All I'm Left With

All I’m left with is my life of routines and rituals. My stupid self-care habits and chores, eyedrops, eyelid scrubs, herbal supplements, exercise and activity, mandatory walks, housecleaning, pet feeding, flower watering and lawn mowing. And TV shows and movies.

Yeah, it’s a pretty fluffy hell, but imagine no emotions, just routines. Endless routines. And hours to fill. Choices to be made. Path A or path B, neither one leading to a real sense of fulfillment, just different ways to waste time. The things that mark time are the things that break, rot or fall apart and die. The things that end.

Even my TV shows and movies are just temporary distractions. They end. The next thing needs to be done. Brush my teeth. Go outside. It’s Sunday, so no mail to be checked. Check Facebook. For what, I dunno. Habit. I am on strike, refusing to like anything, even if I do like it. Have to keep up my image of the pouting sufferer.

I still have my grief, but I wonder if I lose that too, what will be left of me? This disappearing act is frightening. I’m a Cheshire grumpy cat and all that will be left will be my frown. Until that too, disappears. I’ll still have my self-criticism and doubt, I suppose. Of all the things I’ll probably never give up, I’ll hold onto these useless traits even after I’m dead, if that’s possible.

I can’t be sure that I will get away from myself by committing suicide. I might wind up with all my bad traits hanging on into the afterlife, if that’s even a thing. So with infinite potential, I’ll be the everlasting procrastinator-slacker and I’ll just never get around to creating a decent heaven for myself. I’ll get stuck with the off-the-shelf hell version of existence that I currently reside in. Not quite bad enough to be damnation, but insidiously unfulfilling enough to not be heaven.

Just plain, old, boring me.