On Boredom

It's amazing how, when you're busy, all you want to do is relax. Being in school is a perfect example. Time is never yours when you're in school. Even when all the homework is done you still feel as if you should be studying. Guilt abounds. Any stolen private time feels like a transgression against your GPA.

Being out of school, however, with no job or occupation is much, much worse. I sit alone in my house all day waiting for Olen to get home from work. Once the house is clean and the groceries bought, there is nothing else for me to do. I have no kids to take to school, no friends who do not work during the day. I am indescribably bored, and as a result, completely unmotivated to start something useful, like my wedding scrapbook or a running schedule.

In this economy, finding a real job borders on impossible. I am underqualified for certified jobs and overqualified for the rest. Having a Bachelors without a Masters or Doctorate is akin to cooking a meal without a fire. All the pieces are there, but there's nothing to get you started.

I finally found a job at a hospital, serving as an assistant in the operating rooms, stocking saline and warm blankets. It's a job that a high school graduate could do and it's the best my $100,000 education could get me. In less than a year I'll be starting medical school, and I suppose I'll be wishing for this time when I had nothing to occupy my time but books and countless episodes of The Office. Now, however, I have seen the fence, and the grass is certainly greener over there.

The Fight for Happiness

My dad died.

Or rather, my dad was killed. On an ordinary Saturday night more than two months ago.

I don't know how I feel anymore. At first, there was just this numb sadness, too dulled to cause true pain. And then I saw his body, his lips painted too pink, his stomach so much softer than it ever had been in life. From far away, it looked like he was just sleeping, like I could almost see the slow movement of his stomach as he breathed. But he did not breathe. He would never breathe again.

Depression came next. I'm not a stranger to depression, to true depression. Crying every night from the memory of his voice, not being able to sleep without dreaming of him, waking to a certain feeling of wrongness. And all I ever wanted to do was sleep. I can't describe the fatigue. It seeped into my bones, made my life hell.

A blurry hell.

I can't truly remember what I've done the past two months. What has occupied my time? I don't know at all. But I was getting better.

The depression was lifting; I was less tired, less pitiful.

And then my cousin died.

Or rather, my cousin was killed. On an ordinary Friday night three weeks ago.

I held myself aloof from that death, trying to hold on to the sanity I had so recently rediscovered. I tried so hard not to feel that familiar bleak sadness during the funeral, the feeling that we are all headed toward that coffin one way or another.

Why does it have to be like that? Why do we have to be aware of our own impending demise? Why are we the only species on the planet that must suffer through the knowledge that we are not eternal? And how are we capable of ignoring that fact often enough to live lives outside of worry and panic?

To quote one of my favorite bands, in the end, it doesn't even matter. I'm getting over these low spirits once and for all. I've fought through this sadness, and I'm taking a stand.

And I'm documenting that stand.

Here is my life, starting fresh from today. It may not be a perfect happiness I've achieved, but I'll fight for it nonetheless.