… jack shit has happened!
(By the way, if you are experiencing Hot News Flashes and you are a woman over the age of forty who has at least four cats and the entire DVD box set of Sex in the City plus the movies, ask you doctor about Nomanitol, the surprisingly insertable drug for special women just like you)
Not a lot to report about my vague approximation of a life. Feeling sort of crappy right now, not sure why. Achey joints, a big headache, a weird feverish sort of feeling, and a kind of low level irritability that makes me wanna say bitchy cutting things to people.
Luckily, I am all alone in the apartment tonight, so there are no targets for my lazy ire.
So I can go ahead and feel grumpy. Fuckers.
My main worry is that this is the beginning of a flu type infection. In general in my life, that is what the sudden onset of aching joints has meant.
But who knows? Maybe it will all go away, leaving as mysteriously as it came, and I will be left to just shrug and go on with my life wondering if I just dodged a bullet, or whether it was just minor symptoms making me paranoid because my life is so devoid of content that the smallest of things make a huge noise, like dripping water echoing in a vast underground cave.
Until then, though, it is painful and irritating. I feel tightly wound. I hate that feeling. I am a naturally laid back and loose kind of guy.
Or at least, part of me is. The good part. The strong, resilient, awesomely cool part.
The rest of me is a pathetic bundle of neuroses that gets whacked around by life like a ball in a Giants Versus Ogres croquet tournament.
At least I always have a metaphor or simile handy, like some sort of stuff… having… thing.
But oh well. As I go through therapy and do things to try to help myself feel better, the good part of myself, the part that represents the version of myself that I hope to become, gets bigger and stronger, and this island of my soul grows, and who knows, some day it might even be big enough for a fully grown and intact human being to live and love and grow and even lay full down and sleep the good sleep of the whole and healthy person, and awake refreshed.
I have been trying to avoid abusing sleep lately. It seems odd to imagine that sleep is something you can abuse, but you can. Depression makes it easy. Feeling depressed, anxious, confused, angsty? Just go to sleep and fast forward through life to the next good part.
In my sad life, that tends to be a meal.
Of course, a fast forward button is the last thing I need in my life. I have fast forwarded through me entire adult life. I am approaching forty at light speed and I have done pretty much nothing. What I need is a pause button, or even better, rewind.
Just let me go back to that night in the Chinese restaurant when my parents told me and my brother they were taking us out of university so they could take early retirement instead.
I will take it from there. I will come down on them with the full force of my mind and my personality and trust me, I will talk them out of it, and things will turn out a lot differently.
Maybe not better. Part of me says “I can’t imagine it being any worse” when I say that, but of course, things can always be worse. I could have gotten cancer and died a slow painful death before I was even 25 years old. I could have gotten killed in a car accident. I could have ended up in an abusive relationship that left me even more emotionally screwed up than I am now.
Things can always be worse than they are now. Most of us know that. The hard part is being grateful for all the bad things that have not happened to you, and glad that your life is not nearly as bad as some people’s lives, and you have a lot to be thankful for.
It is far, far easier to take all your good fortune for granted, like that is the default state of the universe that nothing could possibly change, or even worse, like you have the worst life possible.
No you don’t. Just living in the modern civilized world means you have a better life than two thirds of humanity living on Earth at this time. Be glad that pure dumb luck made you part of the top third of the population, living in the safety and comfort of modern life.
Even if you are just a loser like me living off the system and wasting your life on the Internet, you and I have a life that would make someone living in misery, squalor, and anarchy in some undercivilized part of the world, where human life is cheap and you have never known a moment without pain, danger, hunger, and thirst.
So, you know…. perspective.
Mayeb if I can keep this sort of thing in mind, I can fight back the urge to say “I hate my life!” so myself so often and try to move myself back to the pint of view where I live in extremely minor luxury and am glad that I live someplace where I am not forced to work despite my serious mental illness, and I can take the time I need to get better.
And boy, is that taking a long damned time. My whole adult life so far.
And so once more, I am left facing the vast void of my life so far, and what a god damn loser I am.
Oh well, at least I am a highly talented and intelligent loser.
Better than having nothing at all.