The elusive umbrella.

         It's raining. I don't have an umbrella. Then I realize, I usually don't have an umbrella when it's raining. I'm not talking about actual precipitation anymore.
         A lot has changed in the past century. I guess I think about it a lot because I keep having to take history classes or classes that make me look back on the past; or I just like looking back on the past. We as people have either tried to make things easier or embraced the changes that make life easier. We want things to be more efficient, we want the quality of life to be better; the sky is the limit when it comes to where that can go. When it comes to communication, we can say anything we want and as much or as little as we want to anyone at anytime. We don't have to say it in person and we don't even have to say it over a phone- speech isn't necessary. So at this point, we think we have it all figured out. Look at this advanced world we've created! We can do everything!
       But it's a little more complicated than that. The problem is that we think we know so much, and no one can tell us that the way we live is wrong. It isn't wrong; it just isn't perfect like we think it is. These things can't fix debilitating fear. Or heartbreak. Or aching loneliness. You can grasp onto your phone and distract yourself with it all you want, but it isn't going to do anything substantial. It can't fix you. You don't always get the morphine or the raincoat or the alcohol or the pills or the cute boy or girl to comfort you. Some of the things you have access to and some of the things you don't. And you know that you can do those things if you wanted to but you don't want to. You want to feel it. Really feel it. I just want to feel it because avoiding or suppressing it seems like a waste of time. I know it's going to come back anyway, why put it off? I don't need the painkillers, just give me the pain. I don't know if it makes me feel alive. I think I take it because I think that I deserve it. I'm accustomed to the no-umbrella procedure. I do it often. I don't want the cushion, and I don't know why I don't want the cushion. Why don't I think that I deserve it? I just really want to earn this. Whatever life I create. I want to earn it because I think it'll feel better in the end if I do. I'll feel proud of myself for getting through it. It probably sounds sick but it doesn't sound as sick to me as it should.
        I don't know where this notion came from, this feeling that I deserve for things to be difficult. Maybe I genuinely believe that if it's hard it's going to be worth it. But then I get scared that that isn't true because life never follows orders. It doesn't follow sayings. I could be the exception. I've been the exception before.