Laboring

There comes a point in everyone's life where they realize that all the choices they make are made because of outside forces guiding them towards each decision, not because of personal motives.

For example.
I was perfectly fine with my current sheets and bedspread.
Yes, the sheets were a see-through pale pink and the comforter was a dark black that picked up everything from cat hair to cum, but they weren't ripped or stained beyond repair.

Then, my cat decided to poo on the the comforter.
So I washed it.
He did it again.
I washed it again.

After the third time of coming home to cat turds on my bed, I said FUCK IT and threw it out.

Three nights of using my robe as a blanket later, I decided to invest the $20 into a new shitty comforter from Target.
I then decided, why not spent the additional $15 on a brand new sheet set.
Hot pink sheets and a teal comforter.
Not only did this brighten up my room, but it got me excited enough to finally put up my Ikea mirrors, after over a year and two apartments of them never being removed from their original packaging.

Of course, other choices are much bigger and much more life changing.

After seeing a few clips on Jezebel.com of that A&E show, Intervention, I youtubed it and found episode upon episode, commercial-free, for my late night enjoyment.

If you haven't seen this show (because your television is like mine and only picks up 3 channels with fuzz), someone with an addiction (such as speedballing) or a disease (such as anorexia), is "tricked" into thinking they are being filmed for a documentary about said problem. Little do they know, their family is really just setting them up to have a huge intervention where they are basically told that if they don't get help THAT DAY, that they will be cut off and instead forced to hit rock bottom and fix it themselves or die and disappoint all the people in that room who love them (or something as equally dramatic as that.)

I spent 3 hours watching the stories of the speedballing bulemic with an equally bulemic mother, the anorexic who was date raped by multiple men in college, and the computer duster huffing daughter of the father who left her after she had been molested as a child.

Serious problems.
Most of these people did NOT want help. They would cry, yell, and in the case of the huffer, kick and scream until the police had to handcuff her and take her to the hospital.

In the end, all of these people went to treatment centers. They made this choice because of others influence and pushing. And they all turned out better for it.

When we are children, we fight against being forced to do something. We lay on the ground and scream and cry and refuse to do it, even it's something as simple as wearing socks (I still am not a huge fan of socks). Yet we always succumb and years later we see our parents were right and we thank them for it.
The addicts and alcoholics of Intervention are like children, forced into simple mindsets because of their diseases and drug addictions. They fight just the same but once they give in and get the help they need, they see how the persuasion of their friends and loved ones made them make a choice that they didn't know they needed.

So I thank my cat for shitting on my comforter.
I now find my room much more comfortable and it even got me to clean it a bit more (not all the way, I still have a life.)

I also thank the bartender at the wedding I attended this weekend for over-serving me so incredibly much that the entire next day I could only puke, sleep, and curse the sunlight.

Her choice to liquor me up so well, has made me choose to stop drinking as much and seriously consider pouring out what is left of my gin.

But until my cat shits on that too, I will probably not pour it out.
At least I'm not addicted.
Yet.