Thought That Came Unbidden

One year, shortly after my grandmother died, my mother and I took the train to Florida to visit my aunt and uncle. My mother, being who she is (stubborn, having little respect for doctors, and a smoker), had been fighting off a cough for a couple of months insisting that it was “nothing” and she’d “be fine.” My uncle, being who he was, took one look at my mother and insisted she get some sort of actual medical attention. Off they went to what is officially known in the U.S. as an “immediate care clinic” (aka: Doc-In-A-Box).

So my mom sits down in front of the five-foot nothing Vietnamese NP who does all the standard blood pressure taking, history taking, looking in the ears and nose, and then she listens to my mom’s cough. Her exact words after listening to the fluid in my mom’s lungs: “You’re not going to cure that with Robitussin.” Out my mom walked with a prescription for whacking great antibiotics and the standard adjuration to stop smoking.

I had occasion to make my own Doc-In-A-Box visit yesterday. TGF and I have been away from home visiting family and attending the St. James Court Art Show and whatever I’ve been incubating for the past month finally decided to show up in the form of sinus drainage and that horrible, horrible, horrible [multiply by infinity please] sore throat. Yes, it’s the Fall round of sinus infection (and possibly strep…the NP didn’t bother to test as the treatment is the same).

There’s just something jarring about getting medical care in the same building in which you can buy a frozen pizza and a head of lettuce. And you know what? I got the same medical care and prescription I could have gotten from my doctor at home in DC.

I’m not sure if this says more about me or about the medical system in the U.S. Either way, I’m not looking forward to getting on the plane all congested. We’ll see how that goes.

I am an extremely lucky person. I don’t mean lucky in that way that would allow you to send me to Vegas with your five grand and expect me to return you a hefty profit; that much is clear from the scant 45 minutes it took me to blow $100 at roulette last year (hell, I don’t even pay that much for a standard therapy “hour” in DC). More, I am lucky because of the people that I have in my life who love me.

These are people who wish nothing for me but joy, people for whom my discomfort brings an urge to help, to soothe, to aid. Not only am I lucky to have at least one person in my life who regards me in this way, but I am exponentially lucky to have several people in my life who, at the very least, think kindly of me.

• There is the friend who sent me a random hug via e-mail the other day simply because she felt like it.
• There is the friend who sent me a care package filled with words (and chocolate) because sometimes you need a care package when you least expect it.
• There are the former bosses and collegues who spoke highly and well of me and helped me cinch the new job I just accepted.
• There are the friends who have spent the most precious thing a person has and have encouraged my writing in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
• There is my family who, for all their faults and flaws, love me dearly and would in fact leave the house at 3am in the rain to pick me up at the bus station.

I could go on but when I think about it the sheer abundance makes me want to weep and sometimes actually causes me to do so.

I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve the expressions of friendship I’ve received lately so all I can do is say thank you in my own way, both to those people and to the universe in general.

I am an extremely lucky person.

Time seems to operate in a particularly funny way when you’re searching for a job. Days go by when there’s nothing out there. No advertisements for positions that even vaguely match your skills.

When you have submitted for a job and have been determined wheat instead of chaff it is nearly inevitable that the human resources person or even the hiring manager wants you to come in for an interview the very next day after you receive the initial invitation, always in the middle of the day assuming that you have nothing better to do but spend travel time to the interview, at least an hour (sometimes they request that you should allow for more) speaking with someone, and travel time from the interview all while wearing your best clothes.

Those same employers with whom you’ve had an interview constantly assure you that they want to move swiftly through the selection process and will notify you no matter what your status yet days turn into weeks and you hear nothing.

It is as if Salvador Dali were controlling time, and it’s frustrating as all hell.

I haven’t been writing much lately; not here; not in either of the journals I keep; not in the depression management workbook I committed myself to working with every day. Largely I think this is because I feel irrelevant, small and often hopeless.

It’s true not all days are bad or even have a bad component, but despite my best efforts at concentrating on what I have (good friends, a nice place to live, people in my life who love and care about what happens to me) instead of what I don’t (a job, reasonable certainty of seeing 40 (though time will fix this one no matter how much I worry over it)), my brain chemistry betrays me and I reach a certain point in the cycle where I’m just blue, down, and I don’t see any way out.

This brain chemistry problem combined with the events of the past year – my uncle’s untimely death at 59 of fairly rare brain tumor (the second such in our family), my own continuing health problems, lack of job security, and other things – isn’t my only problem, though: I find myself without clarity about my place and purpose in the world. It’s not just, as pundits and politicians are fond of saying, that the center won’t hold but more that I’m not sure there even is a center any more (assuming there was one to begin with and it’s not just another cultural myth like American pioneer spirit and creativity).

I find myself on the high side of 35 but still not yet 40 wondering what the point to all of this is. American culture is geared toward and ultimately does nothing but service the young (24 and under). Clothes, music, movies, all of these cultural artifacts are designed to suck dollars out of the pockets of a populace with a seemingly ever increasing disposable income. And yet, teenagers are hostile, loud, obnoxious and arrogant. They strut about with virtually no responsibilities except go to school and do homework shouldering an attitude that says “I deserve…” when they have no life experience and have done nothing to earn anything they have.

Our news media seem to exist to help the government keep us in a state of fear with a constant stream of stories about terrorism, avian flu, and even e-coli in the spinach, not to mention all the problems that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett seem to be trying to solve by emulating the robber barons of the 19th century (quick note guys: being a bastard in business and then giving away your cash to charity shouldn’t make a difference in the after life).

Even more, though, popular culture, the culture of the news stand magazines that all seem to give the same message (“you are not good enough”), is put into perspective by real human sadness, the kind where perfectly decent people are minding their own business driving home and get t-boned by a drunk who shouldn’t have been behind the wheel in the first place.

Why should I waste my time wondering what Brad and Angelina are up to, or if Tom and Katie’s baby is an alien? Why am I to care of Nicole Richie has a weight problem or Britney’s knocked up again? Will these people distract me from my problems when there’s nothing for them but waiting? Will they hug me when I’m sad? Celebrate with me when I’m happy? Be glad for me when something goes right in my life? Celebrity culture takes and takes and takes and, ultimately, gives nothing back. So why waste the time and energy on it?

So if I find the global news too depressing to follow and celebrity culture hollow and pointless, how do I maintain a connection to the world? To my society? To life in general? Am I required to have some driving ambition, something that serves as my own personal engine to motivate me to keep putting one foot in front of the other or is it enough to just be; to make friends and take care of them in the best way that I can; to let those I love go to sleep each night knowing that if they did nothing else they at least touched one other person’s life and made it better? Is it enough to regard my fellow human beings, the ones whose company I must suffer on the street, in restaurants and on public transport, with benign amusement acknowledging that they are simply entertaining monkeys in pants or do I have to care about what happens to them too?

Or is it simply a matter of examining my life and determining what is absolutely not negotiable, on what points I will never yield, the things or people for whom I would kill, and more importantly, die for, and letting everything else go?

I don’t much like people. Technically this isn’t something that belongs here as the title of this blog is Thoughts That Come Unbidden Department as this is a conclusion brought about by direct observation of human behavior this week.

I could say more but I can feel myself getting madder when what I should be doing is breathing in deep and reconciling myself to the fact that my fellow man is, by and large, a self-important, impatient, violent, worthless asshole.

Yes, I include myself in this categorization at times. It makes for an uneasy life every now and again.