Been a weird couple of days. Monday afternoon my next door neighbor commited suicide. And just to be clear i'm not attempting to hijack a tragedy, here. I didn't know her, pretty sure i never even met her. For the better part of the last 3 years the owner of that unit had just been using it as an Airbnb, and when every week is a revolving door of new faces you kinda stop paying attention to whose coming and going, so it escaped my notice that there were full time renters in there since June.
I guess i'm just sitting here in this bizarre headspace. I was working from home Monday, and its strange to know that just a few feet away from me on the other side of the wall a person was intentionally making a choice to end their life. I have no idea what room she was in, but its plausible that she was literally less than 10 feet away from me, just on the other side of the wall...swallowing some pills or tightening a noose, perhaps. I don't know the details, just that when i went to go pick up my daughter at daycare it was a seemingly normal day, and then by the time we finished eating dinner and went outside to go to the playground there were cop cars blocking the street. And they were still there when we got home from the playground. And well into the night. And then the next day a van for a company that specializes in crime scene cleanup was parked out front for several hours. I didn't see the bodybag get taken away, which I'm grateful for that. But seeing the faces of her roommates sitting on the driveway talking to the police...I'm not sure i'll ever forget those faces.
Aside from being in the hospital waiting room when our family decided to take my grandma off life support, i'm pretty sure i've never been in such close proximity to somebody's life ending.
Again, not trying to make this about me, its just sort of a surreal thing to think about and its been bouncing around in my brain the last couple days. felt like deep thoughts material. she was only in her mid 20s. Its difficult for me to wrap my brain around the idea that life is so miserable that death is the preferred alternative. Like i said i didn't know her. No idea what she was going through. One of her roommates was her sister. Can't imagine what that must be like, getting home to find your dead sibling. I wouldn't blame her if she never wanted to set foot in that house again.
Anyway, life is a delicate thing. check in on each other from time to time.