This is Finn’s last post. He has been writing with us since August 2020, and we wish him well as he moves onto other adventures.
Warning: This post deals with my personal struggle with suicidal ideation. Reader discretion is advised.
This post will hit the servers a day after I turn thirty. I’m not ashamed to admit there have been times when I didn’t think I’d make it here. I spent a good chunk of my twenties expecting a beast to take me in the night when I was at my weakest—pills or a blade or a pier with murky water I couldn’t come back from. I thought for sure that the dark ragged figure I can feel on my shoulders on my worst days would swallow me whole whether I wanted it to or not.
But here’s the thing: the longer you stay alive, the more you learn about yourself. You learn we all have limits. Some of us just have limits closer to the surface through no fault of our own, and that’s okay. Some of us need a little help managing them, through meds, therapy, certain jobs rather than others or whatever you need.
If you’re lucky, you learn to accept your limits and stop giving a fuck what others think about them. I’m glad I made it to that part, because now, for the first time in an extremely long time, I’m excited.
This post is being written on a bus in Naples on my way to Pompeii, a place that has captured my imagination since I was a child, with friends that treasure me, something I used to have a lot of trouble believing of anyone. I have a wife that loves me and a dog that brightens my day (even if he does chew holes in my pants that I don’t discover until four months into deployment). I have so many things to be thankful for that I never would have had if the dark days win.
So, dear readers, as my time with the post calvin comes to an end, know that I hope and pray you stick around. It’s not over until it’s over, and you are so precious and lovely that you deserve to see it until then.
I love you all.
Peace.

Finnely King-Scoular (’14) is stationed at Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, VA, where he lives with his wife, Rosalind (’13). His writing, including the Faerie Court Chronicles series from NineStar Press, focuses on contemporary fantasy with an emphasis on LGBTQ+ representation.
Thank you for your writing on this blog. Rejoicing with you in your particular, unique, beautiful gift of life.