Memories

Sometimes my heart is stirred and I remember things; in some of those times, I feel moved to share the things I remember.

When I was young, a woman shared her life story, including her plan to live fast, hard and dangerously, and then commit suicide when she turned twenty-one, as she was convinced that it was all downhill from there. At the time of this telling, she was in her early thirties. Turns out she'd had a child before she turned 21, so she decided to live.

As redemptive as the end of this story was, the seed had already been planted in my young teenaged mind, that I should most definitely commit suicide at twenty-one, as every adult I knew wanted to die, or seemed to live a miserable life.

Flash forward about seven years, and you'd see me running, for the first time in my life. It was the day after my twenty-first birthday, early in the morning, and I was running in the garden of the hospital where I saw my therapist once a week. I was pondering the aforementioned scene, pondering my life, and whether or not I should end it...and whether or not to tell my therapist I had been pondering this.

The year between my twentieth and twenty-first birthday was the most transitional, most horrifying, most miraculous year of my life...I had almost died, and things had changed so drastically, it was as if  I had stepped into the life of an entirely different person.

I ran home to get ready for work, and on the train, I knew something was wrong. As I alighted in Chicago's major tourist area, Michigan Avenue, masses of people pressed toward me, trying to board the train. I continued to walk through the masses of people and found my way to the major retailer where I was scheduled to start at 11a.m.

I saw the group of shop-girls I worked with, including my favorite shift manager. Just as my brain registered that it was she, and that today would be much more fun than I'd anticipated since she would be working, she said, "...honey, you can go home."

I thought I'd been fired. She said that in light of everything that had happened, and since our location was directly across from the John Hancock building, (Chicago's second-highest building), we were being evacuated.

I needed money, and I had no idea what was going on. I think I had a cell phone, and my roommate had an old TV, which I never watched, so I had no idea what had happened. I boarded the train home, and everyone was whispering. I made it back to my apartment to find my half-Persian roommate on the living room floor in front of the television...WAILING.

My birthday is September the 10th. This was the day after, and the year was 2001.

A million things crossed my mind. She kept wailing that the world was ending. I think I remember laughing out loud. "Perhaps this was what was meant to happen all along," I thought to myself. "I won't have to kill myself...the world is probably ending and God was taking care of the deed for me..."

I did what any logical person would do. I packed a lunch, and marched off to find my therapist.

I lived about a mile from his office in the old, rustic hospital...on the other side of the projects. When I walked back outside, away from my wailing, wild-haired, housemate and the tracks of her tears full of last night's kohl and mascara, and a thousand questions...

It seems odd that I'd go to find my therapist, and more so that I'd know his schedule that well...

I found him having lunch, and asked if I could join him. He obliged. I asked him if the world were ending, and if I should just give up.

He looked at me, exasperated. (...he'd just spent 6 months putting me back together...and here I was, like a painstakingly restored, priceless vase, asking for permission to throw myself off the shelf...)

It was surreal. At that moment,  an airplane flew over...but as we were blocks from the Sears Tower...there was a moment where we probably both thought...well, you know...that it was another plane...

I remember him saying something about the Saudi Royal family being allowed to leave the country...maybe it was them...we were also close to a government air strip, which has since been closed...so one will never know who it was.

He looked at me and said something to the effect that he didn't know if the world was ending...

So I left, and found my favorite perch...a large window ledge in the vast hospital lobby, across from the chapel. I often went to the hospital lobby to read, as I barely had heat in my apartment, and had no air conditioning at all. The security guard came over to move me off of it, but he recognized me, smiled and let me be.

I remember sitting on that window ledge, listening to the eerie silence. (...no cars in the usually busy intersection below, no airplanes flying over...no bustle on the sidewalks below...) It was there that I decided to live. I did not have the slightest clue what was happening, but I decided to live. I was alive, and I was not going to end my life, or allow anyone else to take it from me...