So today I am feeling pretty bummed out. I do not have any particular reason to be sad. Over all my life is pretty stellar. I love my friends, my jobs, and I have plenty of reasons to be happy.
But instead of being happy, all I am capable of doing today is moping, making this face, and crying while I watch My Girl and The Princess Bride.
I am really hoping that this will pass in the next day or two. Only once in my life has it lasted for a sizable amount of time. And let me tell you it was probably the worst time of my life. Four about seven months I was crippled by a severe depression. I barely had the strength to get of bed. I failed two classes. I was drunk almost every day. I stopped smiling and wearing perfume. I didn't want to read, or watch t.v., or play video games. All the things I loved lost their luster. I know that I was no fun to be around. I am not sure how my friends put up with me.
If you had looked up "fun" in the dictionary my picture would have been in the antonym section. My friends did not give up on me. I think that says a lot about my friends and how amazing they are. However, they were not the thing that pulled my out of the labyrinth of self pity that I was stuck in. No, it was not the wonderful people I know, or my adorable dog, or anything off of the long list of things that make me happy. It was, in fact, how much I hate Indonesia.
I know that sounds a little crazy. First of all, out of all the things to hate in the world I hate Indonesia? Secondly how could this hate pull me out of this world shattering depression? Sit back and let me tell you the tale.
Let me bring you back to last February. It was like every other shitty February day. It was cold, and I was at the level of depression where I hit an unparalleled level of apathy. You think that Honeybadger doesn't give a shit? Well if you knew me last fall and winter, you would scoff at him and tell that he needs apathy lessons from Master Heather. So anyway, I was sitting with Lauren on her couch because it was too cold do anything else, not that I cared about what we did. We had been watching something on tv, but then it ended we were too lazy to switch the channel, so we just left as background noise.
What was playing was a documentary on Komodo dragons. We weren't really paying too much attention to the show until a dragon chased down a water buffalo or some other big ugly animal that out-weighed it by like 400 pounds, and ate the shit out of it.
This got our attention. We started watching the show, and it turns out that Komodo Dragons are major badasses. They can kill anything, and there is no known cure for the venom. Thank Batman that they are only native to five places in the world, all of which are islands in Indonesia. One of these islands is actually a preserve for dragons, which means that it is ILLEGAL to kill or hurt a dragon there. This would be the island of Komodo. The island is not close to other islands of Indonesia, and has less than 2,000 people living there. That is less people than my fucking high school.
Remember how I said that the dragons can kill anything? Well that includes people.
"What do you want to eat today Mr. Dragon?"
"Hmmm, how about Johnny?"
So Lauren and I are sitting here watching this show. These people are telling a story about how last year a dragon walked up and ate a six year old boy right in the middle of the village. The cameras show dragons just chilling around the village, hanging out in houses and strutting the streets. Why are these people living on this god-forsaken island? I mean it is not like they are living in a modern city, it really is just one step above a shanty town.
Seriously? You are letting dragons eat you for this????? There are 17,508 that make up Indonesia. Just move to another fucking island! Build a new shanty town!!!!!
By this time in the program I am starting to scream at the tv. I can not believe that these dragons are just walking around like the own the fucking place, eating people and stealing shanty houses. But wait it gets worse. The documentary then goes to the local cemetery, where we find out that they have to build little walls around all of the graves because the dragons will dig them up and eat the corpses.
Turns out that while young dragons can climb trees, adult ones cannot because they are too heavy. And get this, all dragons can not climb vertical fences. I REPEAT, THEY CANNOT CLIMB FENCES!
So by this time I am standing on the couch screaming at the tv.
"Motherfuckers! Why do you not have a fence around your whole tiny shanty town so that the dragons stop eating you?!?!"
I am irate, Lauren is laughing, and these people are still getting eaten. The show ends. I make a decision right then and there that I will watch e-how videos, learn to make a fucking fence, go to Indonesia, and take it the fuck over.
And then I realized, for the first time in months, I felt something. Not only did I feel something, but I was passionately affected by this documentary on Komodo Dragons. And with that, day by day I got better. I was smiling and laughing again. Then it happened again, I remembered what it felt like to be happy.
So I have how much I hate the stupid fucking people of the island of Komodo who just get eaten for mid-afternoon snacks to thank for my mental health.
Try as I might, I can not find this video anywhere; and with how bummed out I feel right now, I could really use it.
