Cheap motel pants

Alternative title to this blog: Don't you find it infuriating when someone you love ignores your messages?

Wasted and wounded,
it ain't what the moon did,
I've got what I paid for now

I think one of the most difficult things about growing up involves losing your belief in the just-world phenomenon. This is the idea that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Because they deserve them. I still frequently find myself subscribing to this fallacy even though as I get older I find more and more evidence against it being true. It just doesn’t work that way, and it sucks.

Another thing I’m struggling with: I’ve always had this mental soundtrack to my life playing in my head. This soundtrack plays as an invisible, omniscient audience watches my life unfold and cheers me on as I travel life’s treacherous terrain, navigating the pitfalls and dangerous curves. They see that good things are just around the corner for me and they are saying, “Hang in there girl! Just a little longer!”

I am finding it incredibly disheartening to realize it doesn’t actually work this way.

I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And I'm tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English, and everything's broken, and my Stacys are soaking wet

Take my friend Rannie, for example. She passed away on Sunday from cancer at age 33. That is so fucking unfair. It was clear that she was on her deathbed, and she and her fiancé got married in bed in their pajamas shortly before she died. She was lovely and sweet and smart and loved. And so fucking young. And she’s gone.

Now the dogs are barking and the taxi cab's parking
A lot they can do for me
I begged you to stay with me, you tore my shirt open,
And I'm down on my knees tonight

Take my uncle Mike, the second one of my uncles to die in the last couple of months. He was dirt poor all of his life. He worked shit jobs or had a hard time finding work at all. His daughter was killed when someone slipped methadone in her drink when she was 21. He stepson died after being trapped in a fire in his college dorm. His son has been in prison for nearly all his adult life. My uncle just didn’t care about his life anymore after all this, and drank himself to death. When I look at his life and the fact that he just never seemed to get any fucking breaks it makes me furious.

And you can ask any sailor, and the keys from the jailor,
And the old men in wheelchairs know

I’ve long been under the impression that everyone gets their happy ending at some point. That all the time and effort and getting by LEAD to something. Like getting out of prison for good behavior.

I’ve also been under the impression that I was destined for great things. I can remember being in college and feeling with every fiber of my being that I would go on to do something important. I still often feel it. I feel like great love is in store for me, as well as joy and friendship and financial security and happiness. But there’s actually no reason to think that I am any different. There’s no reason to think there is some larger meaning, that I am impossibly unique and deserving of good fortune. Maybe the best has already happened, and from here on out it’s just putting in the time.

And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace,
And a wound that will never heal
No prima donna, the perfume is on an
Old shirt that is stained with blood and whiskey
And goodnight to the street sweepers, the night watchmen flame keepers
And goodnight to Mathilda, too