It withers.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, working the holiday. The crew I liked was there, and we made sure we left the building as soon as we were able. We laughed a lot and joked around, and a few of the guys from the old store I was trained at even dropped by on their way to wherever. We kept talking about turkey and all the shit we were going to do when we got home. I even got invited to someone’s house, but I declined. I have to admit trying deep fried turkey was definitely interesting enough to cause me pause. But I knew my parents were expecting me home, and I wouldn’t have gone anyway, I don’t think. I am almost sure I have never spent a Thanksgiving away from my parents.

With these sort of days that gloom in me always settles down over the world like a fog, tainting it. It makes me forget about the good far too easily. I’m tired and depressed today, but there’s little reason as to why. I even stood in the doorway watching one of the guys smoke and coaxed him into giving me a cigarette. I don’t know why, really. I fiddled with it between my fingers then dropped it in a pocket for later, not quite getting why I asked or why it mattered, or why I didn’t feel a little bad at the look he gave me, one that seemed to say he had just handed over a death sentence.

I ate dinner alone at the table because no one wanted to clear it. I refuse to sit in front of the television with a TV tray with either the news blaring or some low-budget Christmas movie playing. I’m tired of those things, tired of the mundane shit that’s supposed to pass time. In fact, I hate it so much I’d rather sleep. I’m not even sure what it all is supposed to mean anymore. I stay home and do nothing because I have no idea what else to do since nothing seems to appeal to me. Yes, maybe it is sad to say this, maybe it sounds like some seriously pessimistic individual’s point of view, but fuck it. I’ve lasted this long, I think the least I should get out of it is my right to speak of my hatred of it.

They have these beautiful journals at the bookstore. I asked for one for Christmas even though I barely write in mine anymore. I tore out most of the front pages in my oldest one. I recall blood being smeared on those pages, once upon a time. Instead I found what was left: a pressed daisy and lots of ramblings and scribbles. They all nearly got burned not too long ago. I had shoved them into my backpack along with a lighter. I’m still not sure why I didn’t do away with them.

Yesterday was a terrible day. My ritual has started again. I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter anymore since there is no covering it up anyway. I was always so discreet about it. Now it’s blatant and unapologetic. Oh well, I never wore shorts anyway.

I had an awful day at work. I guess that sort of thing is something I should get adjusted to, but true to form, all I did when I got home was eat and bake a bunch of sugary cookies that I promptly ate. I know it’s childish, and even when it’s happening I know I shouldn’t be doing it and all of that. But that part of me that sees only doom and doesn’t care, says ‘fuck it’. The one thing though, is that it  is the same part that gets me through the day.

If I cared, if I really did get incredibly stressed like I see others doing (one woman in particular has gained over 50 pounds since coming to work here) I would be much more of a mess than I am. I feel more irritation than anything else. I’m annoyed and not in the mood to perpetually deal with/train new people who don’t even try, then watch the very few good workers have to overcompensate for all the folks that fuck around and do nothing. And they’re cutting hours ever the more, leaving most people with 7-9 hours a week. I am one of the few who hasn’t been cut that low, though I am slightly under 80 hours for my two weeks instead of the 100 and something I was pulling a few months ago.

I’ve been doing almost well. I’ve actually been going a week at a time without a binge, which hasn’t happened in months. But I’m still eating more than I should, maintaining my weight instead of losing anything. I feel horrible as I am, and am leaving the house less and less. The last few times weren’t even willing. And it’s ridiculous, because a few years ago it would have never occured to me that I could even weight anything under 155. Yet a few months ago I was at 125 and thought I was disgustingly, horribly overweight. At 145 right now, I feel like a whale, for lack of any better description. I got to 137 on a five day fast a couple of weeks ago, but now I don’t know if I have it in me to do that again. I do fine all day, but once I am home from work I eat too much because I’m tired and irritable and don’t feel like going without food all night.

Binging is also made more difficult by the fact that we have very little food in the house. Enough for dinner and a few snacks, and that’s it. My mother is skimping so much on the gorceries that half the time I find myself confronted by the fact that I’m either going to have to eat cereal or go to the grocery store myself. She’s been complaining about my eating habits, and finally I have eased off a bit. Every month the amount of money she uses is lessened, and now she won’t buy anything that isn’t essential, and even went to the point of buying nearly everything generic, even things like toothpaste, which she used to never do. I give them money to pay for myself, but it obviously isn’t enough at the moment. Every time I attempt to give her something extra she starts crying and won’t let me. I’ve gotten to the point where I snatch up things from her cart and put them with mine so that I can pay for them, or I buy her dinner if we stop somewhere (always fast food).

My dad won’t even buy his books that he wants. I think the only things we won’t go without are the satellite and the internet; otherwise everything else is more or less expendable. I keep thinking it will clear up eventually, but it hasn’t, it’s worsened, in fact. The economy can blossom whenever it does, but it won’t matter, because we’ll be the same as always. Ever since my mother’s accident it’s been a fairly shitty experience, and working this job is the only real taste I’ve had of being able to buy things on a whim. It’s never really been like that before. It’s amazing to be able to buy expensive electronics and not have to freak out about it because I would have to scrape up everything I’ve got to have it. I’ve probably been spending more than I should, but I use my low moods as an excuse. At least I feel better for a short while, right? Sometimes even buying things can’t do it, though. It’s those times that I get frustrated.  I should use it for things that are important, but I find myself caring little. I’ve even been playing with the idea of not getting the insurance that was offered to me (which is frighteningly inexpensive). I won’t get therapy, and I haven’t even bought myself the car that I need.

I seem to have no problem floating aimlessly, with no plans for a future. Sometimes I think that I am planning my own doom, carefully constructing it in the background, in a place my consiousness can’t quite see.

To avoid…

Another day off. Yesterday was…interesting, to say the least. I never went to bed the night previous, and all I had done was get up from my computer chair to go shower and get ready. I did my 8 hours, which was chaotic and horrible, naturally; not a good day whatsoever and all the higher-ups magically appeared to criticize everything while we’re trying to swim instead of sink. And there I am barely conscious, which was my own stupid fault.

 I also found out someone called in and made a claim that the morning workers were standing around doing nothing when the store was supposed to be open, to our boss. So being that she is quite nosey, she checked the footage from that day on that hour.

Sometimes you do get revenge.

Apparently on the tape I’m preparing food ten minutes before opening (which is how it is supposed to be), while my coworker and I are having a conversation as she puts on her headset (which she doesn’t have to put on until six; but we always try to be ready ahead of time…). I haul ass in the morning; I have no alternative. I must have all of the food out to last for the entire morning and have it cooked by six. I also have to turn on all the equipment, plug in the freezers, prep all the trays, and get all my supplies. One half hour is all I get to do this in, and I am completely on my own. But I get it done. And then I assemble and cook the food until at least 7-8 in the morning, if not later, until someone comes in to help.

For anyone to even suggest that I would be fucking around, infuriates me. Why don’t you get back there and try to do it, then? Why don’t you run the entire back of a store by yourself for a good portion of the morning and see how you fair? They’ve left me alone until 10 before. You want to talk about having a bad motherfucking day?

Anyway, once that was over I went home for about an hour, waiting for them to get the checks at work. Then I went back, stood around for awhile and got to see one of my coworkers, who was just about to go off to a party and get as drunk as humanly possible. She smoked and I giggled, out in the cold, watching all the people walk in and out of the restaurant. I ran off as soon as I got paid, then went to town, which was another experience in and of itself.

I was standing at the counter of another fast food restaurant around 4, trying to order food. For some reason I couldn’t seem to speak properly. The guy at the register kept getting confused, and I was feeling too anxious to talk at all, but somehow I blurted out something and did get food. I hadn’t eaten all day, so I didn’t have much of a choice; it was either get food or don’t eat at all.  I don’t know why I get so anxious out of the blue like that sometimes.  I can be okay with it one day, then terrible the next.

The same thing happened in Walmart, and then again at another store. I froze when they would ask me a question or try to make typical conversation. I’d mumble something and look at the floor until they were done ringing everything up, then I’d snatch up my things and leave as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t have to say anything else. It got worse when I went to look at some Christmas things. This guy says something about what I’m wearing, which isn’t anything to worry about. I walk away, forget about it. Then there he is again, five minutes later when I’m carrying a few things around. He can’t seem to restrain himself from making a comment about the items, so I say something a little snide, and move to another aisle. But I can see him hovering in the corner of my vision. My lack of sleep has caught up with me by then and I am on the verge of verbally attacking him because I simply don’t want to be bothered. For any reason. Instead, however, avoidance kicks in and I end up on the opposite side of the store.   

Sometimes I feel like this wolf with snapping jaws, then other times I feel like the timid little rabbit that would prefer to run than face something. Sometimes I think suicide would be a rabbit moment, and maybe that is one of the reasons I haven’t gone as far with it as I would like at heart. I am a true avoider; the confrontational person that comes out at times is a temporary side-effect of annoyance and anger. I get fed up and I act. The rest of the time I’d like nothing more than to fade into the background and be unseen because I am too weak to try and the desire to do anything doesn’t really exist.

Finally, for the last round of stores I put on my headphones and blatantly refused to acknowledge anyone, even if they were speaking to me. No, I can’t hear you, sorry.

I’m not sure if I should be angry at myself for that or not. I didn’t want to be out in the first place, and only endured it because there were things I needed to get. I had even weighed myself before I left and nearly not gone because of it. I should have been home sleeping, truthfully. I guess none of it is really an excuse though. What’s funny to me is the more time I have been spending out in the world, the less I wish to see of it, when the words of anyone else are to integrate and try more in order to get better. Why then do I feel like there are even fewer reasons to venture out?

If it was up to me, I don’t think I would leave the house anymore. Regardless of how much I have been panicking in my time off, I would prefer to deal with myself, the real problem, instead of trying to be something I’m not. I feel wrong in the presence of others, more so than when I am by myself. I’m always lying and playing a game that I don’t really want to play. Why play when you care not about the pieces and their outcome, I wonder? The crux of this is that I can’t feel and I have trouble conjuring up any kind of feelings for those around me. And maybe I can’t feel for them because I can’t feel for myself. I can’t even care about my life, so how can I concern myself with theirs?

I’ll go on avoiding. Nothing else but that seems to make me last.

Selfishness is amusing, somehow.

At times I don’t understand myself. I’ve hardly gotten any sleep in the past week, and I suspect that is part of the reason I am having horrendous mood swings. I’m getting three to four hours a night, and whatever nap I have during the day (and those, I have noticed, are becoming shorter and shorter and harder to come by, and do little to provide real rest).

I came home in a bad mood. I worked with good people, but I was too tired and it seemed to drag by (again, almost no sleep) and I found myself standing around in a daze during the short periods without orders, where generally I would be cleaning or stocking more things. I had a stomach ache because all I had was a chocolate bar and a few cookies, and of course to make that better, I bought a sundae at work right after I got off my shift.

I walk into my room, and there’s my cat, meowing and meowing to be fed. So I do that, even though I’m screaming at him to shut up. He doesn’t like whatever canned food I gave him, and begins to stalk off after sniffing it, but stops short. I realize he’s about to have a hairball. Terrific. 

Yesterday he shit in the corner of my room for no reason. He’s just irritating me beyond all belief, and I have to make sure my bed is made, because if it is even a little bit lumpy with blankets he’ll go to the bathroom right in the middle of it. I’ve already made the mistake of getting into bed and finding that cat shit was smeared all over the blankets. That’s a real great feeling when you’re exhausted and only going to get four hours of sleep anyway. I end up having to get all of my blankets together and throw them in the wash at 11 at night and take a shower and dispose of my clothes.

So he’s having his hairball. Well, something goes wrong. He starts convulsing, and actually falls onto his back. His legs go straight out and he twitches. I called myself Lady Apathy once for a reason. I watch, sighing in annoyance. I don’t even move forward to see what’s going on or help him out. For some reason it doesn’t matter and I wonder briefly if he’s going to choke to death while I stand there, contemplating the vomit I’m going to have to clean up.

Events like this are scary to me because of the lack of feelings in me. It’s one of those rare times where the apathy and I are face to face, in a strange sort of agreement. I have no fear of death, yet I know that in a true crisis I would likely do nothing. I’d be disinterested in helping rather than being too frightened to do so. The numbness is so strong there is no inclination to help. I’m tired and don’t feel like it; that is the sum of my feelings. 

I’ve had moments like this with my mother. I won’t go into detail; I have enough left in me to know to be ashamed of my inaction. I was always fascinated by psychology when they try to justify inaction in an emergency. Generally it is thought to have to do with social conditioning, fear, and most often confusion. Many people have trouble identifying an emergency, oddly enough, and in large groups the herd mentality runs rampant. If no one reacts, the chances of one person being different from the crowd and helping are very low (keep in mind this percentage is dependent upon how many people are present; smaller groups tend to be the worst, interestingly). If there is only one person, however, the chances of them getting involved are much higher.

My reasons, again, have nothing to do with fear or confusion. I’ve seen plenty of things die, and did my best to save them—back when I could feel. A family dog once almost choked to death, and I reacted accordingly. My dad nearly had a diabetic seizure when he came home from work once. I immediately figured out that something was wrong when he stumbled and couldn’t speak without stuttering. He came up the walk pale and shaking, bracing himself against the wall when I opened the door. I grabbed handfuls of the sugariest cereal in the cupboard and shoved it into his mouth. 

Things happen, we react. But what happens when you lose the inclination, and it has nothing to do with any of those other things that might prevent others from doing something? Does it make you inhuman? Does it make you evil? I don’t know anymore what to think of this. I don’t believe in good and evil, regardless of what I say. I do what my gut tells me and as far as general ideals go, my choices could go either direction or even somewhere inbetween. At the end of the day, I have very few morals that I strictly abide.

My cat  keeps choking for a short while, but finally stops on his own. I haven’t moved, because he’s got some of his mess on the floor through the doorway I have to go through. He gets up and nearly falls, but begins walking away. He ended up trailing puke all over my bed. I picked him up immediately and put him in the cage and went to do the laundry. In fact, I didn’t think about it until I sat down to type this. I also threw a packet of ranch dressing at the wall. It splattered everywhere. This was after I discovered there was nothing I wanted to eat. Apparently, at the time, the best reaction I could think of was making things worse.

I really don’t know what my problem is. I want to get rid of my pets. I want to quit my job. I want to die. Everything seems to culminate into this existence I don’t want to face or deal with. Everything is too much of a bother, nothing is interesting, and all I can seem to draw out of myself is more pessimism. 

I can see it clearly; don’t think that I can’t. This is full of negativity. I skip over any bits of my day that might have been alright and target the bad, going into much more detail. I consider it to be a character flaw of mine—not to say that I can’t stop—I am perfectly capable of being optimistic just like anyone, but for whatever reason it feels too difficult and I don’t even want to try. I’m lazy and weak and don’t want to make an attempt. I want to just flip the switch and forget it all ever happened. I want my life to be a bad dream and my death to be the waking. That’s what it is, really, I want my suicide to be a quick fix for my problems, a fix for having to be here at all.       

I’m a selfish bitch, and for some reason that doesn’t seem to bother me half the time. Maybe because deep down I see everything as a means of pleasing oneself. I don’t know if that is even slightly objective or another view brought on by my pessimism, but it is slightly comforting. It’s selfish to leave, maybe, but it is also selfish of others if they were to be angry about me not sticking around. It goes both ways, really.

shift

Yet another memory.

I’m fifteen. It’s a car filled with rage. You can almost feel it; a hostility that is so powerful it’s maddening. There’s a CD in the player, and the volume is a little too loud, but somehow we still talk over it every once in awhile. The windows are down because it’s summer and the heat is strong enough that you can see the waves of it off of the pavement.

We park. Get out. It’s a very slow, measured thing. We aren’t hurried. We aren’t happy or sad. I’m looking around because it is all new to me. I never trail my father; I always walk right beside him. I don’t know if he trained me that way or if it was something I picked up myself. I’ve learned over the years that many of my behaviors are ones that were conditioned. For instance, I never knew why it was that I always shake hands with new people I meet, regardless of age or anything else. Apparently it was something I was taught. Even if I am a child, I show respect and deserve respect. Things like that still puzzle me.

We’re through the doors where we go to the front desk, and ask which room we should head to. She’s been moved, they say, and we’ll have to go to one of the higher floors. We’re both silent, and I’m just taking in the scenery. It’s that aniseptic smell of a hospital, one that I quite like. The scent is a clean one, and it covers that other smell. Or maybe it’s an aura. Depression and death. Maybe I’m imagining it.

Finally we get to our floor. There’s a long winding hallway, then the room we are standing in front of, which is nearly at the center of it. The sign above reads ‘ICU’. We wait awhile, I don’t remember why. Maybe it’s because over the speaker someone says ‘Code Blue’.

“Means someone is about to die,” my father says to me.

“Do they have a code word for when someone has actually died?”

He nodds. We’re cleaning our hands with some kind of foaming hand sanitizer, waiting to be let through the doors. The man who came to greet us lets us inside, through the strange glass doors, and we walk in, none too quickly. It’s almost as if we don’t want to see. I know I don’t.

There’s a angry way about him, and it seems to have intensified from the walk. My heart is, for lack of any more suitable a description, pounding. I’m fear and anger and confusion, and it’s making a coldness creep over my face and prickle at my temples. I always get that feeling when I am dreading something. It becomes so powerful it is physical. Funny thing is, I get the same sensation when I have to walk up to a cash register to buy something.

There are rooms all around, with a desk at the center. To the left there is a room, dark, barely lit. I can see the outline of tubes, like some kind of monsterous tumor of umbilical cords, all leading to a man’s mouth. I frown a little, wondering what will be in the room I am going to. For some reason there is no pang of pity, no feelings of being upset or sad. I am more nervous about being in a stange place than anything else. I’m sticking much closer to my dad than is necessary.

It was the first time I was completely emotionless. I was so confused by it. I couldn’t understand. And in these passing years it has never faded, only grown more powerful, until it left me feeling like something only partially human. But the burning of fury was all too alive in me. It was like the sun of my universe, the one thing that kept me going, the one tool I was left to defend myself with.

She’s in a tall white bed. Her face is marred by bruises and cuts, and covered in a sheen of perspiration. She looks barely alive. And then it begins.

It’s like a dam exploding…without the sound. His voice is always mellow when his is angry, to the point that as a child I would cringe when he took up those tones. It was worse than yelling, it was worse than being punished. It was a sound that always made me want to crawl into a corner and die because it was so frightening. It makes people scared of him. I’ve seen men just back away from him when he goes into that voice, like they know something very terrible is about to happen. It’s like god coming down to scorn you personally, voice almost a whisper yet nothing but vitriol. I think for a time as a child I saw him as something akin to a god. Even now, I still find myself hesitating to stand up to him. And to this day, I am the only person I know that will.

This time I am not the one that has to bear that voice. I feel something reminiscent of glee. And at the time I am not ashamed of it. I am not the one who did wrong. I am so angry that I would give anything to have her feel as terrible as I felt, anything to have some kind of revenge. And I feel justified in my rage, because my dad mirrors it.

I’m almost certain that is what most of the visit consisted of: a threat. A very evil, very horrible threat. Do this or be left behind, he says. Somehow the last few days have shifted my feeling so much that the thought of never seeing her again, or even her death does not even slightly pain me. In fact, many of nights I wished for it, if only to soothe my own wounds. I’ve always been the most selfish of people.

She cries, if I recall. She cannot speak, so the tears are silent ones. I’m standing in the corner. I’m sure I probably joined in at one point, but much of it has been swiped from my memory. I only remember the window, looking down at the cleared patch of orange-red dirt where they were prepping for yet another towering building for the hospital. I watch the Caterpillars crawl over the mounds of freshly-tilled earth, not even sure why I came. To see? To make sure it was real?

But it feels so unreal, standing there at that window looking down. I must not be real. This existence is not a real one. I am not loved and I am not cared for. My father will fade into insanity and my mother will die in that bed. I am doomed. I will never finish school and I will never have a life, because I can’t do it.

For the longest time I could not cry. It must have taken a year for the ability to return. At that window I am nothing but a reflection glaring back. Something monsterous and disgusting, something that wishes death on anything and everything. I know that something is terribly wrong with me then. I know that I have crossed some barrier I wasn’t meant to. But I leaped, I ran. I wanted it. I never stopped to contemplate that I would never be the same and that I ruined what little chance I had at a normal life with normal feelings and normal relationships with others.

I want to be this thing, in that moment I wanted it as much as I wanted revenge. I reveled in not hurting for once, in feeling nothing. It was like a beautiful gift, even if I barely understood it.

I left feeling almost giddy. Was it to be a life free of pain? I was too stupid to realize I had only traded one evil for something much, much worse. The temporary relief was in fact beautiful, it’s what came afterward that was so ugly.

Apathy

I feel like there is a wall between myself and my reality. It’s always that sensation of looking through the glass, but never touching. Maybe that is why the world is so unreal to me, because I keep it at arm’s length.

Look, but don’t touch, they say, and for once I seem to be following the rules.

Insensitive

I had a bit of a bad day yesterday, regardless of anything I may have said. I almost didn’t leave the house to go to town for groceries. Again, one of those tiny things setting me off. I weighed myself, had a fit. It was literally like taking a trip back in time. I remember these moments.

I have ten different things piled on the bed, and I keep tearing new things from the closet, pulling it over my head. I walk to the mirror, reject it, and the process starts again. Then half my closet is strewn across the bed. For some reason I grabbed for my old favorite shirt. At one point when I wore it I weighed 190 pounds. And that’s what I felt like in it. Like I was back there again, out of fucking control and with no willpower to stop it. Even though it was as loose as a nightshirt, nearly down to my knees, I couldn’t take it for some reason. There was nothing comforting about it. It was horrible and painful, and I found myself fisting bits of my hair, wanting to rip it from the roots.

Oh yes, this is a possibility, oh yes, this is where I’ve been, where I’ve gotten to. We’re the same person this girl and me, no matter how much I want to dispute it and claim that I’ve changed. I can be there again, and I know exactly how I feel about that. I’d rather be dead. I feel like I’m there already, even if everyone tells me I’m thin already and can stop now. Doesn’t look that way. Doesn’t feel that way.

I ended up ripping the seams on a sweatshirt in anger and throwing it to the back of the closet. I wore all black again, layers over layers so I wouldn’t have to feel like I could be seen in any way. I even coated my face over in make up, which I never do. I almost couldn’t bear to go.

My father and I had an argument. He keeps telling me to keep a checkbook, which I should. Unfortunately banking falls into the ‘I absolutely don’t give a shit’ category, which is why I made a mistake recently. I look over to him and mumble that I’ll watch it from now on, and he goes into this whole, “well why are you saying it like that?” line of questioning.

“I don’t care. I just don’t.” Unapologetic, flat.

His irritation is building. It’s coming off him in waves, and he won’t even look away from me to give me a moment’s rest from that accusing fucking gaze. I stare at my computer screen, blinking rapidly. Not because of him, but because of myself. Because I really don’t care, and only ten minutes earlier I was laying on my bed studying the pattern on my comforter thinking about the next time I can go up the mountain. Thinking about going off  into the snow. It would be a miserable way to die.

He goes on, asking me why, and I have no emotion. There’s nothing in me that wants to tell him. Now I’m getting annoyed myself and I want him to leave, and I’m hiding behind my hair because I’m crying from my own lack of caring. I know it’s wrong. But I can’t change it. It’s the one thing I have no control over, though I hate to say it. I hate to admit defeat. I loathe it. But I have lost. I lost a long time ago. This is why I continue my downward spiral.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I finally get out, still looking at the screen.

 I feel like one of those angsty teenagers in a Lifetime movie, but I don’t seem to have any pangs of regret about it. I don’t want to explain. I could talk of it a thousand years and he will still not get it. I would not get it if I hadn’t felt it for myself. How is it possible to be so blank? This I can’t answer. It seems against everything to not care, to have not the slightest bit of feeling over your own life and where it’s going. I’m a feather floating around, soon to hit the ground, soon to lose all flight. But what does that matter to this head of mine? I make no sense; even I can’t understand myself.

What he says next almost makes me want to smile. All I catch for sure is: ”You can shoot yourself.” Then something about ‘this is your life, start caring about it’.

Yeah, I can shoot myself. You don’t think I’d do it, do you? How wrong you are. It’s nice to know you haven’t forgotten our little conversation.  

I keep saying I’ll take care of it, but I don’t sound even slightly convincing. I can hear the irritation in my own tone, and he’s giving me one of those looks like I’m the most useless piece of trash he’s ever seen. I don’t care. I am not valued solely by his interpretation of my worth.

He walks out, finally, and I breathe in, embracing my own apathy.  

I can hear him through the wall, in an angry, loud voice: “She’s insensitive to her own plight.”

Yes, yes I am. That is the only thing about me that can be called beautiful. At least I am smart enough to know that I am inconsequential and anything I do in this life makes no fucking difference. It’s over when your born; it’s even more over when you die.

You’ll get over it.

I never got to sleep last night. They called me at 5:30 in the morning, on my day off. It seems like a joke, almost, this life of mine. I don’t ever feel awake or asleep; it blends together into something indistinguishable. I also found out that coffee is free, which wasn’t the case at the first store I trained at. Needless to say, I’ve been taking advantage to the point where even my unaffected body finally gives in and reacts to the caffeine of all the black sludge I swallow down. I end up shaky and overly-alert with a bad stomach ache every time, but it’s better than being so tired that all I do when I get home is crawl into bed until the sky gets dark.

The opening shift is really killing me. It fucks off my routine completely. I have to get up a bit after 4:00 in order to allow myself time to shower and wake up somewhat. Then I spend most of the morning at work having to do everything on my own. It’s just a very shitty arrangement and plenty of people are unhappy with it, coming to me and complaining about my schedule, which I think is funny. I asked for the closing shift and I get opening. Shows just how much my boss likes me. She’s been sick, fortunately, so I’ve not had to deal with her.

And this is what everyone wants, supposedly. I think if it was my choice I’d only work 12 hour shifts so that I wouldn’t have time to think about it. They’ve cut my hours quite a bit along with everyone else, so I am doing a regular 40 hours a week instead of 50. The extra time is hard to make up for, honestly. I come home and don’t know what to do with myself. I sleep for a few hours then get up, generally going back to bed at least three or four times for short intervals, trying to sleep out of sheer boredom. I either fall to sleep, or give up and watch some shitty television program until I’m too tired to sit up anymore.    

Complaining accomplishes nothing, they say. But for some reason it makes me feel better.

Head in the clouds.

Every day is becoming this agonizing trial in patience. I’m so used to my little world of nothing that this is all a complete shock to me. I was so far away from the petty squabbles and the gossiping, that even now I stand back and barely understand it. Why are feelings important, I wonder? I only ask this when I feel nothing at all. It’s as though all memory of feelings and what they mean gets shut down. I grow confused. Peoples’ reactions make little to no sense to me. Why do they concern themselves over such things? Why do they believe that I too am worrying over it?

It’s difficult to worry when you don’t care. I can’t form a normal attachment these days, and perhaps it is the people. But they are nice—a lot of them—we get along, yet the idea of carpooling with them or meeting somewhere after work makes me cringe. I instantly think, “how boring, how troublesome”. It would be my younger life over again, sitting in a friend’s bedroom in the dark trying to recuperate before returning to the screaming, giggling bunch in the next room. I often found myself bored and uninterested, and it used to drive me crazy.

And these days, the disinterest continues to grow. I’m losing hold on the things that meant so much to me before, and I have little explanation as to why. All I can conclude is that I am slowly letting go. I am slowly becoming something that finds no pleasure in anything. And it is so dull a mindset, so drab a future. I don’t want to bear more years in this room staring at the walls, or doing something new every five minutes to keep my mind moving. Why does it have to be this way? Why does this only grow worse? I am not sitting here alone all day, I’m interacting as everyone told me to, but yet I feel so much more discontent than before. It has solved nothing. I feel so ill when I think about it all later, when I’ve gotten home. I always regret every word I have said.

My little shows of rebellion are laughable. I am so weak now, moreso than ever. I’m losing sight of what I believed, falling in and embracing this hollow nothingness where everything is inconsequential. I didn’t want this. I wanted to be numb, but not all the way. Not to the extent that I can’t function. I can’t live in a place where I get nothing out of it, and even the suffering is pathetic.

All I want to do is lie down and sleep this life away. Sleep has become like a hobby to me. I still don’t hurt like I thought I would. It’s been days and I still don’t hurt. I’ve gotten past the worst of it, I think. I want to go on indefinitely, see what happens. See if I break. I don’t understand these extremes, but I will use them regardless. Sometimes I like to think I am indestructible, maybe because it seems funny to me: the thing that wants to die is the thing that cannot. I will fail; I always do. But I won’t think about that just now.

Senseless

I’m really hating on myself right now. Another bad day I don’t want to think about. It really does seem to be getting worse, this workplace. I’ve decided that I don’t just dislike my boss, I hate her. I can deal with her, sure, but I constantly have the urge to be a real ass to her, which isn’t the greatest of ideas. I even cursed in front of her today, and couldn’t be brought to give a shit about it. She surprisingly made no comment. I think every other word out of my mouth is ‘fuck’, because every time I turn around something is going wrong or I do something clumsy that I end up having to clean. Interestingly, so is the same with everyone. We all cuss, we all get annoyed.

Today one person made a comment that it’s always livelier with me around. I thought it was funny considering what I’ve been doing on my breaks. We started singing the hokey pokey about an hour into my shift, quite obnoxiously, which made everyone cringe and laugh. It’s the only way to make it through these days. We all try to be nice and polite, because the rest of the time we’re either pissed off or irritated.

We’re always shorthanded because of the shitty scheduling the manager does. Even one of my shift managers gave me a bit of a look when she was talking about her and the hours she’s been giving people. That, and we’re always out of something and far too overstocked on other things. I’m just tired of it, already. How long has it been, even? It hasn’t been a month yet and I am already worn so thin. I came home today and just wanted to collapse in bed. I don’t want to talk to anyone, and everytime my parents ask me, ’how was work?’, I want to scream. You can ask me a few hours after I’ve been home, but not right when I come in the fucking door. Tomorrow will be my first day off after six days of working. Then I go back to work again for a few more before I get another day off. It’s not that bad, I realize, but I’m kind of going a little crazy. It’s the pills, it’s the food, it’s everything. All of it is fucking with me at once and I’m not strong enough to try and deal with any of it, so instead I try to ignore it instead.

I almost feel like I’m purposely being helpless. Like I want to drown, so I’m swimming out as far as I can go, as deep as I can get, so that when it happens I won’t have any energy left to turn around and get back to shore. I know how to get myself to feel a little better, to get my mood up a tiny bit, and I’m not even doing it. I’m not doing anything. I’m continually making it worse, knowingly. I seem to like being in misery or something. Everything is so confusing. I want to die and I can’t even do that yet. I don’t have anything in me to go through with something; I drift along because I don’t have any drive to try something, no interest in pursuing some dream like everyone else does.

There’s nothing that makes me go forward except boredom and apathy. I have no interest in stopping or going, so I merely go because that happens to be the direction other people pushed me in. If they had never pushed, I would have never started in the first place. I wouldn’t be in the game anymore. Maybe that would have been a better alternative, I don’t know.

All I know is that I am doing things out of duty with no desire to go anywhere with it or do anything. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to bring myself to care about that.