This is how it seems: that I'm lying on my death bed waiting. Waiting, and soon it will be over. How soon? I don't know. What I am waiting for? I don't know. But it seems to me that soon it must end, for the alternative is continued misery, and what sort of alternative is that?

Yesterday I wrote this:

"It is possible that I will end my life shortly, though admittedly it is not probable, for it seems to me that terminating my own life would take an extraordinary amount of courage and motivation, neither of which I possess. This is a peculiar catch-22, as lack of courage and motivation are partly to blame for the conditions which have caused me to consider ending my life, yet without courage and motivation ending my life (or suicide, as it's commonly referred) seems to be too frightening and difficult a challenge to undertake."

Yesterday it was a vague notion, an unexamined idea. Today it feels more like a plan. It now seems probable that soon I will end my life. (The crowd yells: "Jump!" The crowd always yells jump.)

This matter of suicide is no passing fad. It has seemed like the only answer to an unanswerable question for some time now. Years. Decades. The question, by the way, is 'how do I feel better?' 'When will I get better?' I have searched and searched for the answers. None have come.

It's not that I hate life. On the contrary. I do appreciate life, for what it's worth. On more than one occasion I've even expressed my appreciation for the experience to some vague notion of a creator or other unknown force. But more often than not I have found life unsatisfying and almost wholly impossible to enjoy, let alone succeed at. (I refer to all popular and accepted forms of success as well as the less traditional concepts when recognizing my lack thereof.)

I do admit to several bouts of pleasure and slight satisfaction (though few and far between), but even they have come at great cost, and often attached with dire consequences (both to my physical and emotional health, as well as that of others), not to mention with great difficulty to attain. Manipulation and deception have often been necessary tactics leading to enjoyment of any form, and those scant miracles of effortless joy were short lived and eventually regrettable.

Currently, my experience offers little if any satisfaction but for the most basic: enjoying the company of a pet, for instance. One can easily surmise the limited capacity to sustain an entire existence off satisfaction of such a finite nature, no?

So today, like yesterday, the day before, and tomorrow (if one should arrive), I consider the following options: the purchase of a gun; a brief visit to a suspension bridge; the acquisition of some prescription medication, which I otherwise do not require; or a moment of contemplation upon the tracks of a freight train, preferably oncoming.