It's one in the morning and I'm awake. It's Saturday. Or it was Saturday. I have one more day before I go back to work for the 2024-25 school year. I'm awake. Partly because I couldn't bring myself to leave the apartment today, so I napped and ate frozen yogurt and grocery store bakery cookies. Partly because I saw two cockroaches within three minutes of each other, and I'm angry and confused. Almost two years ago, I quit my job at an advertising agency. I wasn't making much money. About $63,000 which, in my city, is perfectly liveable. Then I had a mental breakdown. Considered why I'm here to spend most of my time working a job I hated to live a life I didn't enjoy. So I quit and became a substitute teacher. The immediate consequence was seeing my pay get halved. The one bedroom apartment I was in before with an in-unit washer and dryer AND dishwasher was no longer affordable. So I got a small studio a few blocks away. It was an older building and a little grimy, but charming in its own gross little way.
Of course, that was before I discovered mice and cockroaches on a third floor apartment. Now I'm waging chemical warfare on roach families. Depressing a button to spray out toxic liquid at living creatures scurrying for their lives. The spray leaves behind a faux clean scent, like it's mimicking the way a disinfectant spray mimics the smell of pine needles. It can't smell toxic or else, we'd be reminded we're spraying poison in our homes at living creatures whose only real crime is they enjoy the crumbs disgusting humans like me don't perfectly clean up. Well, that and looking fucking disgusting. That's their main crime, really. And the fuckers get caught red-handed every single time. The way they sprint across the rug makes my stomach turn.
I hate this shit. I'm still deeply depressed. Going back to school (work, but I work at a school, but it feels weird to say "back to school") feels harder this year. I already feel resentful of the stupid sounds kids are going to make and the obvious lies they tell and their volume. I like working with kids (specifically middle and high schoolers, younger children are horrifying), but I'm depressed so things I like sound terrible. So on top of all of that, I'm dealing with cockroaches. What decisions led me here?
The ones above. But also...did I choose the wrong apartment? I wanted a dishwasher, but was it worth it? Should I have spent more? Pushed my budget? Then there are the little decisions. I'm depressed. I struggle to take care of myself, let alone my living space. My apartment is frequently cluttered. Dishes pile in the sink. I'm embarrassed about how I live! I'm trying to be better! But the fact remains that I'm not tidy. I'm not even particularly clean. Did I bring on the roaches? I live in 40 unit apartment building. I almost certainly didn't. But fuck. What if I did? What if I bring them to my next place? I deserve this. I deserve the pit in my stomach when I see a miniscule shadow zip across the wall or the floor. I deserve the stress of hoping my cat isn't being harmed by the kill spray. I'm not GOOD at this.
I grew up Mormon. Not only Mormon, but in a very sports-focused school/town. I hear what you're saying. I hear the voices, some of them my own. Others from shades resembling people I know or might know or will never know, but they all know me. They abhor my failure. I am scum. A mold. Something that elicits a guttural groan and retching upon first sight. Not only because of my failings but because of what I write here. Self-indulgent. Self-pity. Lacking in self-discipline, respect, or basic abilities to survive. I wouldn't have survived in a less comfortable place or time period.
Sometimes writing is a surgery. Or a lancing. A chance to squeeze the black sludge enveloping my organs and arteries out onto a serving platter. I am not worth consumption. So I make an incision, drain, and throw into an empty spot on the web. A digital brownfield. All I can do is hope it doesn't seep into the ground. A place where people can pass by and feel a little better about themselves.
At least they don't live here.