Semicolon ; The Other Half of the Sentence

Apr 25

Written By Becca

For what it’s worth, this piece talks about the subject of suicide.

Semicolon: a punctuation mark (;) indicating a pause, typically between two main clauses.
Project Semicolon: A movement that was started by Amy Bleuel and encourages people to get tattooed with the semicolon symbol. The idea is to spread awareness of mental health issues and empower people who are struggling with their own mental health. “A semicolon is used when an author could've chosen to end their sentence, but chose not to.”

In April of 2018 I got a semicolon tattooed on the side of my right wrist. Ever since then I’ve told the story of why anytime I’ve been given the opportunity. But, as the definition itself states, the very purpose of a semicolon is to separate two main clauses. Up until this point, I’ve only shared the clause that made me the ally, the empath, and the concerned. I have left out the part that painted me as the ailed, the broken, and the confused. I figure now is the time to tell the second clause.

The Half I Share ;

Not even a full year into teaching and I was convinced the month of April SUCKED (year two would go on to prove my point). Don’t ask me why, what, or how - it just does. There’s this overwhelming sense of urgency, expectancy, exhaustion, and uncertainty that hits a classroom in April that is almost palpable. The school year is coming to an end but there is still so much left to do. The weather is finally warm but the rain keeps you locked inside for days. Teachers are burnt out and the kids are too. Patience is thin. Emotions are fried. April is heavy.

I was teaching third and fourth graders at the time - truly one of the best pockets of ages I’ve worked with to date. These kids are pure life at its fullest. They’re right on the cusp of innocence and “the real world” (whatever that is). They’re the perfect level of fun that believes their 20-something teacher is cool for rockin’ a red and white tutu during spirit week. They’re also the exact amount of sass that will hold a whole class debate and vote about why the same teacher doesn’t have a boyfriend. They have a way of keeping you laughing and your ego in check all in the same breath. It’s a wild ride because half of them still believe in magic and wonder and the other half are already wondering what life is all about. They keep you on your toes as they try to figure out what parts of the world they get to claim as their own - from their thoughts, to their emotions, to the basketballs at recess, and everything in between. One thing I quickly discovered though, regardless of where they land on this spectrum of mystic to cynic, one thing is for sure - the weight of life’s heaviness and its burdens doesn’t hold back on you just because you’re nine.

It was April 17, 2018 and I was done. Finished. The light vanished. I had nothing left in me anymore. This would be the day I was ready to quit my job. This would be the day I wanted to wash my hands of all of it. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I didn’t know that I even wanted to try. All I wanted was a classroom of kids that were safe and that knew they were loved and cherished. Unfortunately, that wasn’t my reality. That Tuesday was the breaking point because in less than ten days time I had three students institutionalized. Three babies, three kids, three precious souls that could no longer come to school because they were a threat to themselves. Within the first two weeks of April three children, barely breaking ten years old, felt enough darkness that made them believe their lives weren’t worth living and that their minds were out to destroy them. Three. Three out of a class size of thirty-four.

Say whatever you want but you will never convince me that children don’t feel burden, don’t know stress, and don’t have a clue about what real darkness or pain is. I have seen their scars. I have heard their stories. I have held their hands.

I don’t remember everything I said to my mom after coming home from work that day but I remember the anguish and the weight of it all. I remember wanting to run away and never come back. I remember feeling helpless. I didn’t understand it then and honestly, as my eyes swell in the retelling of this story, I don’t understand it now. My kids, my humans, my little scientists and world changers were broken and it felt like there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I was exhausted. I was broken. I remember my mom telling me to take the next day off. Quickly I responded that I couldn't. There was a test I had to give, things I had to do, and two specific boys that if I didn’t give them a heads up that I’d be gone their worlds really might have imploded. Quitting wasn’t an option. I had to work on fumes and through tears; I just had to. My kids needed me. And, because she is the mother that raised me, she understood my stance. That said, because she is also the mother that has lived through similar moments, she knew I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t pause. Her wisdom was something along the lines of, “Yes, your kids need you but they need your steady - not your spiraling. If you can’t take off tomorrow change the rest of your week so that you can take off Friday.”

So, that’s what I did and that’s when I got the tattoo.

The Pause ;

I love language. I love stories. I love words. I, however, have a unique relationship with punctuation. I have two distinct memories that have forever imprinted their impact on my grammatical existence: 1) When I was in elementary school this native man with braided hair and a rawhide jacket read us a story that spanned across pages but only contained one sentence. I learned that day that (with the right punctuation) a sentence could be endless. 2) “When you write you put a comma wherever you would naturally breathe.” I don’t know why this is the advice English teachers give kids but someone should inform them this rule doesn’t work with asthmatics. Needless to say, I never know where to put my commas. Both of these core memories have left me seeing red marks all over my pages and forever confused about what proper punctuation looks like. Simply put, my sentences are either too long or too choppy. Exactly like my breathing. Then came the introduction of the semicolon and BAM! my sentence structure was forever spiced up like Emeril Lagasse. You see, a semicolon allows me to combine two thoughts; it provides an amount of space to tell you they’re different ideas but that they belong to the same sentence. If a comma is a breath, a semicolon is a pause. A semicolon could have been a period but it decided the sentence wasn’t over yet.

My pause is forever stamped on my right hand. The hand I write with. The hand I place over my heart to remind me it’s still beating. The hand I stretch out to shake yours to maybe get the chance to tell you that you’re not alone.

The Half I Hide ;

I wouldn’t call myself gullible but I will admit to having been a highly impressionable child. If you told me something that I could stick to any amount of logic, I would believe you. After all, why would you lie to me? Now, take this same concept, multiply it by whatever hyperbole of your choosing, and apply it to social rules that deal with people and I was sold. You see, I had one too many people tell me the story of a kid that was going to kill himself until one person was nice to them. Immediately, it became my responsibility to make sure that my kindness kept people alive … and if it didn’t …then clearly their death was my fault.

I want to stop here to say that I understand now this is not at all rational nor is it the purpose of the story of the kid that didn’t commit suicide. I understand that now. But I want you to understand, as irrational as it might be, this was my reality for many years.

The reality and direct impact of suicide entered my life during my senior year. I was in a very unhealthy relationship - if you can even call it that - with a person I met in an online chat room that, to this day, is just as real guy as he is catfish. Against the better judgment of myself, the forbidding of my mom, and the caution of the one friend that knew, I kept the conversation going with this somebody. Occasionally my head would readjust itself on my shoulders in an effort to be on straight and I would try to walk away from this mess I had found myself in. Only problem, every time I would start to pull away or say the interactions needed to be stopped he would respond by saying he’d kill himself if I stopped talking to him. Of course, I believed him. Then, to keep the trauma going, he’d go radio silent for a day or two, have a friend of his message me saying that he had gone missing, I’d be convinced that he had gone through with it with just enough time for him to pop back up in my inbox to repeat the cycle again. And again. And again. I rode this rollercoaster that was “being liked by someone so much that they'd kill themselves if they couldn’t have me” for entirely too long. Through it all I only ever blamed myself for everything that happened. It was my fault that I even talked to him and it would be my fault if he killed himself.

Three years later I find myself as shattered goo on the floor of my best friend’s bedroom. It’s midnight and my mom is calling me to find out if I knew that my brother was suicidal. I don't know if you've ever felt the world spin in hyper-speed through a solar eclipse while freezing at the same time but it's nauseating. To explain it any other way than my heart being ripped out of my chest, my stomach falling to my feet, my throat locking, my brain bleeding, and my eyes gushing all while I could hear myself blinking feels like an understatement. Questions flew across my mind like breaking news on a teleprompter. How could I not know? How did I miss this? Why didn’t he tell me? Did I not show him I loved him enough that he could have told me? Did I not love him enough that he thought his life was worth something? I couldn’t sleep that night. I was preserved in a state of shock. My brother was hospitalized and I didn’t know if he’d be alive tomorrow. I kept thinking the same thought: My brother, my best friend, almost killed himself and it was all my fault.

I stop the story again here to tell you that this is told with my brother's permission. While this is my recounting of the event this is not the full story. The information gained in the days that would follow this initial phone call would find some of the accusations to be false. My brother is doing well.

The same year I received this phone call was the year I was filling journals with poems liked "signed the girl that doesn't cut herself" and others about withdrawals from alcohol I had never tasted. I didn't say it then but I’ll say it now; I was depressed. The same mind that would illustrate what it was like to be surrounded by my own darkness would convince me I wasn't sad enough to be depressed. After all, I didn't cut myself. I couldn't be depressed. I had a job, a roof over my head, was going to college, and most importantly, I loved Jesus. People who love Jesus can't be depressed. It's not allowed. Right? People who have their physical needs met can't be depressed. No. No, I wasn't depressed. I was selfish and ungrateful. That was my problem - not depression. Man, if there’s ever such a lie I believed it would be this one.

Another three years pass and I get a message that one of my former coworkers committed suicide. No details. Nothing. Simply stated as matter of fact. Just like that the boy with the goofy hair, the wrinkled shirts, the intentional ties, and the best stories wasn't around anymore to ask questions about where to take his girlfriend out on a date or say something that made you overly aware of the age gap. Again, even with 200 miles between us and a year since we had worked together, I wondered, “was there something I could have done to stop this?”

This, along with the two attempts by my students, would be the last of the suicide stories before I got my tattoo. The last at least that I had a direct relationship with the person. There were even more scattered throughout this time that were friends of friends, classmates of my siblings, and some of my celebrity heroes. After getting my tattoo there would be three more stories before I finally reached my breaking point. Two additional students, attempts. One parent of a student, fatal.

The Breaking Point ;

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the chance to stand toe-to-toe with a delusion but let me tell you it is a special type of disorienting. I was coming back from a woman’s conference not even two years ago when the final straw broke. There I was, fresh into the chapter of “Recovering Becca”, riding the peace and excitement that was the presence of Jesus, flooded with new ideas, new hopes, and new grace. I felt so much clarity - that is, until I didn’t. I wasn’t even midway through a praise of gratitude when the intrusive thought rolled through my mind like a tumbleweed through the plains. Only this tumbleweed was barbed wire doused in kerosene lit in a blaze etching grooves in my mind that I am somehow the reason people kill themselves. “That woman you sat by tonight, she’s going to kill herself because you didn’t ask her her name.”

Have you ever told Satan to fuck off? I have. In fact, I just so happened to record the entire declaration. Pissed doesn’t even begin to cover it. I was livid and full of holy-table-flipping-anger. It was in that moment of warfare that I said no.

This is that declaration:

“No devil you don’t get this! God, he doesn’t get this. He doesn’t get to have this moment. He doesn’t get to take from this greatness. He doesn’t get to take from this healing that I just felt…he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get the final stay. He doesn’t get to have the last laugh. He doesn’t get to take me to bed with guilt and shame because I didn’t say hi to a woman…. He doesn’t get it! So you know what he get’s instead. He gets a prayer that says God let your love shower over that woman. God let her find you and your peace and your healing. God let her know she is loved. Wrap her up in a sea of angels … she’ll show up tomorrow because she’s supposed to be there. He doesn’t get my shame any more. He doesn’t get my guilt anymore. He doesn’t get to have that weight. No. No! Fuck that shit because I am God’s - and she is God’s - and I believe in a God of grace and a God that hears my prayer. … No. No. I’m done assuming suicides are my fault. Oh, fuck…this is ridiculous. God, thank you for your grace. Thank you for your strength to shut that shit down because God you are the one. You will stop any trial … intersession on her behalf … intersession on my own behalf. … The weight of the world is not mine to bear. The weight of the world is not mine to bear. Fuck you devil. Fuck you and your demons that are fucking with me because you don’t get to anymore. Fuck your shit. Nope. You don’t get it. you don’t get my peace. You don’t get shame and you don’t get guilt anymore. They are not yours… In Jesus name. Jesus, You get this. This is Your moment. This is Your moment to show healing and restoration and power and strength. This is Your moment to say this one’s Mine. She’s Mine. They’re Mine. Go into some pigs - these demons are out of me.”

The Whole Sentence ;

No, I’ve never attempted suicide. The ropes I’ve hung, the guns I’ve loaded, and the pills I’ve swallowed have never been tangible. But I have laid in bed and truly wondered if anyone, anyone at all, would care if I didn’t wake up the next day. I have made peace with wanting not to. I have believed the lie that my sadness wasn’t real enough to count. That the blades I ran across my thought-life left scars that weren’t visible, therefore my pain wasn’t real. I believed the lie that my Christianity left me immune to depression. I didn’t dignify it enough to call it by its name. Instead I put band-aids on my depression labeling it exhaustion, selfishness, and ungrateful to never address the actual problem but instead perpetuate it.

So, yes, the half of the story I have told for years now is true. Yes, my tattoo is for my kids. To honor their lives and battles. When I look at it I see the names of six kids, all of which know this ink is for them and that I believe their life is worth a tomorrow. I see the faces of all my babies and cry prayers that they’ll never feel this pain. But, there’s more to the story and the more is that it is also for me. It’s a reminder that my thoughts whether or not they’re true doesn’t mean I don’t actually feel/think them and that they shouldn’t be given value. I feel the moments that led me to this point. I’m reminded that I don’t have to gratitude or faith away my feelings. I’m allowed to sit with them for a moment. I breathe in deeply and remember the importance of the pause. I see Jesus. I see a life in this dark and fallen world met with a reason for seeing the other half of the sentence. I see grace. I see chains broken. Lastly, I am reminded that though suicide is very real and a global problem it is not my fault.

To those of you that made it this far - thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow ;

To those of you battling your own demons please know you’re not alone, you are worth it, and that there’s more air to breathe on the other side of today. I pray I get to see you tomorrow ;

National Suicide and Crisis Hotline: 988 (Call or Text)