fairytale. That they’ll burst out and have something more. Maybe that happens sometimes. You know, every once in a while. Maybe not.

All I know is that my life was that tank, and it was slowly filling. When I was little, when I first saw Titanic and shit, I thought the worst part of that whole scenario was the anticipation of death. But I was wrong. It’s the anticipation of pain. Like, just waiting and pounding and pounding on the walls that confine you and getting more and more tired, and you’ve come up with a last resort. You know, you bang your head against the glass—knock yourself out so you don’t have to slowly drown. But that takes courage, right? Or maybe not courage. Maybe the opposite… like the fear has to be really strong. Either way, you have to decide when to give up hope that someone will rescue you or that you’ll be special and miraculous enough to rescue yourself. And relinquishing that hope… who knows? Maybe that’s more painful than the drowning itself. But it doesn’t matter. Once it’s gone, it’s not going to come back on its own. You’d have to fight for it, and fight hard, because the truth is just so persistent. And you’re not strong enough, not brave enough, not ready or willing enough for that battle. So you end it.