Mind-Numbing, Life-Sucking, Boring

My job isn't exactly thrilling.  I sort the clothes, I put them into the machine.  I take out the clothes, I put them into the dryer.  I put a chemical onto the stain, flush it out.  I put another chemical onto the stubborn stain, I flush it out.

If I have a chance to get away from the spotting board, I’ll help the pressers.  Press the collar, press the sleeves, press the body.  Do it another two-hundred times.  In a row.

I am a Dry Cleaner.  It’s mind-numbing, painfully boring, and soul-suckingly monotonous.  Every day, week after week, year after year.  Occasionally my routine will be interrupted by a chat with a customer, a leaking washing machine, or a press that has locked down onto a pair of jean and I’m required to wiggle a bunch of greasy machinery parts until the boss comes downstairs.

We try to joke with one another, keep the mood up.  Sure, there are moments when we laugh and kid with each other, but it is otherwise never-changing.    This is life?  Is this how it is supposed to be?

I run the same errands and come home to do the same chores.  The only thing different is which closet item I will be taking pictures of so I can list it on eBay where it will sit, without offers, without interest.  A complete waste of time.

And the next day, the only excitement will be whether or not I find a crack pipe in someone’s jacket.  Of course I never find anything that would help me out.  Candies, lip sticks, and globs of fluorescent green bubble gum in one’s pants pocket are all included in my findings.  All the little things that make the day even more miserable than a streak in the rear seam of a Dry Clean Only pair of wool slacks.

Anything useful is already picked out by the folks at the front counter and they spend it on lottery tickets.  At least they are helping out Texas schools.  That’s what the back of the ticket says anyway.  What I get left with are used Kleenex and old ticket stubs.

I’ve decided to try anti-depressants again.  I gave up on it long ago after an allergic reaction to Wellbutrin.  The co-pays and the try this, try that was enough to eat me alive in the checkbook and sanity department.  I’m not sure if this is what God wants me to do.  I’ve got to do something.  I can’t live like this anymore.  It’s not living at all.

I cannot allow myself to go back to self-destruct mode.  My emotions are to the extreme and this is way more extreme than some lemon-lime soda commercial.  When I’m sad, I wish I was dead.  When I’m angry, I wish someone else was dead.  When I’m happy, nothing can possibly go wrong.  And then there’s the Robot Mood.  I have no emotion, I just go with it and just do it.  I also have moments when I think, “You can’t do like I do!  No one does what I do!”  Then I stop.  Wait--I’m not better than anyone!  Why am I thinking like that?

There is really no reason for me to be depressed.  I have a home, I never go hungry, I have a job and a loving husband and family.  Though I often feel very lonely and bored--as though there is no reason for me to be on this earth except to do the same mundane tasks day after day.  That thought alone is very depressing.  This is a problem that has been going on since I was very young.  My emotions have always run very high and seem to have been swinging wildly on some invisible Mood-Swing-Pendulum since elementary school.

When I was fourteen or fifteen, a bout with some pills and a trip to the emergency room alerted my parents of the problem.  Self-inflicted cuts and bruises covered my arms and legs--an act of frustration, somewhere to put the emotions in a tangible form.

I’ve made an appointment with a general doctor for next week.  Head doctors are too expensive and are not covered by my insurance.  It’s a first step, I suppose.  I only pray God tells this doctor which pill to give me and that’s hits home with the first try and is safe and doesn’t cause me to break out into hives.  The let’s try this pill, let’s try that pill approach is simply too stressful and never helps the situation. 

I was excited to be placed on Wellbutrin.  I had read it was one of the more safer, widely used anti-depressants.  Not everyone breaks out into a massive rash all over their body the way I did.  Side effects can be a cruel mistress!