Boring? I’ll show him boring.

“I’ll have the fugu sashimi” I say, boldly handing the menu back to the waitress. She gives me a worried look.

“Excuse me madam, have you had fugu before?” she asks.

“No I haven’t, but I know what it is. The thing is, Yuni” I say looking at her name tag, “I have come all the way here to Japan to sample this delicacy.”

“Okay, it will just be a moment,” Yuni says as she walks away.

My meal is in front of me within minutes. I take a deep breath and with a smile on my face I dig in. My first bite makes my tongue tingle and leaves it a little numb. The fugu is delicious. I am so glad that I made the decision to do this. It has been a long time since I did something just for me.

It seems like for the past decade I have been living for everyone but myself. I never gave a thought to what I needed to do for me and it got exhausting. Two years ago, I began to unravel. I was spinning out of control and didn’t know how to stop it. My marriage was the ultimate casualty and when we decided to part ways, I knew that I needed some time away to regain my balance.

My fascination with the Japanese culture and love for their food saw me packing my bags and boarding a flight to Tokyo.

Just as I am congratulating myself on my bravery and my newfound sense of adventure, Yuni comes running up to me, panic stricken. She grabs me and looks into my eyes but doesn’t say anything. Finally, she turns to the wait staff who are now gathered just outside the kitchen, and yells, “We only have six minutes, we need to save her.”

The whole restaurant comes to a standstill. All eyes are on me.

This must be a joke. She is messing with me, right? Where are the cameras? They must be taping some lame prank TV show. Six minutes? My head starts spinning.

Is this what I get for deciding to live a little? I start to remember what I had read. There is no known antidote for fugu toxin, which is about 1,200 times more potent than cyanide.

What have I done? I know what you are thinking, why in the world would anyone order this dish and especially from a random restaurant? I suppose it is for the same reason that people sky dive and swim with sharks. Standing on that edge makes you feel alive.

I look around the restaurant and it is like everyone is frozen. The other diners have dropped their cutlery and are looking at me terrified. Then I see the chef, he is clutching his white hat with tears in his eyes. He is a small man who looks like he is in his late fifties. I feel the pull of the thread that binds me and him together.

This complete stranger has played one of the most important roles in my life. He has ended it. It is surreal.

Is this really happening? Am I really dying? I start to feel nauseous. Am I ready for this? Am I ready to die? What comes next? Could I have lived differently?

My breathing is becoming shallower and I start to shiver. This is really happening. I am dying. Yuni is still by my side.

Whenever I attended a funeral, I would always read the eulogy because I wanted to see what kind of life the person led. After that I would look at the tributes from those close to the deceased, trying to get a sense of who the person really was.

I now wondered about my own funeral. Who would show up? Would they be genuinely sad that I was gone? Did they really know who I was? What would my eulogy say?

I now realise that I want my eulogy to be about who I really was — my hopes and dreams, my vulnerabilities, my strengths. The very things that I worked so hard to hide from the world. They will never know the real me, the person behind the mask I wore every day when I left the house.

It now occurs to me that I played so many different roles in my life. I was a different person to various people, depending on who they wanted me to be. If they were all to speak at my funeral, you would think they were each talking about a different person. So maybe that is my biggest regret. I wish I had been more real with the people in my life. I wish I hadn’t been so afraid to show who I really was.

My vision is dimming and so is my hearing. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, like I am in a drug-induced haze. I am lifted off my seat and placed on a flat surface.

The last thing I see before they put the mask on my face is Yuni and the last thing I feel before it all fades to black is peace. I let go because there is no point in fighting the inevitable.