Emma+B's+Final+AmEx+2015+Speech

It wasn’t when I walked in on him lying on the ground trying to choke himself out with a belt. It wasn’t when I laid down there with him, crying together, holding each other. It wasn’t when he held his own switchblade to his own wrist, when he argued that this physical torture could bleed him of his emotional despair. But maybe it was when he looked into my eyes and told me that I was the only reason he… stays around. It was when, seemingly, all the weight of the world transferred onto my incompetent shoulders. It was when I became responsible for my brother’s life that I realized - I didn’t want him to live. Not for me. Not for my sake.I just wanted him to live for himself. I didn’t want his pity, and we don’t want yours today. I wanted him to live for everything beautiful that I could see in the broken boy before me. It’s so much easier to see a person’s beauty and flaws from a third person point of view, and it’s so much easier to just love them as they are. I wish this boy could just see what I saw - a boy who had so much more to live for in himself than anything he could ever find in me. I wish this boy could just love what I loved - a boy with an unequivocal yet untapped potential for greatness. Don’t worry, I’m not going to allow this speech to become just a teary-eyed selection of my finest sob stories. I guess I wrote this speech to think and feel through a lot of thoughts and feelings I’ve had throughout my experience with depression. I can’t pretend to know the sorrow and fear which accompany such a helpless mindset, but… I am observant. It really is an internal struggle, a struggle that can’t really be remediated by anyone but one’s self. And that’s a frustrating thing. With my brother’s life in my hands, I’ve learned that the most I can do is let go. In fact, sometimes, the most I can do with my hands is hold his. Because depression is an incredibly lonesome feeling. Depression is a bit like quicksand, and even if you are strong enough to drag yourself out, it seems that some sort of PTSD can’t quite be shaken. Memories are memories made, and although the past is unalterable, I think it is so important to remember that everything is temporary. If death is in fact inevitable (and so far, it seems to be!) and we all really are bound for some type of scientific singularity, some spacetime nothingness, well... we have to be content with life. We have to live for ourselves. We have to live so that when we do reach our individual ends, we will be capable of performing our most beautiful, mournful swan songs as we bid a bittersweet goodbye to this world. I guess I want to grow old in an America that lives and dies in the pursuit of happiness. I know that at this point, especially, we are all struggling to find that driving passion, that unquantifiable love, that reason to be excited for Monday morning. We all desperately want to find the sustenance of our dreams. But we have to have hope and faith. In what? That’s up for your individual interpretation. I think that if you can learn to love the pursuit of happiness, it doesn’t matter if you get it because… you’ll be good. And, yes, that was a lame attempt to reference Kid Cudi. So here’s my final pieces of advice: try to love yourself for what you’re worth, because I promise you are beautiful. Crave an understanding because even if you can’t, you will learn how to empathize. Recognize what is in your hands, what you can save and what you have to let go of. Remember what you have control over because sometimes you don’t have control, sometimes you never did. Savor the moment. Enjoy the little details. And do all those other cliché things that are supposed to ensure contentment. Thank you. <3
 * To Live & Die in the Pursuit of Happiness **