Staring despondently at the wall I vaguely wonder how many hours it has been. I am unable to muster anything but apathy as I see the many chores pleading to be done. The thought of exercise, calling a friend, or any other multitude of positive time fillers seems ghastly. The hollowness of boredom dreads the idea of being filled with meaning.
With no where to go and nothing to do, time stretches and bends with no discernible pattern. Schedules being a thing of the past, there are few waypoints now. Eventually your stomach will demand food, the sun rises and sets with no regard for our petty thoughts. Jeopardy still comes on time. These shallow markers do little to ease the relentless waves of futility battering us endlessly back towards nothingness.
The sensation is not altogether unfamiliar, it is something of an annual tradition for me. My compromise of a “dream job”, counseling kids through the awkward phases of adolescence means long summers off. There was a time when I imagined filling this void with wild adventures, with satisfying friendships, or even with spawn of my own. Reality however, had other ideas. Noble as my profession may be, it doesn’t exactly provide a large disposable income, which it turns out is a key requirement for the aforementioned wild adventures etc.
For years the existential doom that was my close friend seemed temporary. Some day you will reach your goal and miraculously there will be satisfaction. Keep up the mantra and it will become truth. Maybe I am just too weak to hammer it home, how can you tell if it only needs one more repetition or a million more?
It goes without saying that all of these thoughts are unspeakable. My life is one of absolute privilege. Lucky to be so smart, to have been born to the right family, in the right place, in the right time. How dare I risk looking bad? It could embarrass my husband and his high profile career. Or mine for that matter. Not that mine would ever have the same significance. Equality is still an illusion in some arenas, yet who am I to complain?
There I go again, getting off topic. I didn’t start this to talk about rights and equality. That’s a far different futile argument for a different day. Today so devoted to self pity and my perpetual adoration for my own melancholy.
No matter how old I get I am always happy to destroy a gourd or two.
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