How Are You Still Alive?

I asked myself that question a few months ago, as I looked at my reflection in a bathroom mirror.  It was almost a random inquiry; a sudden revelation after years of suffering with depression and alcoholism.  I’ve contemplated suicide more times than I can recount and have actually come very close to ending my own life on a few occasions.

How is it that I’m still here?

Recently I conversed with a younger friend who had turned 40 last year and is at a tough point in his life.  He had spent nearly a decade in education before joining an alleged friend to start a business.  This “friend” took the money he’d invested and abandoned the project.  So now my pal is nearly bankrupt and has to resort to an Uber-type job to earn a living.  We conversed between rides.  The gig economy emerged after the “Great Recession”.  I fell victim to it after losing my job with an engineering firm in 2010.  It can be humiliating, as people struggle to find work.

As I described in a previous essay, I began fighting alcoholism in the mid-1980s.  I still haven’t won – and I know I never really will – but I’ve succeeded in controlling it.  Equally wicked and unrelenting, depression and alcoholism are perfect companions – global serial killers.  I don’t know anyone who hasn’t been impacted by either of these afflictions.

But people don’t always tell the truth about their lives.

Regardless, I still wonder how I’ve come this far.  I’m certainly glad that I have.  Between October 2024 and January 2025 I lost three of my closest friends.  I’m at the point in time where I don’t count the number of likes I get on Facebook or Instagram.  I count the number of people I’ve outlived.  Then again, one doesn’t get to this point in life without going through a few bumps and bruises.  And that means losing people we know and love.

How are you still alive?

I don’t know.  Honestly…I have no idea.  But I’m here – and I’ll just keep moving forward.