A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A UNFULFILLED 20-SOMETHING

I dread each fresh interaction from close relatives to acquaintances because the simple questions are debilitating. The questions that would be easy if I had a job and was doing things that people understood. How are you? What have you been doing? What do you do all day? I can never answer in a way that satisfies the person or myself.

Beginning at 8:30 am, my first of 50 alarms go off. While my family pleads for me to reduce the number of alarms, I refuse because I am inconsiderate.

When I wake up, at 9 or 10 am, I pollute the planet once more and use my backyard as my ashtray. Unfortunately, the tree-hugging infographics didn’t penetrate this apathetic heart.

At noon, I eat an almost expired microwaveable meal with as much enthusiasm as I can possess.

At 1 pm or whenever I finish lunch, I take a walk to my local park and do my best to avoid my neighbor's gaze. As I round the park, I think about only the most traumatizing events of the past 4 years. I think of the people that have hurt me the most.

I work on my little art projects that no one above the age of 25 appreciates and doesn’t understand what I'm doing it for at 2 pm.

At 3 pm, I begin to stare at the cracked zoom screen while I hear the same tired advice and recount the same tired stories.

I forget to take my medication at 4 and 4:05 pm.

I make another Tiktok that will get taken down for cyberbullying a furry adjacent lo-fi band at 6 pm.

I eat again at 7 pm. As I bite down, I watch a movie that has been curated for me by a female operating system created by a man.

Following the film, at 9:30 pm, I scrub my face and watch as a new pimple grows on my chin each day. I throw back 5 different pills in muted shades that I’m not sure affect me at all but I do so because that’s what I’ve been told to do. I pen my most disturbing thoughts in my journal. I have a recurring daydream that someone will steal my journal and will expose me as a person that is still obsessing over a person that never cared about them.

At 11 pm, following a depressing and ineffective sleep routine, I wait for my heart to stop pounding enough to fall asleep and tolerate hours of blank dreamscapes.

But no one wants to hear that. They want to hear that I have a job. A job that they understand and don’t look down upon. Health problems are only a reason for unemployment for up to 6 months if you’re lucky. After that, it must be something you’re doing wrong.