Life is a Riddle in a Maze

Life is a riddle in a maze, and not just my life. If you think it's not, just look at the absurdly complex financial Rubix Cube that America has just handed to President Barack Obama, saying, 'The nigger will NEVER figure this out," or "Let the smart nigger have a try!" Oh, well, maybe that's not what everyone was saying to themselves, but Barack Obama is a Black man with a Rubix Cube in his hand and some part of four years to show that it can be solved. Except this particular Rubix Cube has sixteen or thirty-two separate and sometimes vaguely similar colors on each side.

Does it seem like I'm exaggerating. Maybe I am, and maybe Obama's chances to resolve the nation's financial troubles are better than my chances to resolve my emotional and existential questions.

Today, I was in a psychologist's office, begging him for a prescription for Zoloft, which he couldn't provide because he is not a psychiatrist or even a doctor. Like the nurses, he urged me to return next week to schedule an appointment with one of the above. I fidget, looking for some document in my pants pockets, which the doctor found very interesting. I realized that he was sizing me up and perhaps feeling pity for my condition.

I suspect he was feeling pity because I was searching for documents that would also be available to him in the medical records at the clinic, which he had undoubtedly already read. It was what I now perceive to be a desperate and misguided and futile attempt to convince someone who couldn't and wouldn't do anything for me in any case this morning. And so I was a patient in desperate need of medical care, who wouldn't get any this day.

Actually, I did get some medical care. I thought I had a parasite growing in my foot (I know this sounds like a symptom of schizophrenia, but it's actually quite common in this part of the tropics), and yet the nurses were not able to find evidence of a parasite. What they found was a little piece of red something that one nurse extracted from my foot with a needle. I urged her to dig further into my flesh, looking for a parasite, but assured me there was none. I believed the nurse, too, could see what I was feeling (panic), but she didn't say she could.

I was afraid I would say something that would compel them to hospitalize me, and then there was no telling when or how I might get out. I was afraid I would tell them that I was considering cutting my head off with a chain saw, while also thinking of first killing my dog, hanging her from the ceiling, and disecting her in search of something interesting. There has to be something interesting somewhere in my life.

My mental experience "like a rollercoaster", feeling enthusiastic and purposeful for a few days, and then confused, morose, and hopeless for a few days, without any obvious reason for the changes from the one state to the other.

For two months, I went without access to my checking account and could barely buy food. So, it was natural for me to explain my sadness, depression, anxiety and frustration to others in terms of my financial situation.

Now, I have access to my funds and to all of the money that has accumulated over the last two months, while I was unable to spend any of it on intelligent or silly purchases. I am "rolling in dough" and don't feel any better than I sometimes did when I couldn't pay my rent.

My dreams disturb me, and my mind disturbs my dreams. I dreamed that my electricity bill was six times higher than it had been the month before, and that left me panicking about getting value for my money and being able to afford to live.

I feel cheated on my rent, since moisture is coming through the ceiling in ever more places, leaving my space dank and moldy. I want to pay less, but I am afraid to start a dispute with my landlord that would result in me losing and having to move out of a place that I need, even when it is imperfect. And so I feel confused and ambivalent, procrastinating for a week about paying the rent, even after having the landlord's forbearance for the two months during which I had no access to my money. I confuse myself. I don't know when to feel grateful and when to feel resentful. I feel both at once and then I am paralyzed, like a rodent by a snake bite, now being eaten alive by my own confusion.