In Need of Medication

I'm reading Kate Chopin's The Awakening for my Women Writers lit class. I remember having read this story before, but not the circumstances surrounding that endeavor - it must have been for one of my lit classes when I was in school before, since I'm not exactly known for picking up classics when I'm reading for pleasure. I prefer Stephen King because, well, I'm a sick freak.

Anyhow, I'm a little disturbed by Edna Pontellier this time around. I feel like Chopin's words are giving voice to all of the crazy shit I've been feeling (but not exactly naming) for a few months now. For example, in chapter XIX, Chopin writes:

There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone and unmolested.

There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,--when it did not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her blood.

There are some days - or, more accurately, there are portions of days - when I'm nearly bursting with happy feelings. But mostly? I'm just unhappy as fuck and don't know what to do about it. My life is an endless procession of work, chores, bills, bad dreams, alarm clocks, work, chores, bills, bad dreams, alarm clocks, work... It never ends, and it never seems to be moving in a forward direction, like I'm just treading water for eternity. Or backpedaling.

Lately, it just seems to fucking POINTLESS. What is the POINT of going to the track? I'm just going to have to do it all over again tomorrow - add that to the List of Shit that Makes Adulthood Unbearable. What is the POINT of going to school? I have no career in mind, no future employment mapped out for the use of my degree. And even if I DID, it's just another fucking job that I'm going to end up hating just as much as every other job I've ever had that I grew to hate because it was POINTLESS.

My family? They're in Arkansas, California, Alaska - they all have their own pointless shit to keep them busy. I love them, but I wouldn't say that any of them give meaning to my life, and if they did, that would be even more depressing because I see them on an average of once every 5 years. What is the POINT of doing laundry? I'm just going to have to do it again next week. Same with the damn toilet, same with the floors, same with putting gas in my car, brushing my teeth, peeing OHMYGOD THE TIME SPENT PEEING, and on and on and on.

Sometimes I'm jealous of people who have faith in some kind of spiritual power, but I don't. And I can't. You could cut my arm off with a chainsaw, and then I could witness it miraculously float up in a cloud of golden sunbeams and fuse back onto my shredded stump of a shoulder, and all the scars could melt away before my very eyes as a giant voice said from the sky, "BE HEALED MY CHILD", and I would still think to myself, "Huh, that's a really weird coincidence - what are the odds of that happening, like...1 in 5,000 at least! I gotta go buy a fucking Powerball ticket!"

Even if I did believe in god, I don't know that happiness in the NEXT life would be sufficient motivation to start thinking THIS life was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than it actually is. I'm part of a generation who values instant gratification. Afterlife is not fucking fast enough for me, sorry. Plus, I'd have a hard time getting over the hurdle that it's all just one big mind fuck, engineered to entertain god for a few millennia.

Because really? He choices were kind of endless, but he opted to Jesus to die on the cross, and then left it up to our dumb asses to tell other people about it. He let us decide with our brains (which he kind of CREATED) whether or not to believe that bullshit. He could have just, you know, gotten rid of sin (I call that "dealing with the root of the problem"), or quit letting the devil dick around with our heads. Screw Eve, everyone knows she was a stupid fruit whore. No, instead he likes to watch us squirm and fret and confess and develop complexes and molest children instead of come to terms with your sexuality and start wars because you don't believe what I believe.

What is the POINT of going through all the bullshit of life when we're just going to die? And why the FUCK couldn't I have been a DOG?! I'm just so tired. TIRED. Dogs get to sleep a lot, and it's really unfair. I'd like to see them have to renew their license tabs once in a while, know what I'm saying?

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to convey is, it's a good thing that unlike Edna Pontellier, I don't live near the ocean.