I’m Mad But I’m Functioning!
Ever wake up wondering what are you going to do with the rest of your life, which is meaningful? I go through that every morning. In a split second, all my mistakes
and all my underachieved goals flood in , hitting my like a boulder, and I want to
go back to the state of nothingness, sleep. But it’s gone, I can feel it
somewhere, but it still evades me, I try to catch it, but it’s like a moving bus,
which refuses to stop. You just see it drive away into the distance.
Then
I’m left with this heavy stone on my chest, a combination of fear, anxiety,
guilt, powerlessness and anger. Then something inside me says pray. But I don’t feel like it. My
emotion of love for God or anyone seems dead. I don’t feel anything, apart from
my anxiety etc. Then I wonder how can I feel irritation and anger, and guilt,
then have no feelings of love, hope, joy etc. I know there must be a
psychological explanation or diagnosis for this, but I am wondering if I am the
only person in the whole world who feels this was. I think that is
narcissistic, right?
I
don’t want to get out of bed. I wish I could sleep in the whole day. Let
everyone do the chores. But then my cat, my
daughter named him Stitch, but I call him Puss, like all the cats before him, it’s just easier to say.
Besides this cat is too arrogant to respond to any name. Or so I think. Anyway, my cat has this ritual, of waking me up by
poking his dirty paws at my mouth. He knows that it gets a reaction from me. If
I turn my face away, he comes to the other side, and continues the prodding.
Like a nagging Bitch! Only it’s a
cat, and a male. If that fails the stupid creature literally attacks me. At
that point I want to throw him out the window , and hope he gets lost. (He is dyslexic, whenever he goes out, he
literally gets lost. No sense of direction.) I but I know I would not be able to explain
his disappearance to my 15 year old daughter, Tanya, who seems to have this way
of seeing right through me. It’s scary!
So I
drag my over weight, aching body, out of bed, every morning at 5.30. Open the
door to allow Stitch out of the room, and he is met by our dog Leo at the door.
Leo and Stitch, do you get it? The cartoon...alien...Ok, never mind, I’m not
in the mood to explain!
I
prepare the breakfast, my daughter’s school lunch, the indoor animal’s food,
and the outdoor ones. We have 6 cats
outside, who keep breeding. I have to put up with my 80’s year old mother consistent
sermon, “You have to get rid of the cats! Their crying brings bad luck into the
house! “And I say in my head “if you
don’t feed them, they are obviously going to cry! And it’s your negativity that
brings the bad luck, any way!” She’s
been after me to get rid of the cats for nearly a year now. I don’t have the
heart to do it, so I find ways to avoid it. I ignore the ramblings.
I drive 13km to Tanya’s school,
avoiding the crazy pedestrians walking in the middle of the road, the dogs and
cows that sleep on the road, oblivious of the fact that vehicles can kill them.
And worst of all are the motor bikers, who seem to think the road is
exclusively for them and they drive at 40km/p/h. Not to mention the on-coming trucks and buses, on this 6 metre wide road. Avoiding all these obstacles,
while driving at 70kmsph, to get to school on time, is quite a fete for someone
like me! Then I drive back!
I
clean the house, prepare lunch, have lunch, go to pick Tanya from school, come
back, take my sister to the doctor, come back, sit for a while, prepare dinner.
Occasionally, I somehow fit in the official errands and the shopping . I have
to travel sometimes 12 to 18 kms to the so called city. When I go to the city, I have to rush back, drop the stuff
home and go to pick Tanya. My escape is
when I sit to watch T.V, (especially “Hannibal”
what a great chef! That is the best way to get rid of a body, eat it!) Or
read a book.
It’s
become so routine, and I hate it, but I have to do it, otherwise it won’t get
done. Then I go to bed, and wake up feeling terrible again. A vicious cycle of mechanical monotony.
Doing the same thing, having literally the same conversations with my mother. It
makes me wonder, when one grows old, all you have is your stories of your
experiences. And they are repeated over and over again, like your are telling
it for the first time. I want to tell my
daughter to euthanize me when that happens to me. Oh! Wait it already has! Has
it? I try to hide from my mother, sometimes, but it’s not easy. Then I have
to pretend I am listening, as I busy myself cooking or doing something else. I do
this not out of politeness, but out of shear fear of this petite cute looking,
but very loud woman!
While it appears like I am multitasking, I
discovered that I function on the adrenaline of anger, frustration, and
bitterness. I hide behind food! Hence my obesity. Hey, I’m mad but I’m
functioning!
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