I’ve never felt really at home here, on Earth. I’ve never really felt I fit. But life was sometimes a bit hard, sometimes wonderful. Just as life is. It was ok.
Then I got to know hell, the depression, something I could never imagine before. I got better, eventually. But just as I was getting better, life happened again. Divorce. Daughter getting diagnosed. Pregnancy. Tumour. Again, I got up. Stronger. Because I knew how to face it. I knew what I need. I knew where to look, how to ask. I’ve learned a lot before. And that helped me survive.
But that’s not how life works… Things got hard again. Slowly, day by day. The pain. The tiredness. The loneliness. Until I started to break. A year and a half, maybe two years ago I stopped fighting. I gave up.
Not completely. I kept asking for help. I kept saying how much in pain I am. How tired I am. How hard it is to get up, day by day.
I just can’t. I don’t even want to. When a year ago first results that a third time tumour might be growing again, I told my mother (because my husband didn’t even react, didn’t even show any interest, not a single word, even though he was just there when I opened the letter) that I won’t have any more treatments. Any kind.
Because, you see, I admit. I’m not strong enough. I need help. And there is none. My mother is supportive, but she has too much on her shoulders as it is. Others… stopped caring. Or left.
I’m told I have to get up. But I can’t. I just can’t and nobody believes me anymore, because every time in the past I got up. Now I’m too tired. My body is. I’m weaker every month, I feel it. I worked hard to get my body to function after the surgery. And I did good. So much that nobody believed what I did, so much I surprised everyone. Now… Now I’m getting weaker. And I’m emotionally weaker. I cry a lot. When I don’t, I just drift away. I gave up. All of me is down. And I know enough to admit this time I can’t get up.
I also know it’s nobody’s concern. Nobody’s job to help me. I need too much, so much I can’t ask for. Even if I do… Well, I do. I do, even if I promise myself every time I won’t.
I just want to stop asking for help. I want to stop hoping. I want to stop feeling.
Alenka H., 2022