Disappearing Existence

So. The wedding was about three weeks ago, and if I didn’t feel as much of a loser then, I certainly do now. I don’t have a job. Or seem to be able to find any real prospects of a job. My sleeping is all messed up. I’m awake all night and sleep about 6-8 hours during the day. Usually from around 9 or 10 to 4 or 5 in the evening. The worst thing is, I can’t even sleep then without taking sleeping pills. I just lie awake uncomfortable and in pain. I want to get my life back on track. Back on any track. I don’t even end up talking to Megan for long each day because we really have nothing to talk about. Its bad when you can’t find anything to talk about on the phone with your best friend. I’m bored out of my mind. Every day I scour the paper and the internet for jobs. I send out resumes. All I get back is junk mail. I have creditors calling and calling. I have nothing to give them. I’ll be able to make July’s rent. I hope. But August will send me begging back to my parents and then probably just moving back home.

My mother finally knows that I’m not going back to school. She knows I’m looking for a job and maybe knows how frustrating its becoming. My aunt is having gall bladder surgery, which my mother and I don’t think she really needs, but thats neither here nor there. She wants my mother to come stay with her during the surgery. Except that my mother has a life and things she needs to do back in NY. So I offered to go stay with my aunt. My mother warned me that there would be family drama as their two brothers will both be out at about the same time. And she’s right. There will be drama and I will get annoyed. But I feel worthless here. Beyond worthless, I feel pointless and redundant. Part of it may be the depression, but I really think part of it is the truth. I do nothing. I look for a job. Thats all right now. I don’t have any friends. I’m not even kidding. I love my family because they are my family, but I’m not exactly "friends" with these cousins. The cousins that I am friends with would be the two 17-year-olds who live too far away to see often. And they have their own lives and friends, and I’m happy for them. Maybe jealous too, but jealous in a "I want that, too" not in a "I don’t want them to have that." I don’t even know if that makes sense.

My mom doesn’t know if its really a good idea for me to go help out my aunt. She’s worried I’ll go a little crazy. Okay maybe. But at least I would feel needed. At least I would feel like I’m doing something productive and worthwhile. At least my whole existence wouldn’t revolve solely around my cat.  At least I would feel like someone in this world actually needs me.  I dare anyone to find a point to my existence right now beyond "Well, we’d be sad if you’re weren’t there."  I don’t want to die and I don’t want to kill myself.  But lets be honest.  No one’s life would be upended because I’m no longer there.  No one would have to find someone to replace me at a job or a responsibility.  Yes, people would be sad and grief-stricken and on and on.  This is a bad example and heading in the wrong direction.  Instead of dying, lets say I move to a little shack in the middle of nowhere.  Nobody’s life would be drastically altered.  In fact, nobody’s life would be slightly altered.  Everyone could still go about their lives without my presence, because I’m not a presence in any one’s life.  I’m so expendable I bet no one would actually notice for quite some time.

Even if all I did was serve coffee, at least someone at the shop would say "Where is that girl?  We need to find someone to take her shift if she doesn’t come back."  I don’t need to do a job that no one else can do.  I don’t need to be so intricately woven into someone’s life that without me they can’t breathe.  But if I suddenly vanished, taken up by aliens, locked away in a prison.  No one would notice.

This all really hit me the other night while the tornado sirens wailed outside.  I was actually tired, but the AC wasn’t working, so I had the windows open and between the thunder and the sirens I couldn’t sleep.  Not to mention, I don’t do tornadoes.  Blizzards with snow for days and no power – I’m cool.  Funnel clouds from which there is no escape?  Not so much.  And it got me thinking.  If a tornado came along and ripped the roof off my apartment, hurling me to my death, how long before someone realizes I was gone?  Maybe the landlord would notice while picking through the wreckage.  Maybe my aunt and uncle would eventually piece together that the tornado hit my apartment and I might be hurt or dead.  Even my parents would eventually piece that together.  But there is no one in the morning who would wonder what happened to me.  There is no one waiting to meet me, see me, put me to work… anything.  The tornado is a bad example.  If aliens took my body, how long before someone realized I was gone?  How long before the unanswered phone calls caused worry?  I really think my cat would miss me first and though smart, she can’t dial 911.  If I died of a heart attack in my apartment, how long before she would be hungry enough to start eating my flesh?  How long before someone forces the door on my apartment open to find my rotting corpse?

Maybe this all seems a little dramatic, but really…. How long before anyone notices I’m no longer there?