on becoming a robot in society

I've been unwell for three weeks. I started seeing someone three weeks ago.
Why do the two coincide?

I went to the doctor's a week ago. She told me I had a virus. Of course, there was nothing I could do about that. I refuse to take medication. I merely hate the idea of taking powdered balls to chemically alter my body. Don't we breathe in enough chemicals? Don't we induce enough chemicals into our foods? I can't stand it. Pills, and medication to feel better. How has this become such an accepted way to our society? What happened to rest? To exercise? To taking care of our precious tool: the body. The abuse we put ourselves through... and then the abuse we blame everyone else for... I can never wrap my head around it.

But it has been three weeks and although my days aren't so bad, my nights, I feel much worse. Coughing up my lungs, struggling to do that simple thing we call breathing. Feeling much like I may die before morning comes. What an awful thought... what an awful feeling.

I told the doctor I've been sick and need something to fix me up because I'm tired of it. He prescribed me medication. Two pills a day that I should probably take with food because it will upset my stomach. In fact, if it happens to upset my stomach so badly, I should probably shift to only one pill a day. Great. The lovely results of medication. I told him I needed birth control too. He passed it out as if it was free candy at a parade. I told him I never had it before. He looked at me blankly. What? So I decide now it's a good idea to be safe, get over it.

I didn't think much of it until I got to the pharmacy. I handed in my prescription and shopped around for twenty minutes. Finished. Grabbed myself a magazine to read why Katie wanted things to end with Tom. I can't believe it took three years for that headline to make the page. My beeper buzzed, and like Pavlov's dog, I responded accordingly, wandering over to receive my scripts. I waited a minute for the pharmacist to have a chat with me about my prescriptions. She repeated the upset stomach side effects; eating food when taking the meds; making sure it's at the same time of the day; repeating for ten days. Then she sent me off. I didn't go anywhere. I looked at her and asked, "what about the other one?"

She gave me that same look, "Oh, this is your first time with this one as well?"

Why is that such a big surprise to everyone? Do I look like a whore? Clearly not. I figured it's probably a good idea to be smart about these things, especially since I am an expecting aunt to a child who was a mistake. Poor kid. Perhaps, we're all mistakes and our parents just make us believe we were wanted and planned....

So here I was, standing at the counter hearing all the things I heard before about birth control.
Be sure to take it everyday at the same time.
If you miss a day, don't double up.
For the first three months, use another form of protection.
It will take the three months to regulate your body.
Are you regular already? No. Pregnancy scares all the time.
This may in fact regulate your periods then.
The end week are sugar pills. You can take them in order to develop the habit of taking pills every day, but if you don't, remember to start your pills again the following week.
Start on Sunday.

Oh God. Pills to robot my body into regulation and prevent the gift of life? Just to have sex?
Welp, seems worth it.

Why doesn't it feel right though? Why do I struggle to take man-made medications- that of vitamins, cough syrup, sore throat, birth control...? I just cannot fathom using chemicals to voluntarily pollute my body more than it already is. Is it because I've been reading too many science fiction stories for my topics in literature course!? That can't be it. I felt strongly about pills long before that course. A pill everyday? Don't skip, don't double up, don't rely one hundred per cent... oh fuck, don't tell me what to do! But then what... get pregnant? Don't have sex? Are either of those even an option!? Is staying sick an option?

Maybe I need to change cultures. Go somewhere you can pop kids out as they come. Somewhere we eat natural foods. That place where the sky is blue and the grass is green, the air is fresh, and chemicals just simply do not exist. The place love can be expressed safely and freely and people are healthy and do what they want to do, anytime of the day.

Maybe I should just go write my paper on culture....

Tuesday April 22 2008. earth day... wish it was as clean as my dreams.