Pure Exhuastion

Lately I've felt relatively good. That, in itself might normally qualify as good, but it does feel like things have gotten easier since the turn of the year.

My routine and exercise has really helped to keep my mood lifted. Partially because I'm enjoying how my body feels and seeing the changes it's going through. It helps me have a feeling of agency over things, which is normally lacking. That said, it hasn't been tested really.

That changed today. I took up a new job and started today. The commute is about two hours out of a day, the job length is about eight. Leaving me about four hours of a day to do what I want, before I can get a reasonable amount of sleep. I don't mind being busy, really, but the sheer amount of time that having a job sucks out of you is infuriating. I find it amusing that after studying Capitalism for six years, I'm now one of the biggest opponents to it. It's done nothing for me, or my generation except ruin our lives. I digress.

On my way into this office this morning I get a call from my mother. It wasn't unexpected, as I got one from my father the day before wishing me luck, and good vibes on my first day. The tone in her voice was off, which I initially attributed to it being early in the morning. She would later tell me that her mother had died in the night.

It's a mixed sensation. We've known she had a terminal illness for the last ten years, and it's steadily gotten worse. I'm glad she's at peace. I had a chance to see her last month and didn't take it. I don't, really regret this though. Her and I didn't get along that well when I was a child, and we continued to drift apart due to her awful behavior, and my refusal to enable her shitty behavior. 

Normally I'd have gone, knowing she didn't have time left, but I just didn't have the emotional energy after dealing with an ending relationship at the same time. I could hear the disappointment in the conversation she had with my mother when she was told I wasn't coming. I feel guilty over that, but, then I remember all the awful things she's said to me, my cousin, and my brother over the years.

The dead don't get pardoned by virtue of being dead.

Still, I feel bittersweet about the whole thing. My mom said not to worry about coming down to the funeral since it was still my first week at a new job. It makes me wonder what the family will think.

Which brings me to an interesting cross roads. She died, literally, from a disease she got on the job. Work killed her. Here I am, starting a new job, wasting 70% of my daily schedule, and for what?

So I can feel upbeat and guilty that I still make more than my friends at a paltry thirty-eight thousand a year?

It all just feels so futile, and, pointless. Especially when you come home to an empty apartment, too tired to think.