March 26, 2001

To whom it may concern,

This should be pretty easy to understand. The fact is, I can�t fool you, any one of you. It simply isn�t fair to you or to me. The worst crime I can think of would be to rip people off by faking it and pretending as if I�m having 100 percent fun. Sometimes I feel as if I should have a punch-in time clock before I walk out of my room in the morning. I�ve tried everything within my power to appreciate life. God, believe me, I have. But it�s not enough. I must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they�re gone. I�m too sensitive. Why don�t you just enjoy it? I don�t know. I have it good, very good, and I�m grateful. I look at my life, and it seems wonderful. I have it all. Except happiness which is the one thing I most long for. But since recently, I�ve become hateful toward all humans in general only because it seems so easy for people to be happy, but impossible for the same to hold true for me. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for everything you�ve ever given me, done for me, or just shown me. I�m too much of an erratic, moody person, and I don�t have the will to keep up this charade any longer. I give up. I lose.

If there is one thing I ask of all of you, it would be to not grieve my death. I do not look at this in a negative light. This is the end of an unhappy, painful life. I am happier now. So I beg all of you to please be happy for me now too. And enjoy each of your lives to it�s fullest like I never had the chance to. Also, I ask that I be cremated and that my ashes be thrown into the wind. This way, there will be no remains of my body left behind. I want people to get on with their lives, and have as little of me to remember to hold them back.

You may ask yourself why I decided to do this with my girlfriend, Samantha Heckel. That reason is simple. I truly believe I love her. Although I say there is no happiness in this life for me, that Is not completely true. I am happy being with, or even just thinking about Sam. The only reason this happiness is not strong enough to hold me to this life is because she too, like me, is not happy in this life. If she isn�t happy, I cannot be happy. So we have decided that neither of us will ever see happiness in this life, so we decided to end it� together. She took her life, and then I took mine.

So here I end this note, along with my life. I cannot say for sure what comes next for me. There might be eternal bliss, there might be hell, or there might be nothing what-so-ever, but no matter what happens to me next, I know that it will be better to me than the way I am in this current existence. Thank you, and sorry�

LOVE ALWAYS AND FOREVER,

Joseph Robert Peterson