I won’t end it because i’m 17, not 7

cool, so a decade ago when i was seven and maybe eight i tried to end it twice. that’s pretty funny, you can laugh and i hope you do. i tried with a pillow, which didn’t work for very scientific and obvious reasons. those were the last times i ever ‘went through with it.’ i just kinda thought it took more energy to kill yourself than to coast, and i was thinking about it a lot since it’s been a decade and all that, and the reason i was so committed to my death at the time was because up until age 11 i was a devout little Christian. in my yellow walled bedroom in Allen Texas i was dead sure i’d die and see the Kingdom and help guard the gates. that was my absolute dream. not once did i think about entering heaven, i just thought i’d be there to guard the gates. see all those people walk in and give them the 411 and watch they’re dazed joyous faces as they go by. i didn’t know suicide could technically land you in hell and technically i didn’t even consider hell as anything more than a boogeyman, so i didn’t worry about it. i just knew that i was having a hard time and hated mom’s boyfriend (who was arrested before we fled to san diego) and hey, wouldn’t that be so much easier? and hey, mom said angels were around me all the time and she could sense them so wouldn’t i be a great member of their team? i was such a silly kid really. on our fleeing car ride we met a good man in new mexico and mom was convinced he was an angel. i was eight and not convinced. i think nowadays mom would say something about how he’s a holier man in a vague encompassing new age spiritualism way and not an, in fact, a Christian Angel in man. i’m honestly rambling on, there’s little rhyme to this. i don’t believe nearly the same things as i used to, so i only believe that living under this ego happens now. back then i sort of thought the ego was the same as the soul bc i only knew the word for the latter & i thought i’d know myself as the same person while guarding the gates. now i don’t believe in heaven and if i die & see some revelation i’m not gonna see it as this ego; i.e. this ego is a one-time thing, there are no gates for me to guard, and to end this life is to end it permenantly. i do more or less beleiev in the possibility of rebirth, but i realy didnt enjoy my time as a kid, so putting my soul through childhood and adolescence again—even if it were far better—sounds like another death sentence. it’s just funny to me. i want to end my life as i know it, not kill myself. i want to be better and out of these systems that make me believe laying down and doing nothing is better than being the man i could be. it’s all so exhausting and beats me up every day. but i’m 17, not 7, a decade between, and i dont think i can kill mysel any time soon. my mental health has gotten so much worse in the past decade, but still it has never been an option worth considering. because, unfortunately, as much as i hate where i am i do quite like the idea of living. curiosity my have killed the cat, but it’s keeping me alive.