The Point

I think the idea of satisfaction just refuses to take root in my brain. No matter what I throw at my current circumstances, I am never content. I imagine chopping all of my hair off in response to this insidious summer heat. I imagine that without the hassle of long, frizzy hair, I can somehow be the energetic, free spirit I've always planned on being. I wonder if dying my hair blue will do the trick. I wondered if moving to Temple, or becoming a nurse, or acquiring another dog, or becoming proficient in Mandarin Chinese would satisfy me. Becoming a full-time writer. Wandering the country with my dogs like a vagrant with no material possessions. Walking the entire Appalachian Trail. Backpacking through Ireland for a month. Moving to Massachusetts. Moving to New York. Moving to California. Moving to Washington. All of these are relatively recent ideas of mine that I became convinced would bring me peace and fulfillment. If I could only do THAT. If I could only look THIS WAY. If I could only accomplish THAT. Always something else. I've shaved part of my head, pierced my face, tried to become a hippie mountain woman who refers to her menses as a "moon cycle". I have tried every thing, let me tell you. And I always end up in this same place. Alone, typing on my computer, telling you guys how it didn't work out quite the way I imagined. I think it might be time to up that Prozac.

I wish I knew if this was just clinical depression that required me to pump myself full of medication just to achieve the normal balance that comes so easily to everyone else, or if this was an honest soul-scream, requiring me to take action. I wish I fucking knew. What I do know is that my entire life I've believed it was something deep down letting me know that I was on the wrong path, and if I could just find the right path, this gnawing feeling would evaporate like dew in the morning, leaving me green, fresh, and sweet smelling as grass. I would rather have some kind of destiny than be the person who just happened to be born with an inability to produce adequate serotonin.

Always, always, always, I hear something calling me, telling me there is something more. I've never not felt like I am missing out on something that I should be seeing. How fucking ridiculous. I keep feeling like if all life amounts to is a bunch of hairless apes crawling around the Earth fucking things about, then I'm not sure how excited I am about all of it. I am excited by stories. And I am endless depressed by the fact that the vivid, purposeful world that exists in my books is not reality at all. Maybe other humans feel this call, too. Maybe that's why authors are drawn to write books, and artists to make art. Because they sense some element of something more. They sense something there, and they try to re-create it, to express to world and to other like-minded individuals that they see it, too...that they feel it. That you aren't the only one.

All I'm sure of at the moment is that I'm extremely dubious about a life that requires so much escapism just to function normally within it. Facebook, Instagram, gossip sites, television, apps and video games...all forms of running on a treadmill. Feeling like you're doing something to scratch that itch in your brain, without actually accomplishing anything. All of it seems stupid and meaningless, although I participate like everybody else. Spending 98% of my life working just so that I can spend the remaining 2% of my life complaining about working or drugging myself to oblivion with PerezHilton.com or endlessly scrolling down on Facebook. It doesn't seem like much of a life. I'm just not sure if there is another way to do it.