Apologies in advance if this gets a bit long winded.

I'm a 30 year old guy who lives in the suburbs with his pregnant wife, 1.5 year old son, and a golden retriever. I am, for all intents and purposes the epitome of what the 'ideal' family man is supposed to be. I've also been dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts/tendencies for well over half of my life.

From preschool through high school graduation i went to a private catholic school and at some point in time i just started to realize that a lot of the things they were trying to tell me didn't make sense. Apparently, questioning your faith while going through catholic school isn't the best way to make friends, which is really sucky during high school.

So there i was, an outcast in high school. It wouldn't be until many years later that i came to the conclusion that i was an atheist, but questioning my faith was enough to make the other kids keep their distance. I was the weird kid who listened to metal music and wanted piercings and who took scissors and cut his arms when he was at home alone.

The isolation during high school sucked, and probably led to the depression and some intense self esteem issues, but it was the losing faith that really led me to question my existence. Why am i here? Where did we come from? Where do we go? And no matter how i thought about it, i couldn't come up with any reasoning.

So, that's it, I am pointless. Which is really depressing the more you think about it. When you think about how big things really are. How big space is. We are a tiny little speck on our planet, which is a tiny speck in our solar system, which is a tiny speck in our galaxy, which is a tiny speck in the universe. No matter how i thought about it, everything is pointless. Even the the most important discoveries, inventions, and creations in human history all amount to squat. Xerxes, Cleopatra, Lincoln, Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Hitler, Stalin, Parks, King, Emperors, Queens, Kings, Dictators, all of it, given enough time amount to absolutely nothing and, in the grand scheme of things, there is not a single human who has lived or who will live who will or can have any type of an impact on the universe as a whole.

So that is why i think about committing suicide.

Then, in the summer of 2014, i had a bit of an epiphany. If the universe is so fucking huge, if nobody really matters in the grand scheme of things. If life is all a huge coincidence and this is all i get, why waste it? I know, it sounds mundane, but it was a huge moment of clarity. Out of the whole incomprehensible universe, we live on one itty bitty little planet. Why the fuck shouldn't i stick around as long as i can and see as much of it as i can? Read all the books i want? Watch all the movies i can? Absorb every beat of music i can?

The universe is fucking huge. Is it really such a depressing thought that we get to enjoy our little corner of it for a while?

TL;DR - seriously, just go watch some TV