Suicide?

This is the last thing I write in my journal. You are probably asking yourself at this point if I'm going to kill myself. I mean, after all, this journal was supposed to chronicle the final year of my life, was it not?

Well, for starters, I am now eighteen years old and I am just about to graduate from Rawley High School. Believe it or not, only one more person that I know personally has died in the last two years. I know, I know—get to the point.

I'm not going to kill myself.

Sometimes, the depression still hits me, but I always seem to come out of it if I give it a little time. What made me change my mind? Well, looking over my journal many would get all romantic and conclude that Samantha's love stopped me. While Sam's presence in my life certainly helped, she is not the real reason. To be honest, I do not know how long we will last. In the fall, Julian and I head over to Covenant College up north while Sam goes to Princeton. Julian's cousin, Clive, convinced us that Covenant College was a good place to get a decent education.

I love Sam dearly, and hope that we will stay together, but my sense of reality threatens to overwhelm me and points out those long distance relationships rarely work. Four years is a long time to live like that. I hope we can do it. And I doubt we can. I sure as hell will try and make it work.

Vlad died last summer of a brain aneurysm that may, or may not, have been tied to the beating he received from Ross Morrissey.

His death took its toll on all of us—especially Julian. It happened in gym class. We were running track when I saw him fall over. At first, I thought he just passed out from exhaustion, but then he started going into convulsions, which scared the hell out of me. He died that night leaving me a wasted wreck. He had such an impact on me in so little of time.

Are you listening to me up there somewhere, Gary? I love you, man. I miss you so much. I think about you daily.

Though Vlad's death devastated me, he was not the deciding point in my change of heart about putting suicide from my mind forever.

Believe it or not, it was my father.

The last entry I wrote in this journal was my father's fishing trip. Writing it made me physically and emotionally ill and I found myself unable to continue this journal for a long time.

This week, I picked this journal up and began to reread it. I was shocked at how often I experienced so many emotions while reading it. It was such an uncomfortable experience. What a year that had been. When I got to the last line, "I felt nothing", I realized I had not written an ending.

If someone had picked the journal up, without knowing me or who I was, they would have no idea what became of me. I am a much different Harlan Sexton than the sixteen-year-old who first started this journal. While reading it, I had many moments where I was too embarrassed to continue. Was I really that pretentious, silly, and downright egocentric? Indeed I was. As many of us were at that age.

Also, reading it was like bringing Vlad back from the dead. Reading some of the scenes between Vlad and I were almost too painful to bear. At least now he is preserved here. I think I captured him pretty well.

Now back to my father, and how he made me change my mind.

That day on the fishing trip, I came to the realization of who had created the mess I had become. Despite all my hateful feelings toward my father, I realized I loved him deeply. It was this love that almost killed me. I always either saw him as the father that I wanted him to be, or the monster that threatened to drag me to Hell.

That day of the fishing trip I saw him differently. I saw that he had killed himself the first time he had taken a sip of alcohol. It is said that alcohol kills brain cells every time you drink it. My dad must have half a brain by now.

I also discovered on that day that some part of me had always wanted to be desperately loved and accepted by him. His rejection of me is what made me so fragile. To have the love of a parent denied you is very damaging. I strongly believe that it almost killed me.

The day after I left my father in the boat, I felt better. For the first time in my life, I felt I understood myself. I no longer sought acceptance or approval for my father. I no longer felt anything for him. My sick love for him had died. It took seventeen years and it died hard. I buried it deep within my psyche. It was as if I was reborn. I felt burned, yet new. I still have the scars, but I have learned from it.

I have friends who love me. And that is all I need.

I also noticed what a fighter I was. The journal wasn't a chronicle of my suicide. It was a chronicle of the fight for my life. I am thankful that I won.

This whole year, I wrote a novel. I'm proud of it. It's a bloody science fiction/horror novel with many elements of dark humor. I am currently looking for an agent.

In the fall, I will be majoring in psychology with a minor in English Literature. I may even try to sell this journal someday. I will have to change all the names of course and call it fiction. I'll dedicate it to Samantha and my father. Heroes and Villains. "For Samantha, I love you. Dad: I hope you read this."

To kill yourself is cowardly.

If there is one thing I have learned in my life, and especially the year of the journal, is life is precious. Life is worth fighting for. I will go down fighting the whole way. I promise.

There are many fights to be fought in my future. Perhaps I will have a whole new journal to write in a few years. A whole new chronicle in the life of Harlan Sexton. I will leave you with the fighting words of the sixteen year old Harlan Sexton. They are words that I find quite pretentious now, but they are for the Harlan that I was:

Fucking Boom, Dear Reader.

Fucking Boom.