Not Again

Somehow I always end up back here. Not sure I'm a fan of always meeting like this, you and I.

After all these years, I still can't figure out what is wrong with me. Why I am always so predisposed to malcontent. I think I've said it before, and I'll say it again...I can't tell you how deeply I wish the problems I have weren't mine. I wish I had other problems. But then, I guess all people have the same wish, for a wide variety of problems. I guess, if we were more honest, we would just say, "I wish I didn't have any problems". I wish I didn't.

I keep going back and forth between what I think my problem could be. Am I living life wrong? If I went on some wild and crazy cross-country adventure with nothing but $20 in my pocket and a dream, would that make this go away? The people who do similar things in all of the documentaries I watch seem so carefree. I wonder if that's the secret. I wonder if maybe I quit my job and became a zookeeper, or something glamorous like a film maker, if that would do the job. I wonder if my house was cleaner and more organized, if I would finally find peace. Previously I wondered if I cut my hair into this cool hairstyle I'd always secretly envied but never had the stones to try, would that fix me? (Sorry- managed to get it cut into said "cool style", and the answer is, unfortunately, no.) I hoped having a child would reset my mindset and make me realize all of the magical things I need to realize to fix my attitude and to bask in the true wonder of life. While my son is, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to me, and the purest, most amazing thing I have ever witnessed- no. That hasn't been the answer either. I desperately want to be better for him. I want to give him a white picket fence childhood, where he always feels safe and loved, where his mom is always coming up with zany arts and crafts to push the limits of his imagination, where he comes home from school every day with a delicious snack and dinner in the oven (always at 7, sharp). He deserves such security. Despite a few bumps on the road (adolescence was a bit of a mountain range, as opposed to a few bumps, if I'm being real), my childhood was idyllic. I have so many good memories. I never doubted that my parents would take care of me (still no doubt). We never wanted for money, so the visceral, lurking fear of poverty never came near us.

Unfortunately, I have had the sneaking suspicion for some time now that the problem doesn't originate from my circumstances. It feels like I've got blue-tinted sunglasses surgically implanted over my eyeballs, and I keep running around frantically trying to change the outside world to make my vision less blue. I just carry the blue tinge with me wherever I go. No matter the hairstyle, no matter my full-time occupation, no matter the existence of a white picket fence, or a cleaner house. I carry blue with me wherever I go, and it won't go away unless I take the goddamn blue sunglasses off. Unless I address the real issue. It's in my brain. My brain is blue, I can't think a thought where blue isn't bleeding through. I wish I could, I wish I could, I wish I could. How do you change the color of your brain? How can I change something so fundamental?

I've been on 20 mg. of Prozac for a long time now. I feel the same. I hope there is some thing, some answer, that doesn't leave me feeling the same.