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I plan on quitting my job this week.  I can't really stand it anymore.  I love Walgreens, I do, it's just..I feel like my soul is dying.  If I have one.  The company has been heading in a downhill spiral for a while now and I'm just not happy working there anymore.  I can't stand it when customers need a plastic bag for a pack of gum.  I get so fucking angry inside.  I just want to bitch them out.  People are so fucking selfish.  Who cares if our world gets covered in bags that won't break down for a thousand years?  Who cares?  They won't be around, so it doesn't matter to them.  I'm also tired of this "Do absolutely anything short of literally kissing their asses" frame of mind we're supposed to have.  I can't do it anymore.  The drive to work takes me at least thirty minutes, in which I have to fight with other drivers on the road to get where I'm going in a reasonable amount of time.  It's so stressful.  Then there's my store.  I really like my manager.  It's extremely laid back at my store, but maybe that's part of the problem.  I see all of my coworkers constantly breaking basic rules, and I can't even get mad about it.  But it drives me nuts inside.  I watch one coworker, who is getting paid at least a dollar more an hour than me, arrive late for his shift EVERY SINGLE DAY.  The best part?  This kid lives literally a block from my store.  He can walk to work and he's always at least twenty minutes late.  And I don't think he's been written up or anything, even.  WTF? I'm sorry, but in what job can you show up when you want and not get in trouble?  It's bullshit.  And I've never really felt comfortable in my store.  Everyone who works there started when the store opened.  They all live really near each other, too, and at least half of them even went to high school together.  They go out all the time, and I've never once been invited.  I ended up having a meltdown the other day, because I got fucked over.  We had this community day thing, and I was asked to work the morning shift instead of at night, so I could help with things.  Well, I get to work only to be told that I must be on the register inside all day.  So while every other person got to hang out outside, I was trapped at the counter inside.  Then, they had our main cashier come in to help.  My manager told me that this cashier would be relieving me so I could enjoy the festivities.  Well, the cashier shows up and says she's not going on the register.  Instead of my manager telling her to get on the register, she just shrugs her shoulders.  Fuck that.  I'm over it.  After crying the whole shift, not a single one of my coworkers got ahold of me later to see if I was okay.  Thanks, friends.  Oh well, I'm bigger and better than all this bullshit.  I've got to keep my sanity, and this seems to be the only way.

The past will haunt us for years to come.

I became an adult around the age of ten or so.  Both of my parents have suffered from mental illness for decades, and to this day, they still need me far too much.  If I don't drive the 300-some miles back to their home every few months, they start saying things in phone calls that make me feel terribly guilty.  I want to live my own life!!  I moved away-let me go, please!  A phone call with them last night ended up bringing me to tears afterwards.  Am I really strong enough to have two grown adults relying on me constantly?  How am I the strongest?  When I was born, why was I automatically chosen to be my parents' parent?  Almost a decade ago, I had to talk my father off of a balcony in the middle of the night.  I can't tell you how many times my parents have threatened to end their lives over one thing or another.  Why must I keep them grounded?  When my mother finally realized that her doctor had her on too high of a dose of pain pills years ago, I was the one taking care of my younger sister while my mother was horribly ill from the withdrawal symptoms.  I did all of this while battling my own severe depression for over a decade.  Somedays, I truly wonder how I am still alive.  If it were for a few amazing friends and the music I love so much, I doubt I'd be here.  It's taken years of therapy, medication, and moving out of my parents' house to finally learn to love myself.  I missed out on so much in life already, all because my father hates himself.  How can I cure the depression I hear seeping out of my cell phone when I talk to him and my mom?  I can't.  Of course I started out college as a Psychology major; I've essentially been a therapist my whole life already.  I've had to talk my parents out of hurting themselves and each other.  I cried so hard last night while telling Chris about all of this.  I never really got to be a kid.  I mean, yea, I did, but at the same time, I had the weight of the world on my shoulders.  Having three other people depend on my so heavily: no wonder I want children now.  I can't fix my parents or their pasts, but I can create beautiful children someday with my future husband, and I can raise them so that they enjoy every second of their childhood, and so they never have to grow up too soon.  Sometimes I feel like the strongest person in the world.  Other days I just wonder, why me?
I know that this responsibility has been chosen for me.  I didn't have a say in the matter.  And they're my family.
  So I'll do this without another complaint.