book meme :// i’m thinking of ending things by iain reid ( lightly edited to fit structure; change pronouns as necessary. )
maybe this is how it was always going to end.
sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. you can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.
it’s one of those terrible things, but unfortunately it’s very real.
i’m scared. i feel a little crazy. i’m not lucid.
i just feel a little more on edge than i usually am.
all relationships have secrets, though, don’t you think? even in lifelong
relationships, and fifty-year marriages, there are secrets.
maybe we’re not supposed to know all the answers. questions are good. they’re better than answers.
i’ll tell you a story. a true one. one you’ve never heard.
pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited.
i want to understand myself and recognize how others see me. i want to be comfortable being myself.
i think what i want is for someone to know me. really know me. know me better than anyone else and maybe even me.
we get sick and better, or sick and worse. we don’t know when, or how, or why. we just carry on.
you also know things are real when they can be lost.
it didn’t have to happen this way.
i just wasn’t sure if you were all right. you were trembling.
families have quirks. all of them.
are you sure there was someone there?
vulnerability makes us lose our ability to think straight.
if i could work mostly alone, and was
still living alone, things would be easier. everything would be a little more natural.
we’re never inside someone else’s head. we can never really know someone else’s thoughts.
there’s a perception that fear and terror and dread are fleeting. that they hit hard and fast when they do, but they don’t last. it’s not true.
when you become aware of your heart, you want it to stop beating. you need a break from the constant rhythm, a rest. we all need a rest.
there’s grace in doing the right thing, in making a human decision.
what are you waiting for?
people talk about the ability to endure. to endure anything and everything,
to keep going, to be strong. but you can do that only if you’re not alone.
what do we do when we’re always alone? when there’s no one else, ever?
it’s not that i can’t accept and acknowledge love, and empathy, not that i can’t experience it. but with whom?
i’m sorry for everything.
you can do this. you can help me now.
i think you better sit down.