There is only one reason I would consider appropriate for committing suicide: facing the prospect of certain failure to fulfil one's chosen life dream.
At age 36, I'm increasingly aware of how distant my life dream still remains. But I never really thought it was impossible.
Now, I'm not so sure.
When I was five, I knew I loved singing, dancing, and acting (then, i called it the 'pretending' game). When I was six, I knew I loved writing. I have always drawn and loved pictures, and I took to languages as a duck to water. So if I was being fully honest with myself, I had no business getting into a science stream in education. But where was the arts school? There was no NAPA and no UTT back when I was choosing subjects in 1994.
Dad insisted on science. He meant well. I don't regret that per se.
While I was a child and adolescent I tried to prove to everyone who would look or listen that I was talented enough to become a professional artist. I knew I would need their faith, with works. I entered competitions. I wrote songs. I drew. I painted. I acted. But I also grew profoundly resentful that they didn't seem to see fit to invest in my potential when I showed talent.
What else do I have to do to make them DO something to help me become an artist? I thought. Why won't they do more than smile and clap? There are people my age in America actually making a living with their talent! What is wrong with them? Don't they see I'm worth it? I shouldn't have to put up with this. And then the inevitable resentment-borne self-destructive habits began. That continued for at least twenty years. I was appreciative of those who did do more than smile and clap after I left Trinidad and Tobago to study and then returned, but I don't think it was enough to break the hold my resentment had on me.
Once you absorb what you think is negligence or unfair treatment, only forgiveness can break it, and I couldn't forgive. It broke my heart to think of how young I was when I first started (insert whatever art practice you want here) and how little real sponsorship I had in developing it, in getting what research psychologist Anders Ericsson has called 'deliberate practice'.
I constantly thought: if only I had had more support, I would have been superlatively skilled, if not famous by now. Usually, fame follows superlative skill. You don't need marketing when you're just a maestro. People's mouths market you. People can't ignore mastery; it's like a light for the human plant. We love to turn towards it, however messed up we may be. I knew my love for the arts; I knew my parents, society, and country had not done enough together, to make it possible for me to get 'deliberate practice' that would lead to me being a maestro. I felt cheated. It's not easy to forgive being cheated when you didn't deserve it, in your mind.
I was so hurt and so bitter I couldn't watch ANY award ceremony for ANY art form. Movie awards, Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys, Video awards, BET awards, Latin awards, you name it. It put a physical pain in my chest area to see people younger than myself, who seemed shallower than myself, receiving awards for whatever it was they were supposedly good at. I felt kinship with actors and actresses I had never met, merely because I eagerly desired to develop the same craft they practiced; I felt I should have been there with them, just because I understood what it was to want to, to love to tell a story that much. It wasn't about fame for me first and foremost, but the most sacred of things: the story, the meaning-carrier.
Not forgiving kills possibilities more quickly than any inaction on anyone else's part; I decided, out of bitterness, that I would let my life be a proverb (I got this idea from the Bible during my born-again Christian years), a cautionary tale, of what not to do with an artistic and deeply passionate child. Instead of forgiving parents, society, country, I decided to be a mirror to show them what their inaction had done to me.
When I was nine, I was thinking about reproduction, which I had learned about at age 4. After contemplating the amazing process by which new human beings are generated I decided it was an experience I had to undergo in my list of 'things I want to do in my life'. In which case, I then thought matter-of-factly, I should have a husband, because a child should have two parents. Then I closed the matter and focused on enjoying childhood, the best parts of which were reading story books, watching cartoons and child-centred movies, and daydreaming and making drawings, mainly.
I don't remember the age I was when I decided to 'become a proverb'. Probably 16, 17. But at that age, I gave up on my heartfelt personal creative/artistic dream and took up what was then a nine-year-old's decision to experience motherhood as a wife. I rationalised it by saying to myself, and asking myself: Ah well, maybe you can't be a great artist. but you can be a great artist and have no one true love, no children, terrible social skills. Is that really preferable, to having your one true love, and a child or two with him? And I answered: No. Of course not! I was also advised by some elders: Books (meaning academic achievements, or success in a career) don't keep you warm at night.
Then began what in hindsight was a lost, mad, and sad cause: to acquire true love from another human being, without first and foremost retaining a relentless, true devotion to my own love of arts. This definitely continued for more than fifteen years, from the time I was seventeen. I thought: well, I might be too old to be a maestro at (insert art here) but I'm just ripe for true love (as seen in the movies): young, attractive, alluring, vivacious, charming, healthy, untouched, etc. At least I can snag my true love and be a maestro at that!
I would laugh if it wasn't so unfunny. If the results weren't so unfunny. But it is kind of funny. It's about as funny as putting a cart before a horse and expecting smooth horse-cart transportation. Utterly hilarious. Except, taken seriously and literally with an unrepeatable life, not. Soberingly, not.
Suffice it to say that I learned you can't make a man see true love as being of the greatest importance, greater even than superlative skills in a craft you love, and the money and fame that come with it. You can't even make him see the potential for true love as being worth exploring you as a girlfriend, as more than just someone to have sex with. You can't get him to perceive physical chemistry as anything more than that, even if you are right that it has potential to be more than that.
People talk a lot about the power of pussy, or women's sexual power over men, but really it's not pussy that has power, it's psychology. If pussy, i.e. having a nice one, and giving it, by itself, had that kind of power many women would have been married and set up for life very early into their sexual journeys. And the power of psychology works with any asset, not just (as my dad calls it) 'a warm vagina'. So there is no 'power of the pussy'.
Anyway, back to suicide.
I find myself in a situation now, where I constantly wonder if I still have those gifts I so long under-used. I still want to use them. I want to use them to heal, and teach, and share, and learn, and entertain. But do I even have them anymore? My resentment and my fear of using them and not being able to have a true love having reached the top of my game, undermined and defeated what was once my burning drive to develop them. And stolen my time to develop them, too.
I used to draw everywhere. Doodling, they called it. I stopped because it wasn't 'mature': who wants an immature wife? I used to make myself learn the lines of my favourite characters in my story books. I used to make my own plays and characters. I used to...and the list goes on. Now, all I can think is Why did I ever stop? Why did I let bitterness and resentment stop me from creating, while I still had more time?
The demands of life are much greater now at 36 than they were at 16. I have to do my own laundry, cook, wash the wares, go to the doctor/s (and there are many more doctor's visits now than there were then), travel, study, work so I can make enough money to have insurance policies, to pay mortgage payments, to save towards financial goals, to pay for education, to pay for creation expertise and equipment (e.g. recording music), and do my own research about everything I need to know. Now, at 36, I don't have as much time to work on art as I did at 16, nor do I have much time to become an artist (which is always more profitable when you are younger, especially when you are a woman, since your person as your packaging, often markets your work to great effect).
I see a narrowing gap, and I want to run to it, and slide through just in time. But can I? I know if I can't, I don't want to be alive in the abyss of nothingness that is a life unfulfilled. And for me, a life unfulfilled is:
1. Not having the career your talents and passions use best and deepest
2. Not having any assets (most important of which is excellent health)
3. Not having any record of your work and your grandest visions in that work.
4. Not having any posthumous legacy
I am a teacher. I have let teaching use my talents and passions, but in my experience teaching administration is more concerned with examination results than with rejuvenation/energy, passion and creativity. I think energy, passion and creativity are part of the results that should be targeted, not only from students but from teachers; not just exam scores and teacher compliance with instructions. The system managers don't seem to care how much zest any of you lose, or why, as long as the wheels keep turning.
I have felt like a prostitute several times in the last two years, running the same lesson plan for six classes because otherwise 'parents will think it unfair' and 'we must maintain standard lesson plans if we work with standardised testing'. It does a violence to your creative brain when you can't go into a class and think: "Oh, what will we do today?" Instead, you already know. You may find different ways, but it isn't the same when you're toeing the 'standardisation' line. Something stops flowing freely. Something stalls. Some magic disappears. And I do it for the money.
Through saving money from the steady income of teaching, though, I have just been able to pay off the debt from my Bachelor's degree earned 10 years ago through savings acquired. I have also recently acquired an appreciating asset; now I have to pay for it monthly (I can get a loan) until it is paid and also figure out how to add to its value (I can't get another loan approved while I'm on one loan) within ten years or so.
I have found two producers, one in Tobago and one in Trinidad. I have figured out finally how to rest my voice; I can record. But how to pay them for studio time on the same one salary? I found a creative photographer, but how shall I pay him? I still have no performance wardrobe to talk about, because I can't afford most readymade garments that I like, that seem appropriate for my artistic product. I go into fabric stores and eye fabric that reminds me of gowns I imagine great artists of my nature-orientation wear, and know that my budget does not allow.
The place I live in now is too literally too loud (airplanes, big trucks and car-blasters among other things) for optimal health, not just for creative focus. People only think they get accustomed to extraneous background noise (science proves we actually don't). I know I don't. After growing up here (from age five to 22), I am still woken from sleep by airplanes and (these I did not grow up with) heavy duty trucks vibrating the walls of the home I live in daily (and I do mean seven days a week; thanks, Kallco and Coosal's).
I can find somewhere quieter to live, that is even relatively affordable. But I can't afford to pay both rent and land loan repayment. I live rent-free now with several others who will certainly be disturbed by my attempts at independent 'purposeful practice' of singing, dance, and acting. I can't pay for enough space not to disturb someone else, even if I rent, when I'm doing Indian dance adavus or singing my scales.
People seem not to want to pay for either music lessons or entertainment from me. No newspaper in this country has ever hired me to write a single opinion article for them, and opinion writing is the one thing I know I've spent 10,000 hours doing. Since I learned to write, I never stopped writing my thoughts and perspectives. I wasn't raised to beg and I've learned (although now I say it with no bitterness) that people don't always care to put their money towards your potential, per se.
How can I achieve any great skill, record what skills I do have, study to improve my education, and thereby craft a life and career that is worth remembering long after I'm dead, when I can't scrape up enough money to take the steps I need to, that will develop my skills, my career and my health? Who can I ask to sponsor me, who will, without strings attached, just invest in my potential and my willingness to work hard now, at 36, understanding the value of forgiveness to moving on? I know there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Am I really to become another unremarkable someone who 'was here' merely because I don't have enough money? That doesn't seem like a good enough reason to me. You may say I can do it for sure, but maybe not before I am 40. That's no good to me. I don't even know when I'm going to die, so the faster I can at least see some things achieved, the better. It's not about rushing and it never was: I know I'm mortal. You can't argue against that as a need for speed.
I'll write a song about this, for all those who wonder if it's worth trying but don't want to give up. Here are the beginning ideas:
"A candle's meant for lighting, and if I can't be lit, Can't bear to be in darkness and know I'm a part of it"
"I want to make a run for it; I'm going to try. If I don't make it, you'll know why." - Nzingha