I’m planning to go to the Dollar Store this evening, so if you go, look me up. Seriously. I’ll be the big guy by himself in the back. Also, next Thursday, I’m planning to go to the Sam Weller reading sponsored by Newcity at Sonotheque. It should be fun, because there’ll be a DJ and stuff.
Man, I really wanted to write something funny today for April Fool’s, but things just keep happening to me. I can’t help it.
I was at work tonight, and this young woman walked up to me and asked if we could talk. I said sure, and we stepped back into an aisle, and she sat down on a stool. And then broke into tears.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to live anymore,” she told me, tears streaming down her crunched face. “I’m very depressed. I’m so lonely. I don’t think life is worth it. Can you help me?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know anything about this. I don’t know what to say or what to do. I can get someone to help you. Is there anyone we can call, anyone we can get in touch with to help you?”
“I just don’t want to live,” she cried.
“That, to me,” I answered, “doesn’t seem like a good thing to want. Let’s find someone who can help. Let’s figure out what to do.”
She sniffled and looked at me. “I’m in a program. There’s a number we’re supposed to call in emergencies. Do you think we could call them?”
“That sounds like a plan,” I said.
I took her to the phone, called the number, and explained what happened. “She needs someone to talk to,” I told the woman on the phone. She asked to speak to the girl.
They talked for about twenty minutes, and she cried and cried. At one point, I went to fetch tissues, and I fended away customers and employees, and stood by and listened to make sure nothing went wrong. She explained to the person on the phone that she was lonely, that nothing seemed right, that she thought she was nothing. She said she’d been institutionalized for most of her life, and had only recently started out on her own, and wasn’t used to living by herself and not being around people. She talked about seeing people on the street and hating herself for being near them. And, she said, most of all, she was worried, heartbreakingly worried, that nothing was going right, that she had nothing and didn’t deserve to live.
“Do you think I deserve to live, Sheryl?” she asked the woman on the other end of the phone. “Do you really? I know I’m not nothing, but it doesn’t feel like that.”
She said that she’d meant to go to the meetings, but hadn’t been able to make it. She said that she should have called, but didn’t want to. She finished, apologized, said she’d call back if she needed something. She said she’d go to the meetings.
I took the phone back from her, and asked if she was feeling better. She nodded. I told her that she was welcome to stay in the bookstore, and had the run of the place– was she a reader? Did she want a book? She asked me what I recommended, and I told her to pull up a chair, grab a stack of magazines, and sit down and take a breath. She agreed. I ran to the cafe, grabbed her a lemonade, brought it back and told her she was welcome to stay as long as she needed. She thanked me and said she felt much better.
She stayed until about a half hour before close, and then came up to thank me. I told her we were open all week, that she could come back and hang out anytime, and she promised she would do that. She hugged and thanked me, and I told her that I sincerely hoped that things went better for her.
I felt pity. Pity for this poor creature who had no one to turn to but a retail employee, no one to ask for help except for someone who was paid to do so, and even then not to help in the way that she needed. A co-worker of mine also chatted with her, and figured out that she was on medication, and getting help for a grocery list of ailments, all at the age of nineteen. I pitied her, did what little I could to help, and do sincerely hope that things go better, even if there’s not much I can do.
But the other feeling I had was stranger, and more powerful. As I listened to her speak with a counselor, at the last end of the last one of her wits, I found myself shocked with alarm and awe not at what she had, but what I have. I’m mentally healthy, reasonably intelligent. I have a terrific family and great friends. I have a job (two, even), and a career, and goals, and a house to go home to, and a friendly roommate, and food in the fridge, and amazing memories and plans and dreams. I have a car that has a CD changer. I have an internet connection. I have videogames and movies and music. I have a college degree. I have books, and stories, and the ability to write and read and listen and create. I have a past as colorful as I’d ever want it, and I enjoy my present, and I can’t wait to meet the future. Listening to that poor young woman on the phone, yes I felt sorry for her, and yes I wanted to help her be okay again, but I was shocked, shocked to realize what I have, and, shamefully, what I often take for granted.
I hope that she does come back to the bookstore. I hope that things do go better for her, that she gets the help she needs, and realizes that she is somebody; that she is human and alive, and boy does that count for something. But I also hope that I don’t forget what I fear I always do:
That, though I may not realize it from time to time, I am infinitely, infinitely blessed.