I've Run Into A Wall.

Jesus, I had a colossal breakdown today. Colossal thanks to the five hours of sleep I got last night.

There was a time, when I was eighteen, when I literally thought I was losing my mind. I understand now that I was simply an eighteen year old girl. It's normal to hate your mom and life and look for ways of perpetual escape.

But based on my current emotional and mental state, I want to punch 18 year old me in the face for ever thinking that I was crazy then. 'Look at me now' I want to scream 'this is what crazy looks like. this is what it actually feels like'. My mind is very muddled these days. I can't concentrate on anything. I can't see beyond the hour or even the minute. I find that I am not happy with things and because of this I don't know how to react to things.

So maybe this has something to do with the failure that is PNJ and maybe it has something to do with Heather getting a crappy teaching job (and waving it in front of all of our faces. guess who came into for a cup of coffee. because you know there are no other coffee places in her town) but there has to be something else. There has to be for me to feel this bad.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge or anything. Or start being mournful to the point where I start saying 'have my computer and printer, I'm not going to need those things anymore in the afterlife' but i am...depressed. I am sad. I am grieving over losses that small and big.

I am doing my best to keep my head up. I dance as much as I can. I sing as loudly as I can. And I play around with writing to keep my sane. But going to work has become a chore. Being the happy smiley all my shits together girl is not cutting it anymore. The changes in the store are beyond ridiculous. We are short staffed and overworked, and all the new people they've hired have quit within days of being hired.

Because of this the rest of us are spread thin. Very thin. I've worked six days straight one week and I am clocking in +35 hours in that store. I know, I know. A real job would require that much of a commitment. But I'm not making real job money and I have to deal with customers who are jackasses. A guy today went on a 'this is why amazon is more convenient' spiel because there was only one copy of a book he wanted in the store and he couldn't understand why our inventory was shitty ( not that I'm a spokesperson for the bookstore I work at or anything but if you are ordering from a warehouse of course there are going to be more things in stock...asshole). Yeah. My job is great.

Anyway, the point is that not only I am unhappy with the way things are going but working at a crappy job where my skills can't be utilized and people talk to you as if you didn't graduate middle school, is quite the soul sucker. I just don't enjoy being there anymore. Everyone expects me to come in with a huge smile on my face and some optimistic we can do it gang speech but I just can't anymore. Because while I am cheering on the team I am slowly feeling more miserable about my own state of affairs. So I'm done cheering for them now. I just want to move on.

And then today happened. Which was just a big giant mess of a day that I never want to repeat. I had to close last night and then open this morning. We didn't get out of the store until 12:45 last night, I got home at 1:15. I couldn't get to sleep until 2:00 because I always get some weird sort of energy after working late. Then I had to wake up six hours later to get ready for my shift at 10.

Bullshit.

As I was on my way to work tired, hungry and depressed I heard a noise coming from an abandoned building I pass everyday. A month and a half ago an Indian restaurant caught on fire in my town. They were open for like 20 years and were a local favorite. The day it burned to the ground a huge crowd of people stood across the street and watched. It was one of the hottest days of this summer and Josh said it best that the weather was leading up to something like that. That in some weird way something had to burn to relieve the tension the heat caused. I don't know, it made sense at the time. I remember telling him that too.

The Indian restaurant ended up burning to the ground taking with it four other businesses. It was pretty brutal and the only building that survived was one that has been abandoned for years. Go figure. I pass this building every day to go to work and today as I was getting ready to make my turn to head towards the job I hear what I believed to be a baby crying. At first the sound was too low and I thought it was in the distance, but as I got further away the sound of crying turned out to be the sound of howling from a cat trapped in the building.

I look up to the second floor to see this terribly skinny, white cat with black spots pushing his face up against the window and howling from the second floor. It was the saddest thing that I've ever seen. I tried to open the door of the building it was locked and boards covered the only other entrance. There weren't any windows on the ground floor, just these wall length glass walls. As I tried to find a way in, the cat kept yelling while I struggled with my want to help it and my apprehension of going to jail. Of course 20 minutes pass and I can't find any other way into the damn building to... I don't know....rescue the cat. By then I'm running late and the cat has given up hope. It does one small meow and then falls away from the window defeated.

My heart broke. I am a very claustrophobic person. I hate being caged in any aspect of the word. And to me being lost in a big giant place is the same as being trapped in a small space. And here was this very scraggly and hungry kitty, meowing with all of his strength for someone to rescue him. I know this meow very well. It's almost a wail. Cats do it when they can't get out of a room or are stuck. It's a horrible noise.

And the moment I saw this cat pressing his face up against the window I made some absurd connection to my own life. That, like Luke ( i named him) I am in this grand big place without any foreseeable exit. That someone has simply locked me into this situation and thrown away the key. And I am too tired from trying to claw my way out of the situation, of trying to find a way out, to do anything else except wail for someone to come and save me.

By the time I get to work I was almost late and completely tired, depressed and beyond stressed about the cat. I call the number listed on the building hoping to reach the Realtor. But that number was old and the person I spoke to had no idea what I was talking about. I then attempted to call the humane society or the vet's office because I didn't know what else to do. I end up calling the non-emergency line of the police department (there is actually a line, i found it in the phone book) and explain the situation to a what I think is a very disinterested police officer.

The rest of the day is a miserable blur. I cried in the bathroom, I dragged my ass around work, and I couldn't even fake a smile. I honestly don't know how to make things better maybe because I don't know what I want. I see these girls my age walking around talking about trips to Amsterdam that they can't remember and I go 'what the hell am I doing wrong'. When will I know that I am on the right path to something. Because right now I feel like a starving and scared cat trapped in a really big building with no idea how to get out.

I need something to happen quick. I'm not sure I can handle anymore of this. And I know things will get better. But I just wish something would make these miserable days less miserable.

~Becks

Oh,

Around lunch time though I went back to the building to see if the cat was still there, and great Scots there were men outside the building surveying the area. The front door was wide open and a police car was parked across the street. When I went up to ask what was going on they said they were there because they received a call from a concerned citizen about a cat trapped in a building.

Scraggly Kitty is safe!