3 things I feel about august…

I begin to articulate my thoughts and then I feel overwhelmed by all the things I want to talk about, my ignorance on the topics, and trying to research everything about everything. I don’t have enough fucks.

I have a lot of ideas of things I want to do but then depression decides to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. My motivation starts off big, but when I’m faced with the workload of it all, I feel overwhelmed and discouraged. I feel trapped in life right now but it’s more complicated than a simple self-imposed cage. 

I left Michigan in 2016 to live in Florida for a while, and I came back in 2018 to pursue an education in software engineering. I thought I could take a year or two, do the school thing and then get in on that engineering money. I have been going to school and working full time nonstop since August of 2018. In November of 2019, I took on an internship, kept my grocery store job, and continued going to school. 

I had no idea where I was supposed to be most of the time. 

Cue: March 2020 – Midwest, United States. 

Things unraveled fast in March and suddenly I had more time on my hands than I had had in years. It was terrifying. I have struggled with depression most of my life, but this depression was a brand new kind I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting before. I’m still struggling with it. 

It’s August now and I think I have 3 emotions for the most part: maybe this is a good thing?, existential depression, and so much anger.

• Maybe this is a good thing? 
  
  When I accepted the (paid) internship in November of 2019, I already had a full-time job at the grocery store and was taking classes. Adding in the internship, I went part-time at the grocery store, hoping to either get employed with the company or that it would lead to employment elsewhere. This also meant I never actually had a day off, and 5 out of 7 days I would be only come home to shower and sleep. I was losing track of my schedule and began to crumble under the constant demand of my life. I was bored and stressed out, which is a silly combination I think. 
  
  In class, I struggled hard to keep up, while simultaneously waiting until the last minute to do my projects because I didn’t understand them anyway. I was bored at work, even though I was fully committed to trying to start my career with my internship at that company. I was well on my way to gaining full employment but now in August, having lost that position, I think this would’ve been the wrong path for me. I think I would’ve enjoyed working for that company and I think it would’ve taken me to a lot of places, but I think I would’ve been bored most of the time and those continued feelings of meaninglessness and wasting my life away were still going to be there. The point of me going back to school was to help find some sort of meaning and value in my life, and here I was mostly bored and stressed out about the fact I didn’t know what I was doing ,either in class or at my job. 
  
  COVID took a lot of things away, but it gave me back my time. During that time I realized that I don’t like programming. I was stressed out about it constantly, breaking down over it, using tutors who also struggled to help me grasp simple concepts, and I asked myself, what is the point of any of this? I started doing programming because I thought in a couple of years I would be making good money and traveling around, but I hate programming. I lack the motivation to practice as much as I would need to get good. I struggled to understand the basic logic of programming languages and came to the realization; this isn’t for me. 
  
  This is a hard pill to swallow, particularly when I’ve invested several thousands of dollars into something I thought was going to turn into a semi satisfying career, but I was wrong. Which is okay because I’m also learning to get out of this mentality that I have to have my life figured out by the time I’m 30 (also, I’m 31 now and I didn’t figure out yet). 
  
  I like to write. I like to create and I like to tell stories. I am tired of following the safe route of doing practical things to achieve “success”. I’m tired of “success” being money and houses and cars and fantastic trips. I’m tired of the system that hasn’t worked for me. I did the things they told me to do. I got decent grades in high school, I did extracurricular activities, I went to college, I got scholarships, I made the Dean’s list, I did extracurricular activities, it didn’t fucking work. Instead, it’s left me at 31, working at a grocery store, $50k in student loan debt wondering what the fuck to do with myself. Does anyone need a writer? 

• Existential Depression
  
  Depression and I are well acquainted with one another. I have been in a polyamorous relationship with Depression and Anxiety for about half my life. Generally speaking, I manage this relationship with varying success and recognize when I’m going down the musty rabbit hole again. For me, much of my depression stems from things that are in my relative control to do something about, at least in theory. However, in 2020, I find myself depressed in a different way because it’s like I’ve been looking at the Disney version of real life, but then COVID happened, and the person who was supposed to change the film reel wasn’t an essential employee, so now we just get to look at the screen that’s cracked and falling apart. 
  
  Like I can’t even get up though. 
  
  I feel so trapped in this depression because I don’t even know how to begin to fix any of the problems. The twins, greed and corruption, have dehumanized us, and it seems like everyone is just okay with being degraded; honestly, I didn’t consent to this particular kink. The cancer of the twins has entangled itself around everything and everyone that was in place to protect our humanism so much so, that the strongest radiation won’t kill it. We have to amputate, but at what point does it just become a dissection? 
  
• So much anger – an itemized list 
  
  1. Having to defend the mail while the American Government is systematically forcing it to fail.
     • Additional Reading: Trump Moves to Gut the Post Office — The American Prospect
       
       
  2. Having the Presidential Administration that turns it back on Americans in the middle of a world crisis.
     
     
  3. Having a government that refuses to help the American people either through monetary assistance or securing Personal Protection Equipment for essential employees (see previous link for the receipts). 
     
     
  4. Having a government that will tell states they have to buy their own PPE for essential employees, ultimately putting Governors in a bidding war against each other. In addition to this, the Federal Government continues to swoop in and seize the shipments states had already secured and then re-sells the same products to the same states through FEMA, creating significant delays in getting equipment to American people who need it most. If only there was a committee that could’ve organized this, oh wait…
     
     
  5. Having a president dismantle and defund the organization that helps with said world crisis and the same administration is STILL planning on cutting funding to the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services in 2021, while the U.S. continues to be number 1 in Covid-19 infections and related deaths. WTF!?
     
     
  6. People saying masks are a violation of their rights, but turn a blind eye to a President who mocks the Constitution, refuses to be held accountable and does whatever the President wants to do. This isn’t about who the President is. It’s is about what the President (in abstracts) is. This is a serious fundamental issue.
     
     
  7. People actually defending this government.
     
     
  8. Literal worship of Donald fucking Trump.
      
  9. Being told I’m un-American because I’m critical of the government, even though it is equally our responsibility as Americans to defend democracy just as much as it’s their responsibility to uphold it. To be critical of the government regardless of the political party and your personal feelings, is the most American thing you can do. 
     
     
  10. Having Biden as the only alternative option. 
      
      
  11. Having to explain BLM to people who refuse to educate themselves on anything. 
      
      
  12. People who lost their jobs got an additional $2000 a month (on top of their actual salary) to stay home while essential employees just got to go to work. 
      
      
  13. Being called a Nazi at the grocery store because we ran out of freshly baked bread while also being called a Hero for going to my essential job (because I didn’t get an extra $2000 a month to stay home ergo didn’t have a choice). 
      

I could go on forever about fundamental problems with all of these things but I feel like I’m just yelling into the void. It’s insane to me that I even have to have these conversations. 

I’m trying to be hopeful about the future but when I look around me I just see it burning down. I don’t know what it says about me when I say I’m glad though. This isn’t working and I don’t understand why it isn’t obvious to all of us. I don’t understand why it’s a big deal to just start doing something else when it doesn’t work. If we are, as a society, okay with our government and our leaders behaving like this, there’s nothing else I can do. If we don’t respect ourselves, why would our government? 

Give me some fucking “hero” money then – I want my $6,000 COVID bonus to move to Europe. 

If we aren’t going to do anything different then let it all burn the fuck down. 

That’s all I have to really say about that.