Lonely & Surrounded by Many

An unfortunate death occurred this past week by a girl who had committed suicide. While talking to my friend who had known her for somewhat number of years, she said to me, “I can’t believe she did this!  She was so pretty and she had money, why would she do this to herself?”  I thought about that question for a while. I thought about my own life too. What would make someone who has what everybody dreams of: looks, money, a good looking spouse - want to end their life? Most people without a chemical imbalance would think up the logical reasons, but they couldn’t with this girl. This girl was beautiful, from what I’m told, inside and out. But, what about looking beyond the outer shell of her life? What about looking deep inside; deep inside of her heart as well as mind?

First “logical” reasoning is: “She’s beautiful.” Maybe it’s possible she looked into the mirror and saw a completely different person than what most people had seen. Many women and some men have an image distortion. It’s the same concept as anorexia: a skinny person looking into the mirror and seeing an obese person staring right back at them. There are beautiful models that look in the mirror and find an ugly person looking right back at them. I’m sure we’ve all looked in the mirror (especially myself) and thought, “Oh nooooo way am I putting those shorts on!” Or, you just feel less than par one day. That’s normal. But when it happens on a daily basis, where you find yourself flirting with the ideas of distorted opinions of yourself, then it’s time to really try to get a grip on it. But then again, how do you know if it’s distorted or not? Your mind can plays tricks on you.

Money. “She has so much money, why would she do this?” If you think about it, money has never made anyone happier. In fact, it’s been the split of many families. Money will have you developing friends left and right, to only help you spend it. You can be surrounded by millions of people who claim they love you, however the reality of it is: you may be the loneliest person on earth. Look what happened to Michael Jackson. He had so many people surrounding him, and when a friend had asked him, “Are you lonely, Michael?” He moved up, waited a moment to get his thoughts together and responded: “I’m a very lonely man.”

Some of the best times of my life were spent in a tiny apartment with my partner, giving the place a fresh coat of paint and hearing the broken pipes squeal with pain. Our fuses always blew, the hot water ended at 8am, so on the weekends, we’d rush to take our showers before everyone in the building did, because our slumlord only provided one hot water heater for a five family house. Looking back on it though, the good outweighed the bad and there are so many wonderful memories in that little dumpy place. I was at my happiest then. Although I’ve moved up a tad in the world and have things I’ve always wanted, I still get depressive episodes because that’s just my make up. I had told my wife, “Even if we get a nice condo, nice cars, and a comfortable spot in the world, I’m still going to have depressive episodes from time to time.”  She understood me all too well. Money will never make me “happy”.  My faith in God, love, family, friends - that’s all I need and all I’ll ever want out of life.   If I happen to stumble upon winning the lottery---great. If not, probably even better. Home isn’t a huge house or a condo with nice things in it - home is where your heart is - home is where my wife is.