Well, That Was Awkward

I broke down in tears at the pharmacy this morning.

I cost too much to live. 

I was only $20 off. My car payment of $150 went through the night before. I thought I was in the clear. I had not calculated, however, that I would need to hold an extra $20 in my account to cover my prescriptions.

My medication costs a lot in terms of other people’s money — and my time — just to secure them. I then go to the extra effort of taking them, so as to not waste other people’s money; it would be one thing if I were footing the bill for these meds and didn’t take them, but when someone else is paying for them? Unacceptable.

Second, I take them so as not to spiral into the chaos that is my unmedicated medical condition (insanity) — thus not wasting my time by visiting a mental institution (again). It would also cost more money for that additional visit. And it is already expensive to live: rent, utilities, cell phone bill, gas for the car, rent of the car…. And that’s if you’re normal… but, “no one is normal,” right?

“It is ok to not be ok.” Right?

If you say so.

Life is certainly expensive either way. In addition to the federal government backing the mission that is “Justin’s Life,” my parents give me money to make up for the difference between being a have and a have-not. They provide me with $1,400 or so a month, on top of the $1,500 or so a month I earn by being disabled (what a moral conundrum in and of itself, I must add). With that money, I earn the right to live at the poverty line.

The emotional price

I can provide you with a balanced account from this morning alone. The costs were high — high enough for me to cry as the pharmacists dispensed my medications and politely removed items I could not afford to buy if I wanted to afford my medications. Mouthwash. It upsets me to think that my breath smells, but it makes me feel worse to wake up in a mental institution. So, there is the first emotional cost decision — be unhygienic so it keeps you out of a mental institution or worse. So I cried.

As a 40-year-old, 6’3” white male in Manhattan, Kansas, I am sure I created an awkward situation for the attending pharmacists. They are just trying to do their job in the midst of my existential crisis. I would love to thrive or at least have clean breath, but I have to focus on surviving.

If it costs a lot of money to be disabled, I apologize to the economy. 

But I never met an economy that rewarded me for having emotions so powerful they have to be sedated and subdued with prescription medications. So, how much is my emotional labor worth at this moment? I am breaking down, apologizing for not having enough money to pay for what I need, and these two pharmacists are not paid enough to deal with my shit. So, did I make an emotional deposit with the pharmacists or a withdrawal? 

The moral price

That is where the moral costs come into play. Were we in Sparta, my baby body would have disintegrated long ago because I was born dead, and thus I would have no value to add. But I was born in America, baby! No concern for the umbilical cord strangling my oxygen supply; they just forced an oxygen tube down my throat and up my butt to bring me to life, according to some. According to those still living, I was born happy and healthy. Either way, according to the federal government, I am permanently disabled. But I was born in America, baby, so I have the rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. 

Healthcare, however, does not fall under the auspices of those rights. 

I gotta fight for those rights every second. A moral dilemma: be an economic burden on the economy by existing or take your chances without the support structure that allows you to survive. A further moral dilemma is believing you are meant to thrive while knowing it takes much more than your emotional budget just to survive.

The intellectual price

My IQ is high as fuck. Too high, really. According to a former psychiatrist, I connect too many dots… that is a nice way of saying I am paranoid, delusional, and insane. But then again, everything is connected, right? From my left nut to my right brain to the end of the cosmos, everything is connected by the reality of energy alone. That is a good-enough stretch for my intellect to admit, in my opinion, that this morning I cried by design. 

What if I spent the money my family gives me to survive on a business that could make me independently wealthy? Then all my problems would be solved. But as a real one once said, “Mo money, mo problems.” That is the smartest thing I have ever heard, and I say that as someone who has seen what happens when people get the wealth they worked toward. I have enough problems as it is.

And so the economy did what it was designed to do — take labor from me in return for goods and services. The labor, however, was in the form of financial, emotional, moral, and intellectual production; my family came through for me financially, as they always do. I merely had to invest the emotional, moral, and intellectual labor. To survive.

What am I capable of when I begin to thrive?