I killed myself last night. The part of me that has existed for others to see and admire, or loath and judge, or accept and love, or to know and then forget...is now dead. My digital self is no longer a distraction I want to manipulate, so I deactivated my Facebook account. I know, that's so not as impressive as I built it up to be!
I have been thinking about it for some time now and have been looking for a way to muster courage and rally around a decision to finally act. It shouldn't have been a decision that required any more effort than a mouse click. But it was surprisingly difficult to end that life. I remember when I joined Facebook and it doesn't seem like that long ago. I was in Iraq and I did it as a way to keep in touch with friends and family back home. But it's funny how that part of me spiraled into a whole new persona. It's a part of me that I've grown to hate. A face I feel like I put on for other people's enjoyment, even though I know deep down that it's because I wish I was as interesting in real life as I am in cyberspace. Sadly, I admit that I cannot be.
Do you know what it feels like to fall as a leaf does from a tree? Drifting with the wind, lazily flying to earth in a slipstream of time and circumstance? That's how I feel most days. It's a frightening thing...gravity. How does one rely on nothing but the ebb and flow of their own existence and be satisfied with the patch of ground they've randomly come to rest on? I don't know. But for some time now I've felt the pull and have known that I'm supposed to be doing something more than languishing in the fruits of my sometimes not-so-fervent labors. So I rise and fall in these buffeting winds. There are no coherent rhythms other than the soft beating of a lonely heart.
-Jim Franks
