I may be 20 years old but I still have no direct control over much money I can use. I have gotten used to thinking of it like the wind, it comes and goes whenever it does, and there's not much I can do to influence it. So that makes me feel guilty about ever spending any money at all on absolutely anything. I always have to assume that the $8.34 in my wallet is the last $8.34 my entire family will ever have. I take seriously the idea that my purchase of a can of $1.70 Monster Energy Drink at Wal-Mart has been responsible for the country's recession. And the cheapest therapy sessions I have been to have been $45 each. And our family members abroad always need extra money, especially my sick mother in Pakistan. She's recovering from gall bladder removal surgery. And a bunch of other surgeries. She hasn't been a bad mother to me or anything but I honestly wish she would just die already. That way we don't have to send her any more of the money my dad earns online.
On top of all of that I have been searching for some kind of outside job for years. Retail this and retail that. It's only now that I've been turning to restaurants and cafes. But I have to put that on hold for at least another week to hear back from an engineering company where I went to an interview because I was referred there by my friend's dad who is a VP of one of the departments there. It's a little hard to maintain the positive, initiative-taking, go-getter attitude when you've been searching for three years, you are brown-skinned, you have no real experience, references, or social skills, and you are a male with an acne problem. The closest thing I have ever had to a job so far has been four days of volunteer work at a cafe. That sent the message loud and clear: "No-one is willing to pay you. Ever." How fucking encouraging. I already thought that I was worth nothing on a moral and experiential level, now I can add that I am worth nothing on the economic level. Great.
I've been helping out with my dad's home business for years now, 5 to 10 hours a week. I'm basically a warehouse monkey, but my title is Research and Development Officer. What the fuck is that? Just for once I want a job where I don't have to lie and make myself sound like some kind of bigshot, even if that job title is "Host" or "Dishwasher".
I have a constant, unending guilt trip for everything I do playing on repeat inside my head, at the absolute loudest volume possible, especially in matters relating to money. But the thing is, I can't see things ever being any different. My mind can no longer generate the thought of me being responsible for anything good. At least not in a way I can take seriously or see as being feasible.
And my dad does not believe in therapy, medication, or counseling. He hasn't disallowed me from doing those things, but he has guilt tripped me about them like he always does about everything else. He insists that if I listen to enough Anthony Robbins and Brian Tracy, I can just flip a light switch in my head and everything will be perfect by the next day.
So I am afraid of going to therapy because I don't have a stable supply of money that I can call my own and because my dad does not believe in that sort of thing working. I don't either, probably because I have only been able to go to two goddamned sessions before I left this summer for a 90-day trip abroad that I thought was going to change everything. Instead I am now back to square zero like I always am after I am done doing something that I think will "change everything".
I fucking hate the city of Atlanta, Georgia. I have been in this miserable shithole for nine pointless years and I am convinced that I might die here. I only ever have real fun when I temporarily leave this place to see my siblings in Canada and Europe. While I am abroad I always try to formulate plans to break out of the depression I am in in Atlanta. I always have help from my siblings when I do this. I think that I am a different person when I'm outside Atlanta, and thus will be able to devise some kind of solution to my depression. Look for jobs in this way, at this time of the week, at this time of day, look for these social groups on Meetup.com, go talk to these people at the university. But all of that shit crumbles and burns into nothingness when I get back here.
There is something about this place that sucks all the hope and joy out of me. If it were entirely up to me, I would live in the city of Toronto. Assuming I can find a job there. I don't know much about that, I've only ever looked for a job here in Atlanta. But I've been there on visits a total of four times, and I get a nice, almost European vibe. Very open and tolerant, diverse and beautiful people they have there. I've heard that it is more expensive to live there than it is here, but if I were there at least I wouldn't be surrounded by people I want to mow down with an Uzi.
I have almost nothing but bad memories about this town. And the worst part is is that there are never any major natural disasters here. I want a goddamned hurricane to sweep through the place, followed by an 8.5 earthquake, and topped off with a shower of meteorites. That's how much I love the cunting ATL. It wouldn't affect me if the CDC were broken into and every single hell-spawn of a virus contained in there were released into the local populace, because I wouldn't have any friends in the resulting mass of dead and dying people anyway. I would probably die too. But who cares about that, right?
Fuck Atlanta, fuck Georgia, and fuck the "New South". I never belonged in this ass-backwards, segregated, Bible-thumping trash can of a state anyway. I'm just here because my dad plopped us down here when I was eleven because an apartment was cheap and we don't get any hurricanes, blizzards, or earthquakes here. I don't want to stay here for even a single day longer than I absolutely have to. In fact I am hesitant to use the term "we" in regards to this city because that very word associates me with this place, this boring useless time-wasting shithole where no progress has ever been made towards me getting a life.
I remember the days when I would come here to write about Star Wars.