On the last day of my month long stay in Korea, I took a walk to Mapo Bridge. It was a very deliberate walk – I had to plan my commute such that it would be sunset when I crossed the bridge, and dusk when I reached the other end. For those of you interested in the difference between sunset and dusk, I refer you to this post and this post. I alighted at Yeouido subway station and made my way across the bridge towards Mapo subway station. For future reference, if you want to chase the sunset, you should head in the opposite direction, towards Yeouido from Mapo station instead.
Mapo Bridge is a bit of an infamy amongst Seoulites, having garnered the nickname of “Suicide Bridge” from the number of suicides that have occurred here. I don’t know how to explain this, but I wanted to visit this bridge during sunset to pay respects to those who have found it so difficult to live they decided to jump over the bridge. I wanted to stand in solidarity with them and let them know that they are not alone, they were not alone. There are people like us, like them, who are still carrying on with our struggles and battles – and we have not succumbed. I wanted to stand with them and let them know – I am still fighting and I will carry their wills with me, the will that they carried all the way to their deaths. I wanted them to know that I know it is not easy, and it was not easy for them. I guess I just wanted them to know that they were not alone. They never were, never will be.
Only later would I realise that this walk across the bridge is also symbolic to me. I wanted to cross this bridge. This is still difficult for me to write about, which is why it’s been more than a week, and I’m still wondering how to put this into words. I wanted to cross this suicide bridge without committing suicide. I wanted to know that I could walk across this bridge, that I could come out safely on the other side.
It was very painful. Halfway through the walk, I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted to sit and to rest – this bridge is longer than you’d think it is. Thoughts about how long this bridge must have felt to someone contemplating suicide flooded my mind and my heart ached for how painful the walk must have felt for them. At some point, it must have become to much and they jumped. Some of them may have lingered, then they jumped. It is with that thought that – despite wanting to linger, I forced myself to keep going. Keep going, get off this bridge. You can and you will emerge victorious on the other side. You will keep going until you cannot anymore, but keep going, for now.
The strange thing was that there are patrol guards on one side of the bridge – the one from the path that leads from Yeouido Han River Park. When I turned onto the bridge, I caught eyes with the guard in the guard box (?) and he second glanced me. This is odd in Seoul because they keep to themselves, they don’t second glance other people no matter how strange or bizarre the person is behaving. So when he took a second glance at me, my heart lurched. Truth be told, I’m no longer in the actively suicidal stage, but I didn’t know if I could handle walking across this bridge or not without suffering some kind of relapse. I was slightly scared, and his second glance was a jolting alarm bell to me. This was the kind of bridge that I was about to cross – the bridge where people jumped to their deaths from. On the bridge, I passed so many people in groups, in pairs and alone. I kept thinking about how someone who wanted to commit suicide here would have felt, and kept on walking. Some parts, I just kept my head down and walked. Other parts, I faced up to the sky and felt the wind whipping through my hair, the rush of autumn air in my lungs. I turned back towards the sunset and watched the orange seep into deep blue. I let the wind take what heat it wanted from me and reveled in its gusty embrace. I took videos and I took pictures. I looked through the guard rails and watched the river beneath me. At no point in time did I let my arm hang across the bridge, over the waters.
When I stepped off that bridge and properly got off its path, heading for the park beneath it, I heaved a sigh of relief. I did it. I really did it. It was symbolic gesture of completion, and in the next few hours, I would find that something in me died on that bridge and was left behind. That night, I cried the hardest I’ve cried in months, for the part of me that seemed to have leapt right off that bridge, away from me, and died. I’ve changed since that walk across that bridge. When people ask me what my greatest take-away was from my month long trip in Korea, I usually tell them it was my last 3 days that I spent alone. I tell them that the sunset I saw on my last day was the most beautiful I’ve seen the entire month. I tell them that I’m so happy that I made my way to Mapo Bridge and caught the sunset. I tell them that something in me has changed and something beautiful happened on that bridge. I don’t tell them that I sobbed into sleep on the last night in the apartment. I don’t tell them about the choking feeling I still get when I cross that bridge in my mind’s eye. I don’t tell them what the walk across that bridge means to me. I’m not yet ready to. I don’t know how to express it properly and I don’t know the right people to tell yet, but one day I will. One day, I will share this story with the important people in my life. I also hope that I will be able to share this with people who are also struggling with their lives, in whichever aspect they are struggling in, and I hope that this story will give them hope. That life is still worth living – because it is, but more importantly, that they know they aren’t alone. There are many of us who have been on the brink before. Some just walk on longer than others. We don’t know where or when the end of our journey is – but for as long as we can, we walk on. We cross our bridges.
This isn’t my last post on suicide. I’ve decided that I’ll be writing a little more about it. It deserves more dialogue and empathy, and I am broken, broken to share and to live.
Thank you, dear reader, for reading this far. You’ve taken this journey with me again as I wrote about crossing this bridge. I hope your day has been great! Love and light to you.
first published in november 2017, when i made that walk that i still make every day today x
