Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Dam Will Break. Someday. I hope.

    There is some force blocking my luck. A Luck Dam. This being the case, my luck is piling up in a huge reservoir, waiting to burst free and shower me with fortune. I have to hope this, because it seems as if day by day, week by week, life is yanking me up by the short hairs, flaunting my misfortune, taunting me with all the missed chances, rejections and disappointments. It just doesn't seem to end. I try to change my luck, I keep trying to push forward, but it isn't happening.
    How long can I cling to optimism when it is doing me no favors?
    I know I should "count my blessings" in the vernacular of the Christian sheep, and there are some if I look at the lives of my children. But there comes a point when it is not right to live vicariously through your children. They have their lives and I have mine, and so I have to grow up and live through my own triumphs. But triumphs are hard to come by. I am in a job that makes me miserable, living on the teetering brink of poverty, unable to pursue dreams because in our world the poor are not given much opportunity to better their situation. It is a difficult thing to admit, it borders on the treasonous, the feeling of defeat. That gut deep feeling that no matter how hard I try, it will do me no good. All I do is generate false hope to artificially lift my spirits for a few days, then cold reality deflates my bubble of optimism and I realize that I am further down the scree covered slope than I was before. How far down can I go? I guess there is still plenty of room to fall. I do hope that I don't fall much further down than I am now, I don't know if I can handle that.
    Yes, this is a pity party. I am talking to hear the sound of my own voice, because I know that no one else really wants to hear my complaints, and I don't really want to be confessing just how down I feel that I have fallen.
    This last year has been a series of failures and losses, large and small. And very few triumphs, and none of them major. I cannot think of a single thing about my life that is better than it was a year ago. No, I take that back, I am writing more and weighing less. Both are from sheer force of will, and my need to have some iota of control over my life. What can I control? Not my job, the economy, my housing situation, my growing debt, my shrinking assets, relationship (or lack of), depression that comes and goes at will... hell, even my menstrual cycle is off kilter and unpredictable.
    So I can control the words that generate in my brain and flow through my fingertips. And I can control the food that I put in my system, even though my shrinking budget is going to affect my ability to keep buying those nutrients as freely as I would like. I can control how much I work my body, I can't control the constant pain and fatigue, but I can try to ignore it.
    They say that nothing really worth having is easily obtained. And I can't argue that. But how fucking hard does it have to be? I mean really? How much must I suffer for my art? It has made me weary beyond belief. I am so worn down by my life right now that my dream life would be the luxury of being left alone, never leaving my property, being totally self sufficient and self sustaining. I dream of this. But it will not happen any time soon. There is still suffering to be had.
    So I pick myself up. Again. Dust myself off. Again. Because there is no one to lift me, no one to share the load, I have to do it myself or I will remain sprawled in the dirt. And that is not acceptable. But damn, I'm getting tired.
    I just tell myself that the Dam will break, my luck will flow freely, and the darkness will be a dim memory. I have to believe it. I have to.

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