The Note

Today I drafted a suicide note in my head, just to see what it'd sound like. I have no actual desire to kill myself, don't fret, it was more of a self-indentity exercise. If the occasion ever arose, what would I say? Whom would I address? I simply explored these avenues for the sake of knowing.

As one who has read many a suicide note, I know that stylistically, they tend to come in three forms:
1) Poetry - This was what my friend used last week. He wrote a poem about ending his life and upon reading it, we all realied he was serious.

2) Things Unsaid - This was used by the first person I ever knew to successfully commit suicide. She wrote in her note her reasoning for taking her own life and all of the things that she'd never had the courage to say whilst living for fear of rejection and punishment.

3) Outburst - When my friend's older brother shot himself in the head two years ago, he left a vicious note seeping with his pent-up rage towards everyone and everything that had ever done him wrong. It seemed that in death, he finally let everything he had bottled up for so long spew out, along with his blood.

Each form is extremely personal, and I suppose, extremely thought-out. As the final thing that one would leave behind, I'd assume that one would want to write their note so that it would be unforgettable. Suicide notes are generally unforgettable anyway, I mean they have this habit of etching themselves into the hearts of those who live to find them, but how would one go about writing the last note they'll ever pen?

What rhetorical choices, deliberate or otherwise, would one make?

I think I'd write mine like a letter, addressing individually those who were important. I'd leave each person an individualized final statement or confession; to some I'd try to provide solace, and to others, I'd maybe try to make them smile a wry smile. I know that some people addressed would receive vicious, sardonic, likely offensive and revealing statements. I'd leave those people with such mean statements in the hopes that the shock of finding them in my note would prompt the person to change, if only a little.

Maybe I'd get creative, like Hannah Baker from Jay Asher's '13 Reasons Why'. She had the ultimate 'things unsaid' note-- a series of tapes telling the story of her own self-destruction. That would be fairly unforgettable.

The possibilities are endless, however, let me make myself abundantly clear:
This is all speculative and unfounded. I have no desire to actually kill myself, nor to even write a note as if I were. Suicide is like a disease in this little town, and when one is constantly surrounded by attempts and successes, it makes one wonder. But I wonder only.

Last question, not necessarily for you readers to answer, but more for the purpose of hanging in the air because it is a question I think we've all asked on occasion:
Who would miss me?

Julia

PS: I need to stop posting so often; I'm sure this is getting annoying, especially because no one really posts anymore anyway. Is this whole blogging fad beginning to fade? Am I clinging onto the raggedy edges of a passing trend? Or is life just way too complicated and stressful right now because of finals and holidays and the general seasonal depression that comes with the winter? Sighh.