The Family Girl #048: Saying goodbye - Life lessons

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The Family Girl Blogs
(aka "The New Working Girl Blogs")

Blog #48: Saying goodbye: Life lessons from a dead friend

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I knew someone - someone from work who I thought of as a friend, but she probably didn't.   She was a pretty brunette, very popular, super smart, outgoing, lots of friends and very ambitious (but in the good sense of the word).  I didn't know her too well, really, and despite having met her face-to-face just a few times, I liked her a lot, and I thought of her as a friend, like I said.   I just hope that she remembered me in the same way, although I think that was a futile hope, given how many people she knew.

I met her face-to-face January last year over in Singapore (she loved to travel). She was staying in some fancy hotel (the fancy-shmancy Marina Bay Sands, I think) while the company booked me in a cheaper (much, much cheaper lol) hotel called Costa Sands, in Sentosa.

She was tall for a girl, and very pretty, very popular and super-smart like I said, and I was therefore very, very intimidated by her.   She  and MoeMoe hit it off almost from the start, however.   The few days that we got to hang out with her and her friends were lots of fun.   They even went swimming in the infinity pool in Marina Bay despite the fact it was January. Moe went but I had meetings, so I didn't go (though to be truthful, I didn't want to go anyway, because I was too shy to go swimming in public in a suit).

She lived in a really fancy apartment in Manhattan, was an avowed expert in advertising trends, and did a lot of work for the Atlanta people. Last I heard, she was in the middle of a big project.

What happened to her got me thinking, and the thing I kept on thinking was that, if I had to pick someone I wanted to be like - it was her.   How could I not, right?   If being self-actualized, outgoing, popular, and successful were the goals, she was the person to be.

And that I was gonna miss her.

About three days ago, people found the body of my friend. She had aparently jumped from her apartment. I was told she was in the news, though I'm sure only in the local news (you might have caught it if you lived in the New York area) but being overseas, plus not being from NewYork, I didn't. I found out about it from my old assistant Sammi, and she emailed the inter-office bulletin about it (as my assistant-but-soon-to-be-ex-assistant. Sammi's pushing through with her retirement this December since my old branch is being closed).   Police are saying it was suicide, but I couldn't believe such a girl with a wonderful-seeming life and a bright future woud commit suicide, but no foul play is suspected (although the case was still under investigation).

With my own unsuccessful attempt at suicide, I know my reasons why I did it, and my reasons were apparent and easily understandable, I think, if viewed by others. But my friend?

I can think of some things that can drive a girl to suicide: job pressure, perhaps? Family trouble? Financial reasons? A failed relationship, maybe? Drugs? So many reasons.   It is all a matter of perspective, I think.   But, as someone from the outside looking at her, all I saw was a pretty girl with lots of friends, a successful career, et cetera.   If I had what she had, I think I could weather any kind of trouble that comes my way, especially if I didn't have my gender problems.

Like I said, it is all a matter of perspective, I think: certain things, both good and bad things, define us - for example, a fashion model finds definition and fulfillment in her looks; a rich man finds it in his wealth and power; a social worker finds it in her ability to make life easier for others; a doctor finds it in his ability to heal.   And on the negative side: a junkie defines his life between fixes; a gambler defines his life as how well he can pay off hIs gambling debts; a hooker defines her life by how many Johns she can do in a night.

And for those of us here, many of us define our life around our transgender issues.   I know I did.   But is that right?

Thinking about my friend, since I do not know the kind of life pressures that brought her to the point where she felt compelled to commit suicide, I cannot comment. But if I knew her intentions, I'd probably tell her the reasons why she shouldn't. I will tell her all that she had going for her, which is substantial.   And that, surely, among all the dozens and dozens and dozens of friends that she had, surely one of them would have been someone she could have turned to for whatever kind of emotiomal support she needed.

In my short life, I have learned a handful of life lessons - truisims that have helped me in making my way through the world (not that I have gone through much compared to most).   Four of them are: do nor be afraid to ask for help; allow yourself to consider others' points of view and others' ideas; be willing to admit you can be wrong, and; be grateful, and give value to, what you have.

I apologize for the third-grade sensibility of these "life lessons," but life lessons, I find, are lessons easily expressed but the hardest to understand and learn.   Like, if my friend really did give value to what she had, I doubt if she would have done what she did.

I suppose that most of us here, whose lives have been defined by our gender problems, were to apply these "third-grade" lessons to ourselves, we might find our gender problems being relegated to something that will NOT define us anymore, and therefore allow us to live life DESPITE them.

I am trying my darndest to apply these to myself, really I am - and I think I am all the better for it.

To my friend who has decided to pass on - good luck to you, girl. I'm sorry you decided to leave. I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for wherever you are.

  

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Comments

As always...

Andrea Lena's picture

your words give me strength and encouragement. I've often found your gentle nudges to be accompanied by kind but unnecessary apologies, because you're always right (tee hee)!

Even though I'm late to this party of ours, this does still apply to me:

I suppose that most of us here, whose lives have been defined by our gender problems, were to apply these "third-grade" lessons to ourselves, we might find our gender problems being relegated to something that will NOT define us anymore, and therefore allow us to live life DESPITE them.

I am trying my darndest to apply these to myself, really I am - and I think I am all the better for it.

I'm sorry about your friend; may she find in death that peace she was so sadly unable to grasp.
And I hope we all can grow more peaceful as well. My heart to you. Aunty Andrea

  

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

Sad indeed

All we can see, you or I or whoever, is the outside face that a person presents to the world. Some people become so skilled in presenting that face that we only realize something wasn't right when this sort of thing happens. I feel bad for you for your loss of a wonderful person you called a friend. I feel worse for her, that she did so well hiding her real self under her public face that nobody could reach her or touch her at a time when a single person might have made all the difference in the world to her.

Are you family with the song "Richard Corey" by Simon and Garfunkel? Based on a narrative poem written in 1897 by Edwin Arlington Robinson, there is a strong resemblance between the song and your friend. I've included a link to youtube of them performing the song live back in 1966. If you haven't heard it before it is a bit depressing, so fair warning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euuCiSY0qYs

My deepest sympathy for you as you deal with your loss. Hugs, hon.


"Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.”
George Carlin

Been there done that in a way

In a way my mother committed suicide by deliberately not taking care of her diabetes and high blood pressure and it lead to a massive stroke. She was in a lot of pain due to arthritis and she suffered from that acutely.

I will never know why and it will forever haunt me to remember that day she faded in the hospital emergency room as her brain gradually failed.

She had suffered from headaches all her life and she may not have realized she was having a stroke.

I am so sorry hon.

Kim

We never really know

Angharad's picture

what's going on in someone's head, people can appear to have everything but may feel the opposite inside themselves. I remember mentioning a beautiful teenager who was a part time model, who walked out in front of a train. She had everything to live for, so everyone thought, except her.

It's always sad when someone takes their own life, unless suffering from a terminal illness or something similar, when it might be their last act of will. Most who do will be suffering from some sort of mental discord which alters their perceptions and perhaps they then act out of character. We all have thresholds and no one can get it altogether all the time. Today's pressures to succeed at whatever we do is illusory, and we need to teach that sometimes coming second is okay if it's the best one can do.

I'm sorry your friend/acquaintance felt it necessary to end her life.

Angharad

Your passing...

Your passing comment about defining things in terms of our being trans hit a note with me...

It's taken (& still taking, if I'm honest) some time to get through my head that issues may not have anything to do with my being trans and/or my transition...

As to suicides. It IS hard to understand (from the outside) why someone who appears to "have it all" and/or are on the way there would commit suicide. From the outside, we tend to see "what a loss" and such. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. It makes me (and apparently others) think about this and other things which IS good for us.

Thank you,
Annette

I cannot presume to guess why

I cannot presume to guess why someone else considers suicide, I am not even sure why I have the times despair has overtaken me and I planned out how I would do it. A certain overpass at a very high rate of speed was always the chosen spot, I had a motorcycle that would do over 140 mph. I still drive under that bridge on occasion and feel the pull of oblivion at times, when things are going badly. Sometimes, you have to live one day at a time, expecting nothing of tomorrow.

The Story

It's a heartrending story. I took the liberty of googling the news, and found a quite long article on the poor woman, full of pictures, both of the building and happy ones of her, presumably from her facebook page.

I'm not sure I'd actually recommend reading it. It will only make most people feel worse, but we Quakers honor the dead by remembering them and their positive times in life, and this article certainly does that:

The story in the Daily Mail (UK), of all places.