the veil has been lifted
2003-09-14 || 2:29 p.m.

And suddenly it occurred to me: what is the point of waiting the 77 days?

I only agreed to this year thing because someone said they cared and asked me to wait for a year, but they abandoned me months ago.

And there's no point in enduring things for another 77 days when I could just so easily knock a digit off and make it 7 days.

So I decided that is what I am going to do.

Once, when I was 18 I tried to kill myself. I fucked up though and I know why: I didn't think it through well enough. I remember the week leading up to it. I went to the chemist and bought 100 paracetemol. You see, I didn't realise in those days that 15 are enough to kill you. They asked if I wanted 50 or 100. They asked if I was suicidal. I said I wanted 100 and no I wasn't.

I felt the same calm I feel now.

But I only gave myself one day to say goodbye, plus I fucked it up.

On the saturday I played my favourite music and I said goodbye to all the places I knew. I bought a bottle of whiskey and went to my friends house, leaving the paracetemol by my bed. I drunk the whiskey. I was so very pissed. I left my friends house and went home. I remember sitting on my bed taking the paracetemol and the next thing I knew I was awake, wearing my clothes with an empty bottle of whiskey next to me and a hardly touched bottle of paracetemol. And I wasn't dead.

I got too drunk you see. So this time there will be no alcohol.

There'll be no paracetemol either. You see, if the paracetemol don't get you immediately then you feel well again in the next couple of days.

I don't want that.

Because then I would want to live. Just like Veronika.

But Veronika is fictional and she had sex and love written into her book. So Veronika can fuck off because Veronika clearly isn't me.

So give me 7 days.

7 days to do some things I love.

Today I have slept and dreamed of things I would have liked to have been. In a while I will play some music and then I will dream some more. All of my fantasies of the things I would so have loved to have happened. When I close my eyes, they are real and this pain is the dream. And I will walk my dog. He will wag his tail and be happy for the moment.

Monday I will go to Bluewater. Not because I particularly like shopping or material things but because my beautiful daughter wants to go and I love her so much. She is the one thing that holds me here. But she will be better off without me.

Tuesday I will play music.

Wednesday I will take Bex to a gig in London. Its someone she wants to see, not me but it means I get to see my church for the last time as we pull in and out of London Bridge station.

Thursday I will read. I will read 'Charlotte Sometimes' one last time. If there is time I would like to read 'Thursday's Child' too.

Friday I will watch 'A Prayer for the Dying'.

Saturday I will go to the beach. I will lay on the sand and swim in the sea. It will be hard to do that for a final time.

Sunday I will wash my hair. Everyone says my hair is so beautiful, sometimes it makes me think I should cut it all off, but I know they are right - it is the only beautiful thing about me. So I will wash my hair and brush it until it shines. I will run a bath, so hot and so inviting. I will wear a black bra and my black boxers. And then I will cut along my blue lines and climb into the bath and lay down.

And the water will wash my foulness away.