I'm Thinking of Ending Things

by Iain Reid

I’m thinking of ending things. Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It dominates. There’s not much I can do about it. Trust me. It doesn’t go away. It’s there whether I like it or not. It’s there when I eat. When I go to bed. It’s there when I sleep. It’s there when I wake up. It’s always there. Always.

“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.”

I should tell Jake what I am thinking. It’s just very hard to talk about. Once I bring up these doubts, I can’t go back.

‘There are certain things in life, not very many, that are real, confirmed cures for rainy days, for loneliness. Puzzles are like that. We each have to solve our own.’

what do you even mean by smart? Are you more book-smart than me? Maybe. But what about building a fence? Or knowing when to ask someone how they’re doing or feeling compassion or knowing how to live with others, to connect with other people? Empathy is a big part of smarts.”

Forfeiting solitude, independence, is a much greater sacrifice than most of us realize. Sharing a habitat, a life, is for sure harder than being alone. In fact, coupled living seems virtually impossible, doesn’t it? To find another person to spend all your life with? To age with and change with? To see every day, to respond to their moods and needs?

I feel like I could doze off. It’s the rhythm of the wheels on the road, the movement. Driving has this anesthetic effect on me.

“Depression is a serious illness. It’s physically painful, debilitating. And you can’t just decide to get over it in the same way you can’t just decide to get over cancer. Sadness is a normal human condition, no different from happiness. You wouldn’t think of happiness as an illness. Sadness and happiness need each other. To exist, each relies on the other, is what I mean.”

“There’s something about modernity and what we value now. Our shift in morality. Is there a general lack of compassion? Of interest in others? In connections?

How are we supposed to achieve a feeling of significance and purpose without feeling a link to something bigger than our own lives? The more I think about it, the more it seems happiness and fulfillment rely on the presence of others, even just one other.

They both decided a good night’s sleep trumps any benefits to sleeping in the same bed. They want their own sleeping space. They don’t want to hear another person snoring or feel them turn over. She said her husband’s a pretty vicious snorer.”

Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.

On the nights I can’t sleep, like that one, like so many recently, I wish I could just turn my mind off like a lamp. I wish I had a shutdown command like my computer.

What if suffering doesn’t end with death? How can we know? What if it doesn’t get better? What if death isn’t an escape?

for various reasons prefers leaving school to arriving. School should be a place she likes, where she feels welcome. I bet it’s not.

If I could work alone, I think I’d prefer it. I’m almost certain I would. No small talk, no upcoming plans to discuss. No one leaning over your desk to ask questions. You just do your work. If I could work mostly alone, and was still living alone, things would be easier. Everything would be a little more natural.

I am someone who spends a lot of time alone. I cherish my solitude. Jake thinks I spend too much time alone. He might be right.

Something that disorients, that unsettles what’s taken for granted, something that disturbs and disrupts reality—that’s scary.

We just never really know anyone. I don’t. Neither do you.

What holds this together? What gives life significance? What gives it shape and depth? In the end it comes for us all. So why do we wait for it instead of making it happen? What am I waiting for?