Why Do We Care?

I've asked myself this question a lot lately. As someone who has considered suicide a viable option for decades I have to wonder why the fuck anyone cares if I kill myself? And I don't mean therapists. That's what they're paid to do. Or friends and family. They'll miss you of course. I'm talking about strangers. Even on the internet with absolute anonymity if I tweet or post something about wanting to kill myself somebody somewhere will talk to me and try to convince me not to do it. What is so great about life that we feel this need to stop somebody else from ending it? Even myself. On Tumblr or Twitter I see countless posts about being suicidal and I always try to talk to the people and convince them not to do it even though, at 42, I've lived long enough to see that it doesn't always get better. Is it the shared pain? Is it easier to distance ourselves from our own problems when we're trying to convince someone else that their's aren't so bad? I don't know. But no matter how fucked up or ready to end it I get, if someone posts that they're going to do it there I'll be trying to talk them down. Is there something intrinsically in me that refuses to allow me to finally go through with it? That's what my therapist would like to believe. She insists that there's a tiny little part of me that's fighting away inside trying to steer clear of the end. I am not so sure. Personally, one of my Tumblr friends said it best recently. He said: "I don't really want to die, I just want to be happy again and to have a purpose in my life." However, happiness has been ever elusive, and the longer it takes me to find it, the more tired I get. I wish some of these kind souls who try to talk to me and help me had been there when I was in school. Maybe change would have been easier to come by.