The Cost of Being Alive

Hello again.

Most of you only know of me through the stories I've written.

Some of you have met me.

None of you truly know me... and now I am saying a goodbye of sorts.

Hopefully, not the forever kind... But we'll see.

I do have a question.

Why does it cost so much to be alive?

Life can be a gift... I have received some of the gifts that life can give throughout my own lifetime... but the rest have been a curse.

I have fought for so long to maintain my life... especially since it now so thoroughly intertwines with others...

But for the first time in my entire life... I don't know what to do.

The money is gone.

My ability to make money is gone.

I stand to lose everything...

If you only knew what an understatement that was.

The bitter sting of reality forces me to pull back the curtain and face the fact that I have no more tricks, no more cards to play... The show is over.

I once heard that only when you admit that you're truly lost will your true path show itself to you... Well, I am here.

Where are you, path? Where do I go next? HOW do I go?

I am running out of time, and the only person who can save me now... is God Himself. However, I know that I'm not worth saving.

I knew that long ago... I knew that every time an unkind hand with ill intentions found the trembling of my skin.

I knew that when the doctors couldn't find what ailed me, as I became sicker and sicker.

I knew that when every single time something was about to work out... something else made it impossible.

I knew... and I still know.

Was I kept alive only to suffer? Because that's how it feels.

My heart at this point has been ground to a fine dust.

All of the things that have occurred in my life... I chose to trust that it was all a part of God's plan for me. There had to be a reason that so much evil had torn through my existence.

I want to believe... I don't want to have doubts...

I chose a picture of a hand reaching out of the water.

I am drowning underneath the sea... My hand is lifted above the water in the hope that my Savior may come for me.

But every effort I make to change the course of my life has been shattered around me again and again.

I've been bleeding out for a lifetime.

I have bled myself dry.

I have been holding onto the hope that one day things would get better... that I would make it through whatever I was facing... and for a while, I did.

I used to see a way out. The light at the end of the tunnel...

Now I see only darkness, and I feel my spirit waning.

The cost of being alive has become too costly...

The breath I breathe, I cannot afford.

My only hope is my prayer that God will hear me and take mercy.

I always believed that I was more than this... That life was more than this...

There had to be more...

Maybe that's not true for me.

Maybe this is all there will ever be for me.

Facing the facts.

That's a hard thing to do when the facts are not supporting what you would like to believe.

Maybe by some miracle, I will see you again.

Don't lose faith, my friends.

God may not choose to save me... That's okay.

If it ends... It ends.