Twelve Days

Day three

"Honestly, I kind of want to repeat that sleeping with champagne thing.", Alec said. It was early in the morining, approximately one am. Yesterday, we spent our first night in the camper and it turned out a lot more comfortable than imagined. We spent the whole day driving to Kansas city. We crossed Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and now are on the border to Kansas. Our camper was perfectly parked and Alec was preparing our beds. "I think we have no other choice. I bet the blanket still stinks.", I laughed and changed into cleaner sweatpants. It has been a fifteen hour drive and I really enjoyed the life on the road at the moment. We showered at some gas station, the water was freezing but it definitely was one hell of an experience. It was exciting, adventurous and exhausting. But I lived for it. And I couldn't wait to finally arrive at our first real destination- Garden of the Gods National Park, Colorado. 

I woke up because of the sun shining through the glass deck of our camper. WHen I checked my phone, I saw it was almost eleven am. Trying not to wake up Alec, I exited the camper and took my necessaire with me. So, standing on this parking lot, in the middle of America, sucking in the cold, refreshing air. This is what I imagined. This was what I wanted. The sun shone brightly, making the grass looks greener, the mountains higher and the sky bluer. I smiled. I brushed my teeth with water we brought in bottles, cleaned my face and let it dry with the natural wind. I closed my eyes, feeling the wind cold on my wet face and the sun hot on my naked arms. I inhaled. I inhaled nature. happiness. life. And I felt as if nothing could ever take this feeling of calm, complete happiness away from me. Nothing could ruin this moment. For me, this was undisturbed perfection. Flawlessness. I felt entirely accomplished. I felt like this was me in my purest form. This was pure happiness. Pure joy. Relaxation. I couldn't tell how long I stood there, eyes closed. I was sure it were just minutes but these minutes felt like eternal perfection to me. I never felt that fullfilled. And it made me feel whole as a human being, as a man. Slowly, I opened my eyes again. I knew I had to come back to reality. But I saved this feeling of feeling complete deep down in my heart and I knew I could come back anytime. With trembling hands, I took out my pills. My literal elixire of life. I took time bomb number three and swallowed it easier than ever before. I knew my life was under my control. All of it. Slowly, I dropped the packaging on the pill on the ground, as it was this time bombs shell. I left the first of these shells in my apartment. The second one, I left at the parking lot in Pannsylvania. And the third one would stay here, in Kansas City. It was as if I was leaving memories of me at these places. As if I was leaving a piece of me, traces of my life. But seeing that little white plastic piece of packaging on the ground felt somehow monumental to me. I chose to be here. It was my conscious choice and of all of the things in the world, I wanted to spend my last days here. So I would leave the packaging here. It seemed like a piece of my life, in the most literal sense ever. It was a countdown and a part of it happened here. I kept following the little piece of plastic with my eyes as it got carried away by the wind. It was crazy to see how unimportant I was to the world. To the universe. I didn't matter. And maybe, at some point of my life I may hav thought of this as depressing but  ow it seemed relieving. Unimportant. That also meaned I had no replonsibilities, right? If the universe didn't care about my, why should I care about the universe? Why should I let it wreck my life with this illness? Why should I see it as a curse when I as well could see it as a gift? The universe gifted me the feeling of being alive. And I just gifted the universe that piece of plastic. For other people it was garbage, for me it was an essential piece of my life. 

"Ready to go?", Alec asked me and I whirled around, spinning out of my thougts. I nodded. Only a few minutes later we were back in our camper and left the parking lot behind us. "Garden of the Gods, here we come!", Alec rejoiced and I couldn't help but smile as widely as never before. "Bye Kansas City!", I screamed, very well knowing I would never be coming back. This was my journey to death. Alec connected his phone with the camper. "It's the final countdown!", the radio practically exploaded, filling our entire camper with sound. It was. It really was the final countdown. And never has a countdown been this final.

We drove along cities and beautiful landscapes, long curvy roads or completely overfilled highways. It was completely different than driving at night. Definitely not worse or better, just really different. Alec opened our campers windows to let the airstream disarray our hair. We had one hell of a long ride ahead of us so a little fundefinitely wasn't wrong. Nature, wildlife, a road, me and Alec in a pastel blue camper with a glass deck, sunshine but a stormy breeze, upbeat music and the slight smell of Champagne- this was what I imagined for this roadtrip. And this is what I got. "Going on this trip was the best decision of our lives.", Alec said and I couldn't agree more. This was the most fun I have had in a very long time. I have never felt that free before. And this was a feeling that I wouldn't want to give away for anything, especially not for an extra month of laying in the hospital, literally waiting to die instead of being alive. I couldn't be happier with the choice I made. It was the right one.