I’m still here. I don’t know how, but I am. And I’ll keep saying it: we need to talk about this. Not the sugar-coated version, not the whispers behind closed doors. We need to talk about the real thing. Because the silence, the shame—that’s what’s killing us. And not everyone makes it back from the edge.

Maybe that’s how it works. The end comes slowly, in pieces, until it all crashes down. Or maybe this isn’t the end at all. Maybe this is the beginning. Something new, rising from what’s left.

On this occasion, our journey took us first out of Missouri and into Kansas. The highway unfurled before us, a ribbon of asphalt cutting through the landscape. As we drove, the vast fields opened up, stretching infinitely under a sky that felt like it could swallow everything whole. The tall grasses swayed in rhythm with the wind, undulating like waves in a green ocean, and I could almost hear them whispering truths lost to the noise of the world.