To Be, Or Not To Be: Help Me Hamlet!

There I am, lying in bed, dying. Coughing my brains out…no, seriously, I am coughing so hard I get these really bad headaches and migraines. I stopped taking my medication months ago. It wasn’t doing much, but bringing more pain in my life. And it’s not like I have any reason to live anyways. I haven’t been completely happy with my life for some time. I mean, sure, I am an amazing writer and at my age of only 24, I already have five books on the bestsellers list. I also own my own little art gallery in downtown Chicago. It is full of not only my own pieces, but many famous works of art from many different famous artists, including half of the top most well known artists in the world. I guess you could say that for the past six years, I’ve been building up and living my dream.

Of course, this isn’t the only part to my dreams, I have always dreamed of falling in love. But unfortunately, this hasn’t come true yet. I have been in a few different relationships but they all tanked because, well, I tend to attract all the assholes, quite frankly. So I have given up on looking for anyone anymore, and with my new disease, it doesn’t really seem worth it. But I’ll tell you the story of how I became like this anyways.

After I found out what a jerk my last boyfriend turned out to be, I gave up hope. It became obvious to me that I had no one out there for me. I was destined to always and forever be alone. So I threw everything I had into my work, my writing. This is how two out of my five bestseller books were created. My writing and art became the only thing I knew, not that I minded much because I love doing what I did, but it wasn’t long until I had no time for any social life. I stopped going to see my family just outside of town on the weekends like I used to. I stopped seeing my friends for parties and cocktails at a random bar or club all the time. I became so engrossed into my work that the only time anyone would see me was on holidays, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, or Independence Day; or at the few gallery parties or book parties I had to promote my businesses. And even during the holidays, I rarely socialized with my family and friends; it became typical to see me curled up on the couch with my laptop working on my next novel, or sitting by the fire sketching my next piece.

But like I said, this behavior had to end when about 8 months ago, I started to get sick. It all started out as what seemed like just a cold. Then more symptoms came and some left, but the one that has been working against me from the beginning and progressively getting worse is my coughing. Much to no surprise, back when I thought it was the common cold; it was no big deal to have a cough. In fact because it didn’t seem serious at the time, all I did was take my proper dosage of Sudafed and kept throat lozenges with me. I didn’t even go to the doctor. But as it started to get so bad that I couldn’t breathe anymore, I decided to see a doctor. In fact, I saw about three doctors and one specialist. After about a month, they sort of found out what was wrong with me. Right now I have a temperature of 104.6°F and I’ve become so week from all the drugs I was on combined with the pain that I can barely walk. Due to these facts I have been put on bed rest until the doctors can figure out how to cure me. That is, if they can cure me, and if I want to be cured.

Since this disease, I have been spending all my time with my cousin, Tanya, and her amazing husband, Roger. I love them so much! They live in a town not far from Chicago, so it wasn’t hard to visit them at the beginning and it’s not hard for them to stay with me now that I can’t do anything on my own. So now I live in my small 2 bedroom loft with myself, Tanya, Roger, and my cat, Kat. I know that’s a strange name for a cat, but I couldn’t think of what to name her, so I named my kitten, Kat. Sometimes I’d refer to her as KK for short. This is my family. I have a large family, I rarely see them because I spend almost all my time in Illinois, and I haven’t left to visit someone in a couple years now. Once I die, Kat will go live with Roger and Tanya, and their dogs, Peanut and Buddy. Kat loves those two dogs, and they at least tolerate her.

I finally finished writing my will. If I had thought about having to write one of these a long time ago, I probably wouldn’t have kept so much stuff, or so much money for that matter. That’s right! I have money and lots of it. I guess you could say I’m loaded. I do have five bestselling books though, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that I’m basically rich. Besides, do you know very many poor people with galleries full of artwork by famous artists? I didn’t think so. Okay, so I believe my savings account has about 20 million dollars in it now. Hey everyone, this is what happens when you save money, you can end up rich like me. Not that I think money is the most important thing, because obviously it isn’t to me. I have decided to leave my money to the people that mean the most to me, my family and close friends. I’ll give 1 million to my parents, 1 million to each of my mom’s siblings to share equally between both parents and kids, and 1 million to my grandma. So far this brings me down to 14 million. I’ll also give 1 million to each family to equally share in the same way on my dad’s side, except for Roger and Tanya, who will receive 2 million, and 1 million to my grandparents on that side as well. Now I’m down to 8 million. This last amount will be split and given to my two closest friends. Jon-Allan will receive 6 million and Zoey Renée will receive 2 million.

Zoey Renée has always been the little sister I always wanted, while Jon-Allan has been the protective body guard type brother every girl needs. Zoey Renée is 19 and lives with her boyfriend, Austin. She is beautiful, tall at about 5 foot 11, has long, bright, red hair with natural highlights that show amazingly in the sunlight. She has very fair skin and the most gorgeous brown eyes you have ever seen. I met her eight years ago before I moved here to Illinois. We connected and have been as close as sisters since. Sometimes I even refer to her as my adopted little sister. In my will, I have it stated that when I pass, my entire art collection and gallery will go to her. She will also get my loft, which has already been paid for in advance for another 5 years. I just know she’ll love it. It will be my wish that Austin and Zoey Renée will take over that part of my business after I’m gone. I hope it will give her what she needs to help inspire her to follow her dreams as I did for mine.

Jon-Allan is a very dear friend to me. He is my hero. I met Jon-Allan back in my junior year of high school. He lived in a very small town not too far from mine. He practically saved my life and became my best friend. We spent as much time as we could together, but after my graduation we were unable to because he joined the United States Army. He is the only person I know, that is in any branch of the military that still absolutely loves it. I don’t know if I’ve told him enough over the years, but I am so proud of him.