the dog hair remains after the man is gone

If I told you how often I thought about suicide, you might be shocked.
Then again
you might not.

During some periods of my life (like right now), it's been a constant niggling thought, as if a smug answer to everything I think.

'Wonder if God exists?'
'of course not, so there is no hell in which to suffer if you commit suicide.'

'I'm so so so so tired.'
'if you commit suicide, you can be free.'

'Guess I should run to the grocery store.'
'if you were killed in a car wreck on the way, you wouldn't have to commit suicide.'

At other times in my life, I've barely given it a thought. During the happy years, when my children were very young, for example, I had dreams and thoughts of the future, of thanksgiving dinners when I would sit at the head of a long table, and gaze proudly down the two rows of seats containing all the children and grandchildren and spouses of all related to me.

I once told a counselor that I envisioned being happy at the end of my life, rocking in a chair on a porch. He asked me why I couldn't be happy NOW?

I had no answer for this question, then. And twenty years later, I still don't.

For me, happiness is an elusive goal....a blip on the horizon, a fleeting shadow rounding a corner and exiting my vision. Sometimes when I thought I'd finally reached happiness, it dissipated in my hands like fairy dust, leaving something worse in its path as punishment for being too hopeful.

I googled 'symptoms of depression' last night, although it is clear to me that I am suffering from major depressive disorder and have been for most, if not all, of my life. What I didn't expect is that I matched symptoms of other types of depressive disorders....bipolar and atypical depression too, for example.

In the end, it doesn't matter.
I am depressed, I know this.
I am a single mother of four and have neither the time nor the money to get treated.
Therefore, suicide is a comforting thought at the end of every painful thought.
One day, I will be free from this pain.
I know this.

So I continue to beam in public, and many would be surprised to know I suffer these secret, silent thoughts of death and finality.

I do not have a plan in place, or even a time in which I want to exit the world.
So I sit with my thoughts, ever hopeful that tomorrow will be a better day, that something magical will happen and will 'end this reign'.

I really liked this last man, more than I realized.
I also liked his dog, and was happy watching her for the month he spent in Israel with his son.

I didn't imagine that I would still be vacuuming up her hair from my home, long after he was gone.