What Ties Us To This World?
The Anchors That Weigh Us Down.
Here I am, standing on the edge, my thoughts as grey as the thunderclouds looming over me. So tired of all the hardships that have crossed my path, so sick of feeling defective and spurned. Life has cornered me, trapped with what feels like only one way out.
Something stays my hoof, prevents me from taking that final step, some subconscious feeling. I'm trying to focus on that feeling, to see if I can identify what it is. When I look back at my life, replaying every step that led me closer to this moment, from my earliest memories to my latest. It was a long and harrowing road that ended with me here.
***
Though a lot of what happened to me was bad, there were some small lights into the feeling of darkness that surrounds my life, friendships. Friendships never came easy for me, after being hurt a couple of time, I erected walls around me for it was easier to feel nothing than to feel the hurt that comes with rejection. Though eventually there were a few ponies that managed to break through my walls, found a way into my life trying their best to bring some light into my life.
The thought of hurting my friends with my early departure makes me sick to my stomach, but how much of my own pain must I endure to outweigh the pain i will cause to my friends? These thoughts keep circling in my head, some days my love for my friends wins out, other days my depression has the upper hoof, slowly my life descended into a downwards spiral.
The days turned into weeks, which turned into months and years. For years I kept up a mask that hides the broken pony inside, always afraid to show my true colors to the world, afraid that people thought me weak, worthless. Slowly but surely tiny cracks began to form, unnoticed by myself or ponies around me, but just like how it goes with the biggest of rocks, all it takes for it to break is just a tiny crack.
Piece by piece i felt the world around me crumble to dust, until I came at a point where the dam broke and all the pain that I've tried to block out of my life came rushing back in like a tidal wave. I knew i should have asked for help before I started to drown in my own misery but my own stubbornness prevented me from showing true weakness to others and now I'm trapped in this torrent of emotions.
***
Now i am looking over the busy city below me, ponies moving from place to place, always busy and always looking for the next success in their lives. For all their talk about the pillars of friendship and harmony ponies can be very cruel to others, not always intentional but due to ignorance or the lack of care to their fellow ponies.
***
I've felt the scorn of my fellow ponies because I never really fitted in with the rest, always just different enough to be singled out and bullied for most of my early life. foals can be exceptionally cruel to ponies around them, sometimes accidentally but most of the times on purpose, It gives them some false sense of accomplishment i guess. Suffice it to say that I've received more than my fair share of cruelty and during these years I've started laying the foundation for my walls.
It was here where I first started to distance myself from other ponies, becoming a recluse in the midst of all these other ponies. Of course this led to even more bullying and a increasing feeling of worthlessness and self doubt. Sadly I never found any support from my family so I never learned a healthy way of dealing with these feelings so I just bottled them up inside.
One day things came to a blow with my mother and it was decided that it was best if I was to be placed somewhere else. I've been moving from place to place ever since, never staying anywhere for a long period of time, never forming any long lasting bonds with other ponies because chances were I'd have to move away in the not too distant future.
I remember the first real friend i made, a really happy go lucky kind of pony, he always saw the best in life and things that happened. For a while my life started to become something approaching normalcy, we hung out with each other and had a lot of fun. Until one day when he went back home after a visit to me, I didn't even know something had happened until one of his roommates called me up to ask if i had seen my friend, and i said that he had left an hour earlier, later i found out that my friend was killed in an accident on his way home.
I was devastated, I could only function on autopilot, not really thinking, just doing. For weeks I was in this trance like state, then I started to bury myself in work so that I didn't have time to think about it. I think this was the moment it all went out of control for me.
Because I was working more than I could handle I started wearing down, physical problems also took a hold on me and from there it never got better. I burned out at work and fell into a depression.
***
As I finish contemplating my life I was ready to make a decision, whether to go on or to give up, I took a couple of steps closer to the edge, I heard a voice behind me. "What are you doing?" I turned around to look at the pony who was speaking to me. Standing there was my friend, one of the few ponies that tried her best to support me in any way she could, a pony that I've come to rely on. Her pleasant voice matched by her appearance, her immaculate white coat framed by her blond and pink mane and tail.
"I don't know anymore." I replied my voice raw with emotion, on the verge of breaking down completely. She moved closer to me and wrapped her hooves around me in a tight hug. "Whatever is troubling you, this is not the answer. We will find a way for you to cope with this, because the world would be a worse place to live in without you." She said.
With renewed hope I looked back over the city, and I thought: friends are worth dealing with pain for, they are the anchors that tie us to to this world and are worth holding on to, even in the blackest days of your life.
Author's Note
I've written this in the span of a couple of hours when I was hit pretty hard with depression, as an outlet that isn't harmful to me. I'm not looking for tips or help on this story, I know it is not coherent.