This same old story..

Picture this. A human being laying on a bed, dead but alive. Struggling to move as usual. They have classes to get to but classes can wait, classes don't matter, classes are oppression and completely unwanted. Once upon a time, not too long before, they were the type to do anything for their parents. For so many years, they'd put serious effort into things like making people laugh and being extremely complacent and smiling more in hopes that it would please society. But they'd been cracking up all the while, piece by piece.

All things break. But they can be rebuilt anew. Kintsugi. The Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold. Piece by piece. Reborn from the wreckage.

They had broken. Utterly. Absolutely. And it didn't seem possible to fix them. Their family had tried. A cruel roommate decided they would force the pieces together, only creating more destruction, more crumbling like the quake that began the end of Pompeii. But alive they stayed. Just barely hanging on to a life source, of sorts. Their phone.

This person appreciated the arts. Many forms of it. Food, nature, movies, music, books... These sorts of things were and are still worth staying alive for. To witness the human mind in such works of magic, to see just how amazing a thing can be made by those of the same species... Beautiful. They longed to see the beauty within the broken, bitter madness of the world. So they sought it where they could. Inside the little box in their trembling hands.

I don't know what led me to watch that series. But I did. It's called "Please Like Me". It's about a guy who's awkward as hell and can be mean and super gay. All of which I can relate to, I suppose. But it went beyond jokes soon enough. Got too deep to take. At the end of the series, well... I'd rather not spoil it completely. Someone died. Took their own life. And that was that.

What can I say? I was terrified. And horrified. And moved beyond words. It seemed everything was crashing into my mind all at once. The years I'd spent on university, wasting away, doing next to nothing. My parents who I was a disappointment to still waiting for me to become their good little one again, like I used to be. So much damage for such little reason. So much pain for a life that wasn't even mine.

I was living a lie. And I didn't want to, anymore. So after an extreme breakdown - so bad I called my father of all people once no one else picked up, desperate to hear the voice of a loved one - I picked myself up from the corner and walked back to my room. Renewed. From the ashes came someone... New. Kintsugi. Mended with gold.

I decided it was time to stop kidding myself. I'd already left the path of my parents to such a high extent so why not leave it completely? Why not do something else; something wanted? I know that watching a character die might seem such an extreme reason to make such a huge decision. But you have to understand that I was already dying. I was in decay, those years I spent in the wrong course and wrong university. I looked into that person's eyes, the lifelessness in them and there I saw myself.

I quickly realised that I didn't want to live a life where I was waiting desperately to die. No one deserves such a pain-filled desire. I realised it wasn't enough to just exist. I wanted to be alive, also. I wanted more.

And so, I got it. Took some more assertiveness than I'd ever been used to but my parents had no choice but to let me do something else. And that's where I am right now. The funny thing is; I've never once doubted whether it was the right decision or not. I knew from the very moment I made it - the peace that came from a soul that was finally being listened to. Hurts to remember how long it had to wait for me to truly hear it. My heart sheltered great blows in getting me here - ever-patient, ever-hoping.

It's not everything I'd wished for. It didn't solve all my problems or grant me a magical elixir of permanent happiness. What it is is a start. A chance to begin life anew. And that's all I ever really wanted and needed, I suppose.