Warning: This post contains spoilers for “Barbie” and discussions of suicidal ideation. Please do not continue reading if either of these topics will upset you.

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I realize I’m very late to the party, but I finally saw Barbie this past Saturday with a friend. I heard nothing but good things about the film, yet I still went into the theater slightly skeptical. I expected something like a Disney movie: a decent storyline with a mix of child and adult humor so families would enjoy it.

I was not expecting to connect to this movie in such a deep way. Yet, there I was, maybe ten minutes in, laughing at the “funny because it’s too true” moment where Stereotypical Barbie shouts, “Do you guys ever think about dying?”

“Do You Guys Ever Think About Dying?”

For me, “thinking about death” has always just been “part of being alive.” In fact, one of my earliest memories involves me standing in the chimney of this mock log cabin we had on my elementary school playground, thinking to myself, “I kind of wish I could just not exist anymore.” I was six.

Over time, those feelings changed shape a lot. The intensity of them came and went, like the ebb and flow of ocean waves, but I could always hear them in the background. Sometimes, they’d come back to the forefront for a while, especially during times when the pain of living felt too intense to endure.

Like Barbie in that moment, though, I always felt like expressing those feelings and desires resulted in record scratches and the kind of silence you can hear crickets chirping in. It was like everyone I talked to had never experienced those thoughts.

But then I met Emily.

“But Ken Only Has a Great Day if Barbie Looks at Him.”

There were so many things that drew me to Emily. For starters, she just had this way of making you feel safe and at ease that I don’t think I can ever fully explain. Our mutual love of Grey’s Anatomy gave us instant conversation topics, as did our therapy homework. But, honestly, it was the moment she opened up to me about her sexuality when it really started to hit me.

Spending time with Emily made me happy. It didn’t matter if we went to McKay’s, turned the presidential debates into drinking games, or cleaned out her apartment — I loved being near her. And, I don’t know how she did it, but Emily somehow breathed new life into me. With her, I saw purpose and a future that had gotten lost in all the haze.

It’s funny, because the day before I saw Barbie, I was talking to my therapist about the fact that the “dark thoughts” have come back to the forefront, and when she asked how I was able to push through these thoughts in the past, I said, “Because before Emily died, I felt like I had a purpose and a future to keep working towards. And now I don’t.”

I don’t think Emily was my reason to live, but she did make the world make sense. Like Ken says towards the end of the movie, “I just don’t know who I am without you. It’s Barbie and Ken. There’s no just Ken.” And, for me, that’s how I saw the rest of my life: Emily and Megan. There was no “just Megan.”

Truth be told, I don’t know what “just Megan” looks like. My past relationships taught me to live in the shadows of the men I stood beside if I knew what was good for me. Society showed me I would never be “enough” because I am not pretty or thin or talented. And, for my own safety, I spent a lot of my life before Emily hiding important pieces of my identity for fear of being rejected or worse.

Without Emily, I’m completely lost. Lost and heartbroken.

“What Was I Made For?”

Since I walked out of the theater on Saturday and tried to stop the tears that just kept coming, the Billie Eilish song from the end of the movie kept playing in my head. It’s just so relatable to where I am in life right now.

I don’t know how to feel.

I don’t know why I exist.

I don’t know how to be happy.

All the enjoyment is gone.

I’m sad all the time.

Every morning when I wake up, I wonder why I’m still here. Why I am the one who is alive instead of her. I prayed, I begged to be the one to go instead if one of us had to, I promised I’d do anything if she could just stay alive.

But in the end, no amount of words I said changed anything. I should have tried harder.

I just don’t even understand why the stars aligned in just the right way for Emily and I to meet if this was always what was going to happen.

I think most of us look for the causation of everything. It’s easier to understand concepts like pain, anomalies, and disagreements when we have a scapegoat. We need someone to blame.

I thought the autopsy results would give me an answer to Emily’s death that wasn’t my fault… but they didn’t. I thought as the months passed, I’d find a way to forgive myself or let go… I haven’t. In fact, I think my pain and frustration has only continued to increase the closer we inch towards the one year mark.

And, throughout the past 11 months, that glimmer of hope that Emily had sparked has all but vanished.

I have been trying to say all of these things for weeks now, but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to let people in. To share the truth. To ask for someone to just hold me while I cry.

It’s all things that came so easily with Emily. And now that she’s gone? I don’t see the point.

At this point, I’m struggling to wrap my brain around how I’ve made it almost an entire year without the most incredible human I’ve ever met. I don’t want to celebrate my birthday because another rotation around the sun without Emily feels like too much. I wish I could be in her presence instead of continuing to live without it. It’s becoming hard to eat, to sleep, to breathe because every breath I take brings me closer to the anniversary of the worst day of my life — the day she died.

And, the hardest part is, I feel like Barbie. I’m stuck in this world that seems like eutopia to everyone else, and if I speak from my heart, I’ll be met with horrified glances and even more isolation.

‘Cause I, I
I don’t know how to feel
But I wanna try
I don’t know how to feel
But someday, I might
Someday, I might