Laundry day....

It's that time of the week again. Every Saturday morning, I find myself performing the mundane task of separating my coloreds from my whites, plugging in the washing machine, and listening to the soft hum of its motor as it goes about its task of ridding my clothes of the past week's filth.

*sigh*

If there was only a washing machine for the soul, I would have bought one in a heartbeat.

For some strange reason, most of the people who know me don't really think of me as the type who "does laundry". Maybe they think of me as some prince with a staff of servants at my beck and call, to whom I can direct the rather unglamorous task of washing my clothes. It's weird I guess, since I'm not sure where they got the idea. It's not that I'm filthy rich, far from it really, though they hit the filthy part spot on.

I have to admit I'm really not the type of person one would associate with performing household chores, and yet, I do some, if only because of paranoia or some deep-seated fear of being idle, which often results in my consciousness coming up will all sorts of weird thoughts and ideas.

For better or for worse, I'm what I can describe as a thinker, though it's a stretch for myself to be considered an intellectual. I hardly stop thinking, which tends to be a pain in the butt, as it makes just lazing about and bumming around a headache as being idle turns into a mental exercise of needless discernment regarding things which for the most part, are irrelevant.

Strangely enough I guess, the only times when my mind turns a blank are those times when I find myself doing mundane housework...such as washing the car, doing laundry, scrubbing my toilet, and so on and so forth. Who would have guessed that such domestic tasks disdained by many would be considered a refuge by some from pointless cognition. Suffice it to say, a blank mind is a simple pleasure that I often yearn for, which I don't often get.

Am I mentally ill? Who am I to say...perhaps I am. In fact it was less than a decade ago that I was actually prescribed a downer/anxiolytic/depressant to slow down my hyperactive brain. Rivotril I believe it was, otherwise known by the generic term Clonazepam. It was only recently that I was made aware that it's also an anticonvulsant according to a "friend".

Wait a minute, I have to switch to the rinse cycle.

Okay, I'm back.

I took the drug for a couple of months or so. At the time I was so amazed that a very small pill could actually do that to my brain. For all intents and purposes, it turned my brain "off" so to speak. A blank slate devoid of any conflict, anxieties, worries or concerns. It was bliss. Or well it was, until I was told to quit it.

Since then I've never had anxiety attacks as bad as before, though I still tend to think a lot, something that I probably can't change since that is who I am.

Going back to laundry, while some people tend to find inner peace by listening to sound of the waves crashing over the rocks on a deserted seashore, the sound of the wind blowing past with the cry of gulls as they fly overhead, I find my inner peace in more everyday places...a washing machine for one...the soft whir of its motor as it agitates the water back and forth for me is like a heartbeat...and the splashes remind me of some mysterious, dark, turbulent sea...

In the few minutes constituting a single cycle, I forget my past failures...my unsuccessful attempts at career advancement...the girl who sometimes won't even give me the time of day...the debts that I have to pay...and for the brief amount of time...it's Nirvana.

And doing laundry is a hell of a lot cheaper (and more legal) then taking prohibited drugs.

That's it for today. I have to switch cycles again.