We're Born, We Get Cancer, We Die

That seems to be the current purpose of life these.  Shawn saw on Fox News yesterday morning a segment on Aspertame.  This is an artificial sweetener used in many drinks, sugarless gums, sugar replacements, etc.  The report stated that Aspertame turns to formaldehyde once it reaches 86 degrees.  A long time lover of diet soda, I decided to investigate it myself. 

http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/aspartame.asp

Yes, this link will lead you to Snopes, but it describes a lot of things I had read  in other places on the Wide Wide World of Web.   Do you really believe that shipping trucks are kept at a reasonable temperature in the summer months of Texas?  I doubt it, too.  After reading, reading, and more reading, I made the decision to get off diet soda as of last night.  I had one yesterday morning, and that's the last I'm intending to drink (at least until Autumn--Ha, ha).

Of course Shawn called his mother, a diabetic and told her the news, that I also printed some information of the whole disgusting subject.  I'd even let know I'd been using Truvia' another artificial sweetener, but it contains no Aspertame.  Whether or not it'll slowly kill us, I cannot say for sure.  It really is such an atrocity that Aspertame is still used.  Trace amounts or not, this is not right.  The year is 2011, the same year that Shawn watched this report on the news.  If you'll notice, the article that I pointed you to above, is from 1998.

I called my mom, a diet soda addict, to tell her the devastating news.  I was frustrated by all this.  I've been frustrated with myself, with work, the fact that I've quit smoking & never feel any better.  I was frustrated that even if I give up diet soda, there's pesticides in each bite of produce and loads of antibiotics in the beef.  The chicken sit in their own poo as they grow, never to get out of the poo.  Even the bread is laced with preservatives and chemicals; water contains amounts of God knows what.  What am I supposed to do?

The frustration and agitation in my voice was escalating and Mom new it.  "I wish I could help you, I wish I could do something for you," she said.  We were connected and separated by thrity miles of telephone wire.  She sounded truly genuine.  I felt like I was treading water in Lake Frustrated.  I felt stuck and I told Mom so.  Even if I went to school to learn how to do a job, what guarantee is there that that job will be there when I finish the school?

Mom's first suggestion was to "find the right pill".  She is a walking advertising for Prozac and should be paid.  Mom's doctor placed her on Prozac to help deal with the effects of menopause, which she was rudely thrown into around the age of forty after a much needed hysterectomy.  A couple of times, she'd let the prescription run out and found herself becoming very "down" as she put it. 

Pills are not my thing.  I've done too much reading int hat area and I am afraid the side effects would most often outweigh the intended benefits.  Besides, I don't have enough in my short life to try this one,t hen that one, then that other one, and hope one works but doesn't make me gain forty pounds.  Forget that.

Mom's second suggestion:  "You need to go to church."  She used to say this to me just about every time we spoke on the phone.  After years of this I finally asked her to stop.  To my astonishment, she did.  Until yesterday.  I snapped back at her, "I listened to Joyce Meyer on my headphones for a year and it did no good!"

Yikes.  Did I sound that nasty in written form?  I knew it sounded  nasty when it came out my mouth.  I hadn't meant for my tone to be so harsh.  Once again, frustration set in and went flying out all over my caring mother.  Would I find God in a church?  I'm sitting right here, why doesn't He come to me?  Why doesn't he talk back to me?  Me & Shawn can have a two-way conversation.  When I speak to God, it's me talking.  That's it.  And I've become angry and bitter over it.

Stuck indeed.  I don't know what I want out of life.  I know I would like to feel as if I had a purpose to being here, a point to all this.  I would like to be happy and healthy.  All I can focus on is how much I hate my face and my body, my job, my daily life.  I'm so sick of cooking.  I'm so sick of making the same turkey sandwiches for the next day's lunches.  I'm so sick of watching TV simply because there's nothing else to do.

Movies would tell me I should leave behind everything and everyone I know and flitter away to some other country.  Society would tell me to buck up, deal with it; this is life, you have it good.  The way I feel anymore, what I would tell myself is that I am not afraid of death because there's probably something a lot more exciting going on over there on that side.

You go to work, you do the chores at home, you die.  I've accepted that.  I've been doing it for thirteen years.  Why change things now?