2002-02-21 - 10:48 p.m.

Would it be easier if I just didn't care?

There are people out there who can just think of the names on their screen as little more than that. Pixels of different shapes, sizes, and colors. A way to pass the time.

I can't do that, and never will. No one sits on a level of lesser importance with me simply because I've never seen them face-to-face. I just don't work that way. And on weeks like this, I start to think it would be easier if I could.

If I didn't give a shit about the people I talked to online, or at least, not as much as I do friends from school or home, then this week would have been so much easier. I wouldn't have been tossing and turning for hours Tuesday night wondering if I was enough to keep you from trying to kill yourself. Wondering if I had the money, and if I did, whether it would make a difference if, the next morning, instead of getting ready for work, I was getting on a train to come and see you. Wondering if that would be enough. Wondering if you'd be dead by then. Wondering if you were dead already.

If I didn't care about the people behind those boxes of text, I wouldn't have spent yesterday thinking to myself, "I wonder if she's alright. Did I say the right thing? Fuck, no! If I'd said the right things, the conversation would have ended with a 'you've saved a life today,' not 'I'm sorry. I'm going. You'll hear from me tomorrow or you won't.'" I wouldn't have forgotten how to do some fairly basic parts of my job. I wouldn't have been hungry all day.

And if I really didn't care, then when I heard last night that you were in the hospital, I wouldn't have started trying to calling a friend, even though I knew she was probably asleep or too busy to talk. I wouldn't have thrashed around my room, wishing there weren't people I would wake up if I started screaming "FUUUUUUUCK!" at the top of my lungs while I tried to keep myself from breaking anything expensive.

But then, I also wouldn't have had one other very important box of text to help me through it. To remind me that the first night we talked on ICQ, December 21st and into the 22nd, she *did* end the conversation with "you saved a life tonight," a quote that has been etched into my brain ever since. To remind me that sometimes it's just not possible, but that I did my best. To remind me that I did succeed once before, and that that was the reason she was around to talk to me tonight.

So you, you know who you are, as you're probably in a hospital bed, or maybe back at home by now, maybe hating me for letting your friends know this was no accident, I hope you know how important it is that you make it, and that you don't try again.

So to answer my own question: Would it be easier if I just didn't care?

Of course.

But it wouldn't be better.