It came in the mail yesterday.

The thing that I’ve been waiting for for so long. The one thing that would decide my fate in this world. That thing that would encourage me to keep fighting, to keep holding on. Or maybe it would nudge me the other way. Prove to me that I should just give in. That I should let go of everything and let myself pass on to a new life.

I sat looking at it in it’s envelope for an hour and a half before I picked it up off of the kitchen table.

I held it in my hands for ten minutes before I turned it over to open it up.

I let my fingers slide over the smooth paper for two more minutes before I unfolded it to see what fate had in store for me.

The words inside didn’t mean anything at all upon the first reading. They were blurred and the letters in the wrong places. I saw nothing more than black scribbles on the gleaming white paper. I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands, blurring my vision more at first, but the ultimate result was that everything became clearer.

I looked again at the paper.

I saw what I had feared most.

Dear sir, we regret to inform you…

The rest didn’t matter. The rest only backed up what that first line said. Gone. Every hope. Every dream. Every wish. Gone in the matter of seconds. Broken apart and thrown to the ground with no ability to put them back together. No glue in the world would be strong enough.

Because of this, today I find myself soaking in a warm tub, vision again blurry but this time nothing will become clear again. I can feel everything getting colder. I have let go. I have given in.

It came in the mail yesterday.