4,173 Days

4,173 days.

100,152 hours.

11 years and 5 months.

That’s how long I have been waking up and choosing life.

It has not always been easy.

But I have lived.

During Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, we talk a lot about what happens after someone dies by suicide. We talk about the family members left with pain, questions, anger, and guilt. We talk about friends wondering what they could have done differently. What signs did they miss? What could they have said? Could they have stopped it?

But there is another side we don't talk about nearly enough.

What happens when your suicide attempt doesn't end your life?

That was me.

I already felt like a failure. Unworthy. Useless. Like somehow I had gotten life wrong.

And then, in my mind, I had failed at the one thing I thought would finally change everything.

The one thing I believed would relieve me of all the pain and shame I had been carrying.

I couldn't even do that right.

Great.

Another failure to add to the list.

I was 29 years old, looking back over my life and trying to understand how I had gotten there.

I thought about the little girl I had been.

I was always different.

I truly believed I was a mistake because I never seemed to fit anywhere. My brain didn't seem to work like everybody else's. I experienced the world differently. And because I didn't understand why, I came to the only conclusion that made sense to me at the time:

Something must be wrong with me.

Then I looked at my adult life.

There were so many expectations. So many spoken and unspoken rules about who I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to accomplish, and how I was supposed to carry myself while doing it.

As Black women, so much of our lives can feel policed by somebody else's standards.

Society has rules.

Our communities have rules.

Our families have rules.

Be strong. Be successful. Don't embarrass anybody. Don't struggle too loudly. Don't need too much. Keep going. Handle your business. Make everybody proud.

And somewhere underneath all of those expectations, I was disappearing.

Trying to live up to every imposed directive had become a weight I could no longer bear.

So I thought I had finally found the answer.

And then my phone rang.

That morning, as I was preparing to die, three people in three different time zones, in different parts of the world, called me within about ten minutes.

The first call frustrated me.

How dare you interrupt my death preparation?

The second call felt strange.

But I was still determined. I still had the means. I still had the intention.

Then came the third call.

From Germany.

Think about that.

It was the middle of the day where they were, and somehow, at that exact moment, somebody across the world thought enough about me to pick up the phone and call.

You can call it coincidence.

I call it divine intervention.

Because three phone calls challenged everything I believed about myself in that moment.

Maybe I wasn't invisible.

Maybe I wasn't forgotten.

Maybe my existence reached farther than the pain was allowing me to see.

And I made myself a promise:

No matter how hard life gets, I will continue.

That promise did not magically make life easy.

There have been losses. Disappointments. Rejections. Moments when I felt stuck. Moments when I questioned my direction. Moments when life still hurt like hell.

But I stayed.

For 4,173 days, I have stayed.

And during those days, I have done things the 29-year-old version of me could not imagine.

I earned two master's degrees and a doctoral degree.

I have traveled to beautiful places with family and friends.

I have experienced more firsts than I can count.

I have laughed.

I have loved.

I have learned.

I have failed at things and discovered that failure did not mean my life was a failure.

And every morning, I have done the most important thing:

I lived.

Today, I live for me.

I live for that little girl who thought being different meant she was too different to be loved.

I live for the 29-year-old woman who couldn't imagine that there could be anything on the other side of her pain.

I live for every version of myself that had to survive long enough for me to become the woman I am now.

And I carry with me those who did not get another 4,173 days.

So, during Suicide Prevention and Awareness Month, I don't want to only talk about the people we've lost.

I want to talk about the people who survived.

The people who woke up afterward embarrassed, angry, confused, ashamed, or unsure what they were supposed to do next.

The people whose lives didn't immediately become beautiful after surviving.

The people who are still figuring it out.

The people who have to make the decision again and again:

Stay.

Because sometimes choosing life isn't one big, inspirational decision.

Sometimes it's a decision you make today.

And then again tomorrow.

And again the day after that.

4,173 days.

And counting.

Every reason is my reason.

And today, once again, I choose life.