i'm remembering where and when and how and why'd you have to go so far

so i bought this bottle of tylenol to avert an impending fever, and was somewhat confounded by the bottle. the instructions embossed on the bottle cap says: "line-up arrows. push off". it took me a few seconds to figure out what that meant, and despite following the instructions clearly, it still took quite a bit of effort. and i was wondering: are kids these days that smart that they have to come up with increasingly confusing ways to open pill bottles. whatever happened to putting: "keep out of reach of children" on the bottle and allowing parents to do their jobs? the pill bottle says something about society that kind of unnerves me.

another revelation: increasingly, i'm beginning to understand why my life feels messy. i'm really just a bad person, and i need to be good. perhaps if i was a better person, better things would start happening. maybe this whole thing has been the universe teaching me a lesson: don't be an asshole. the worst part is that sometimes i feel like i'm doing my best, and my instincts somehow just get the better of me. i don't know what to do, and life is hard. perhaps i should start by recognizing that everyone has the right to choose, and that i should make my decisions in a way that allows other people to make the best of their choices, even if these choices are not the ones i hope they would make.

finally, an open note to someone who will probably never read this, which is probably for the better: whether or not you meant to, you hurt me very badly and something like that leaves a huge mark. i'm sorry that my craziness intruded into your little charmed life, but sometimes, you have to take some responsibility for who you let in through your door. i'm not blaming you, i just can't take all the blame for myself. you're entitled to believe in your own infallibility, but that doesn't make me any more of a bad person. i would really appreciate that at the end of the day, after all the nice things i've said to try and make things up to you, you would at least find some decency to think of me as a person worth your time. that said, i've done everything i can that would prevent me from bothering you again. for the unfortunate occasions when our paths will cross in the next school year, i hope we'll at least be civil. i know i'm not insane, and that i'm not hopeless. i don't need you to shake whatever little confidence i'm rebuilding.