Now I am sick. A week of lack of sleep has obviously compromised my immune system and I am sick and wide awake. No rhyme no reason, just wide awake. I have been waiting for more than two months to attend the writing symposium at the college and now it seems I am going to be sick. I want to go anyway. I need to go. I need to feel as though I am working toward something. And I am terrified. I am afraid to want this, I am afraid to want anything because it is so very disappointing when it doesn't happen. I find it difficult to enjoy the wonderful family I am so very lucky to have when I so desperately want, no need, to feel as though I am doing something.

My Darling says I am negative. I always see the dark side. It's true, I am a pessimist. I am not confident that everything will work out or everything has a reason. Life is random. Good people die and leave broken families, or they just leave. I have been disappointed so many times I feel as though pessimism is my only defense. I have no hope for the future other than the desperate hope that we will be able to survive. That nothing will happen to my husband who is not only my love and safety rope keeping me from falling into the abyss but the sole provider to our family. He is all that stands between us and the total devastation of our life and my sanity. He is everything to me and I am afraid that I will drive him away.

I wear out my friends. I require effort to be around. Even my therapist says she believes I am a challenge to be around. She forgives me because I am kind and I genuinely care about people. Every day I grumble about how much I hate people but really I don't, I never have. I care about them all, even the ones who tip bad or flip me off when I tap my horn to let them know the light turned green...a while ago. All of humanity struggles, loves, loses and hopes for happiness. I cry about the people who can not see past their own good fortune to appreciate the plight of the less fortunate. The children of addicts and the addicts themselves. The people lost in greed and the ones living in poverty. I am a pessimist and I am an idealist. I live in a world filled with hate and I wish for love. A world of callousness and I beg for kindness. I am surrounded by anger and sadness, people living lives of quite desperation (the last part is not my words but it resonates in me) and I wish Peace.

How do I do it? How do I give up my fear and try to fly when I am so very sure I will fall to my death, the death of my spirit yet again? How many times can I die and rise again? And how, how do I explain to My Darling how much I love him when he can see that it is not enough? I wish what I have could be enough. The first therapist may have had it right. The key to my salvation may be to figure out how to be happy with everything as it is.

I am not intellectually stimulated but that is my fault. Even without school, advanced degrees or challenging careers I can stimulate my mind, I did it before, even in the depths of my depressions I sought knowledge and soaked it up like a sponge. And I wrote, every day. Here and artistically. I expressed myself, with poetry, short stories and a record of my place here in time. These words that few read, not even deserving of a counter and with no real desire to extend my reach, just a place to think, somewhere I can work it out, figure out where I stand at this moment.

I have been standing on the edge of a cliff, afraid to jump, sure that only another death awaits me. I thought I could linger there because the company is so good, but I am not good. I am not good for the people who love me. I am negative and cranky, all the time. They suffer at my hands. I strike out when I know they are doing the best they can. I have the ability to love my Baby Boy unconditionally, and I have loved My Darling the best I can but I think I might be able to do better. I think I might be able to remember that I am negative, and I am challenging to be around and he loves me anyway. How can I not give him the same in return?

I care about people, I love deeply yet fearfully. I must let go of my fear that there will be another death, that I will burn the place down and sit in the ashes yet again. I have been chained for too long and I need to break free. Still, does anyone have a hacksaw I can borrow because I am not really sure how to do this. I have a runny nose and watery eyes, I am exhausted and a wreck but I am keeping on, chain or no, because I don't know what else to do.

*sigh*

Now, to sleep (I hope).

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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