Through the Rain

"I can make it through the rain, I can stand up once again on my own. And know that I'm strong enough to mend."- Mariah Carey

One of my weekday rituals is taking time out of my day to go online and listen to the Strawberry Letter on the Steve Harvey Morning Show online.  This morning’s letter just about broke my heart.

It was from a woman who described herself as being fairly skinny and not possessing the qualities that men want.  She pretty much ended it by saying that she planned to kill herself when she turns 40 if she does not have a husband or children.  That’s right- kill herself because of a lack of a man and children.

Now many people will tell her to go to church and God will work it out while others will call her crazy.  I just say is she just missing that much general love from her life.  Are there no family members and friends?

I will admit taking my own life crossed my mind a time, or two, or ten during my high school years.  I could say that it was because of the terrible relationship I had with my parents or the fact that I felt all this pressure on me to be this excellent student and was not feeling it.  But at the time, most of my thoughts were on my on-again, off-again boyfriend.  And we were off and I didn’t handle it very well.  I tried to go for the cop out, but luckily I had a grandmother who watched me like a hawk whenever she sensed something wasn’t right with me.  But my depression was fierce at the time, because not only could I not deal with him not wanting me, but I couldn’t deal with everyone knowing he didn’t want me because we went to the same high school.  I did and said things I was not proud of.  And he continued to have this effect on me into my early 20s.

But I did realize after high school and getting away and building a real network of people I became friends with and could trust, ending my own life never came to my mind again when it came to the situation.  Some other crazy things may have crossed my mind, but hey, I didn’t act on all of them and I lived to talk about it.

Not only that, I now have people who I know care about me and can relate to me. And when I’m feeling low, I know who I can talk to without judgment, but with a comforting shoulder.  It probably helped that that I learned to love me more as the days went by. And it also helped that I come out on the other side of 90 percent of life’s events stronger than when I went in.