Anna R and the Meaning of Life

Apr 08 2009 ∞
They say that remembering your dreams means you don’t sleep very well. I remember only nightmares. I’ve lost a lot of sleep these last few days - which is surprising, since the past few weeks have been awful. Here I am, pretending like it’s perfectly appropriate for a receptionist to cry her eyes out on the job, as coworkers offer to take me for a walk, or some kind words, or concerned looks. The other day I sat motionless at lunch while my friends tried in vain to cheer me up, staring blankly at a wall of kitch at an overpriced diner and tearing napkins apart whenever I felt a jolt of pain in my gut. Causing the pain were not just the recent rejections, which piled on relentlessly. Family problems, as always, were a factor. But even those seemed surreal. One of my parents recently became unemployed, the other has been courting a heart attack for months; working on commission at a fancy retail store right now yeilds no more than street-performing and supporting a family on hobo change is as stressful as things tend to get. And I can’t support them, I can barely support myself. Neighbor problems: for days I couldn’t walk into my room to change clothes without the crazy cat lady downstairs banging on her ceiling. I’ve been conditioned to fear loud bangs no matter what the origin. Our bathroom roof collapsed. I seem to owe the hospital where a recent operation was performed $9,000, which is something I found out 6 days ago. Yesterday I thought I was bleeding to death. Etc. The way I feel now is reminiscent of how I felt almost three years ago, and again two years ago. Every year, with the exception of 2008, everything would fall apart at once. And every year, I’d become some new medical anomoly. Knee surgery was first, that really set me back, I still can’t squat, or run, or do anything, nor do I plan to. Then it was sudden hearing loss; it changed my life. The lonliness was unbareable and I still can’t leave the house without my oversized headphones, the ones I wore to keep myself from dealing with the audio distortions. This year?: Jaw tumor. Yeah, why not? And that was surprisingly the easiest to get through, despite the 9k bill. But I’ve stayed on course through it all, I’ve started over whenever necessary, I’ve patched things up wherever possible yet, in the end, I’m just damaged goods, and try as I might to make myself seem special and worth purchasing, I can’t. I don’t know how I keep it together and, when I don’t, you can really see where the cracks are. So now I’m supposed to spackle those up and go be funny. And I don’t plan on sleeping very well tonight either. -AR

They say that remembering your dreams means you don’t sleep very well. I remember only nightmares.

I’ve lost a lot of sleep these last few days - which is surprising, since the past few weeks have been awful. Here I am, pretending like it’s perfectly appropriate for a receptionist to cry her eyes out on the job, as coworkers offer to take me for a walk, or some kind words, or concerned looks. The other day I sat motionless at lunch while my friends tried in vain to cheer me up, staring blankly at a wall of kitch at an overpriced diner and tearing napkins apart whenever I felt a jolt of pain in my gut.

Causing the pain were not just the recent rejections, which piled on relentlessly. Family problems, as always, were a factor. But even those seemed surreal. One of my parents recently became unemployed, the other has been courting a heart attack for months; working on commission at a fancy retail store right now yeilds no more than street-performing and supporting a family on hobo change is as stressful as things tend to get. And I can’t support them, I can barely support myself. Neighbor problems: for days I couldn’t walk into my room to change clothes without the crazy cat lady downstairs banging on her ceiling. I’ve been conditioned to fear loud bangs no matter what the origin. Our bathroom roof collapsed. I seem to owe the hospital where a recent operation was performed $9,000, which is something I found out 6 days ago. Yesterday I thought I was bleeding to death. Etc.

The way I feel now is reminiscent of how I felt almost three years ago, and again two years ago. Every year, with the exception of 2008, everything would fall apart at once. And every year, I’d become some new medical anomoly. Knee surgery was first, that really set me back, I still can’t squat, or run, or do anything, nor do I plan to. Then it was sudden hearing loss; it changed my life. The lonliness was unbareable and I still can’t leave the house without my oversized headphones, the ones I wore to keep myself from dealing with the audio distortions. This year?: Jaw tumor. Yeah, why not? And that was surprisingly the easiest to get through, despite the 9k bill. But I’ve stayed on course through it all, I’ve started over whenever necessary, I’ve patched things up wherever possible yet, in the end, I’m just damaged goods, and try as I might to make myself seem special and worth purchasing, I can’t. I don’t know how I keep it together and, when I don’t, you can really see where the cracks are. So now I’m supposed to spackle those up and go be funny. And I don’t plan on sleeping very well tonight either.

-AR

2 notes

Jan 28 2009 ∞

Why I can never be rich or handle large sums of money.

I was just at the bank, making a deposit for my boss and, moving away from the counter, I walked by this lady, 4’7”, at most, I think, tall, dressed in rags, or maybe that’s just how old people dress. She was hunchbacked, yet still bent over even farther, squinting at something in her hand. It was a ten dollar bill. I didn’t know whether she was trying to deposit it or had just withdrawn it or perhaps received it from a guilt-ridden hipster or yuppie, but it made me incredibly sad. She stood there for a long time, seconds, but still long enough for me to glance back and find her in the same position. Outside, next to the Starbucks, I saw another old lady, probably a panhandler or, again, perhaps that’s just how old people dress nowadays. She reminded me of how pitiable that first lady was. I walked into the Starbucks, thinking I’d get a snack, and maybe something for her, but decided she wouldn’t take it and, how embarrassing for both parties would it be to give someone a sandwich just for hanging around in their day-wear? I looked back and didn’t see her anymore, and returned to work snack-less. I considered how it was a good thing I was making a deposit, and not a withdrawal, because all I wanted to do was throw money at them, not really caring who it belonged to.

Having a job during the recession is awesome, having a job and watching so many people struggle is not.

Jan 16 2009 ∞

The Making of a Skeptic

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I was losing a baby tooth. Somebody, probably a teacher, brought to my supple attention the existence of “The Tooth Fairy,” a benevolent being who, in exchange for my useless old tooth, would provide me with cold, hard coinage. I was listening.

The idea that there was some sort of generous, yet sneaky, and potentially perverted creature-god bent on invading my bedroom at night to satisfy its base desires seemed, at the time, perfectly acceptable. What really upset me then was, up till that point, I had been instructed to bury my no-longer viable teeth in the soil, a Soviet custom, or maybe my parents thought it was funny. In the USSR, much like in the USA, money doesn’t grow on trees and, if it did, everyone would equally share in the bounty (ideally). Teeth, it seemed, were a different story.

Sadly, I had never actually enjoyed the ripened fruit of my petty gardening, which I had intended to sell off to dental suppliers first thing that fall. We must’ve left the country before my tree had flourished. But now I learned, in America, there was instant monetary reward.

So I did it. I bid farewell to my enamel/bone thing, placed it under my pillow, and went to sleep.

And….nothing.

Later, back at school, I had told the class what hadn’t gone down and was given some important advice: “You have to tell your parents first.” Thus were sowed the toothy seeds of a future master manipulator. I knew then it was all a scam but I would have every part of it.

At dinner, I oh-so-subtly dropped some hints. The speech probably resembled something like “Oh, did you hear? Apparently there’s this thing, yeah, I know. So weird.” My parents smiled at each other, made a couple of jokes. I took note of their patronizing behavior.

I went to sleep that night with the tooth still under my pillow. The next morning, $$$. 32 hours prior, I had gone to bed hopeful and trusting and sweet. Now, I had awakened a skeptic.

Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa, who knew how deep this went? I was going to do everything in my power to find out.

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