When a stranger commits suicide, but you still feel it in your whole heart

I’ve been having a rough day emotionally. Thinking a lot about suicide and those I’ve lost from it. Thinking about my own battle with depression.

I’ve seen some really graceful, beautiful and powerful messages of hope. And detailed, well thought-out plans of how to help and take action. And I’ve read scientifically and medically-backed studies about suicide, but I can’t seem to find the words that are weighing my heart down like a rock.

I don’t think there is an easy answer here and I guess that’s what makes it so complicated and terrifying, right? The first thing I thought when I heard the news of Kate Spade was, “That could have been me. That could have been anyone.”

Depression doesn’t discriminate

I was silent that day. Sitting with it. Reading all these tweets about people acknowledging that it doesn’t matter how successful you are or what you accomplish, depression is ruthless in its nondiscrimination. Then today, my husband woke me up at 5:21 a.m. with the news of Anthony Bourdain’s suicide.

I was quiet again. Angry again. Sad again.

Throughout the day his face keeps appearing to me like an image burned to the back of my retinas. I began recalling his interview about making pancakes for his daughter, even though he hated making breakfast because of his years as a chef, but he did it for her because it made her happy.

I thought about the way he saw people. Really saw them. He valued them and you could see that, feel that in his show. He connected us to these people all over the world through his lens.

A conversation with Anthony Bourdain

After thinking about him, about all the things that are bothering me, I decided to talk to him. It’s the same way I talk to God, or the same way I talked to my grandma after she passed or my cousin Erin who died of leukemia. It’s usually in the bathroom and usually while I’m crying or yelling or some ugly combination of both.

I’ve never met the man. But none the less, I said, “Hi Anthony…” And I realized I was so devastated because it feels like losing a fellow compatriot. It feels like a little piece of yourself dies when someone else loses their battle with depression. It feels selfish to think of it in those terms, but there I was — a blubbery mess, not hiding from anything that was willing to come to the surface.

I told him this one really struck deep because in my own mind, he had found this sort of divine purpose that he was sharing with the world. In my perception, he was this so worthy figure on this crusade of storytelling and humanizing and discovery. He was unifying.

Yet, there must have been some part of him that didn’t accept or believe that that was enough. Which seems so crazy to me, to us, the outsiders right?

And maybe I need to stop waiting, stop searching, stop being desperate to find that thing that’s going to make me feel like enough, because there is no such thing.

These times are hard.

And that should have been a freeing and liberating thought for me. It should have released me from the shackles. But all I felt, all I still feel is sad. Do we live in world now that makes it increasingly difficult to find self-worth? Probably. The news certainly tells us that every day.

Yesterday I listened to a keynote speaker at a breakfast who is a coach to top business executives talk about a pain-to-purpose journey. In this talk he said that millennials are the most anxious generation in existence. It’s in our core.

And that hit me so hard. Hard enough that I choked back tears as I blurrily looked out at CEO’s and VP’s of Arizona’s top companies over what was left of my scrambled eggs and a sausage link. Because it’s true. It’s so true. We are. And I want to know why.

Because of all the instability in society? Because of the constant flex and pace of life? Because it’s always in our faces — on our phones, on our screens, invading our soul time? Because we are used to instant gratification which is a result of our society, by the way, so we panic when things aren’t instantly right? Why?

I want to have a deeper conversation here about life, about the way we live, about what we expect from it, about what we expect from ourselves and others. I want to know why we keep doing things the same way? Why do we keep adding more to it, escalating it to an explosive level of unbearable? Why do we keep declining?

What can I do?

I want to give a voice to love and I want it to be the loudest fucking voice on Twitter above all of society’s cynics and berating poets. I want to be a part of the change that saves people. I want to keep talking about how you’re worthy over and over and over again until you can’t accept it as anything but truth and fact.

I want to be part of a tireless machine that does nothing but produces goodwill and positive action and fights for grace and defends the weak. I want to save myself so that I can save others.

I want to live on, even when I don’t feel like it and I want to do if for the Kate Spades and the Anthony Bourdains and my friend Sara and every single person who wakes up every day and questions their purpose. Because they are my purpose. Appreciating life is my purpose. Your life is my life. We are all one and we are all connected, sharing a collective journey.

So my rationale is, if I can feel your loss and your pain. You can feel mine too. So what if instead, I project back to you love and unconditional acceptance? How powerful could that be if we all started doing that? Let’s change the collective consciousness. Let’s live on.