I Don’t Know Where I Belong

I turned down a job today because it only payed 8 dollars an hour and would only pay me 8.85 after nine months. 

I turned it down because I would have brought home in a week what my partner brings home in a day and that seems like a waste of time and energy. I wouldn't have had time to do the things I love. My weekends would have been spent sifting through bullshit and putting price tags on people's unwanted memories that I wouldn't even have been able to buy until they'd been on the sales floor for 24 hours. 

And it feels strange because often times our worth is measured by our salaries and job titles, and mine is currently 'self' or 'under employed'. 

And yeah, I'm a millennial with a mortgage, and a bunch of pets, and a kid who likes to hang out here. 

To be totally honest, I'm mad. I'm mad that my parents could afford the 'American Dream' on one income. And their dream isn't mine, but I just wish the living could be easy.

It's so fucking expensive to be alive, and that's a real bummer.

Then I get angry because it's all so fucking pointless and hopeless, and it's only a matter of years before the robots take all the jobs that I can do without a college degree, and school never did suit me. And maybe college level job responsibility doesn't either.

I want to make art but not be a starving artist. Most artists can't survive on art alone because society doesn't give a shit about art when they can take a selfie in portrait mode on their iPhone X and buy shit quality prints of succulents for 30 dollars at Urban Outfitters.

I want to make money outside of the realm of capitalism. I don't want to scurry around another grocery store like a fucking animal in a slaughterhouse because 'corporate is coming'. I don't want to ring up your two bags of groceries and tell you 'it will be 50 dollars and 67 cents today, please.' I don't want to read another professional email that could have just been a short fucking conversation in person, but we're all too scared to talk to each other without sounding passive aggressive. 

I don't want another god damn fifteen minute smoke break.

And maybe I'm just entitled or selfish, or whatever they call us these days, but there are so many things I hate about the Modern Times, and no, not the Dylan album, that's one of my favorites.

I shop at thrift stores because I love them and maybe I have a mild tendency to hoard, but deeper than that, spending 20 dollars on a shirt made my child laborers in China is morally wrong. 

Paying extra for organic food is fucked too. That's how our food used to be, and now all these idiots will buy anything containing a buzz word they saw on a Kardashian social media account.

I'm also really fucking pissed off that vintage clothes sizes are so different from modern clothes sizes, and it's so god damn hard to find a pair of ugly ass mom jeans because I have no idea what my ass is in size 1985.

I got off track there, but really, modern life is kind of underwhelming. We should, at the VERY LEAST, be able to take a vacation to the fucking moon. 

And I get it, I'm part of the problem, writing shit out and sharing it on the internet, but lets be real, even the internet sucks now and I'm sure you won't see this because the algorithms will file this into the 'shit you don't care about' category, alongside all the important news, cool scientific articles, and really rad art everyone is making.

Anyway, I just want to do shit my way. That's all I'm trying to say here.

Cheers.
 Chels-