New Manifestation? Or Same Old Song and Dance?

    Still trying to regain my balance and footing. I don't know why I am struggling so hard against whatever this bleakness is. I could easily lay the blame on heart break, heartache, and rejection, but that seems too trite and plebeian. There has to be more to it than that. I can't have been so deeply effected by just one thing. Can I? No. Despite the barrage of dreams to the contrary, I know there has to be more to it than that. Yes, I am still feeling as if there is a blankness to the very core of my being, an emptiness, a force field that deflects and negates positive energy and joyful emotions. Oddly, this is like no other winter melancholy I have known, and trust me, I am a bit of an expert on my various stages of melancholy. Maybe this is just a new manifestation. A mutation, grown out of my ever increasing physicality that has somehow altered the way my heart and spirit are dealing with my regular visitations to peer down into the darkness of the abyss. I know that when a motion causes the body pain,the body will become reluctant to repeat the motion, even over-riding the brain to some extent, lessening the motion in order to lessen the pain. Maybe this is what Spirit is doing, learning from repeated blows that it is time to back off, circle the wagons, throw up defensive walls to any and all intruders, benign or malevolent. I have always known I can be a slow learner, maybe this is one such case. Hit me over the head often enough with an idea and eventually it will sink in? Is that what has happened? Maybe this is merely self-preservation at its most extreme. Somehow that is slightly more comforting than the thought that I have finally broken, snapped, succumbed, given up entirely. Defense I can understand, surrender I cannot. But it seems as if this is all far beyond my control, I have no say in the matter. I have even tried to buck the tide, force the issue, get back in the game as it were, but to no avail. I have tapped into my vast arsenal, tried and discarded one weapon after the other, as they all prove ineffectual against this strange, new, shadowy adversary. Maybe, this time around, it will not be a war won by direct assault, but a war of attrition. I will keep using all the weapons at my disposal, despite my lack of success, because I really don't know what else to do. Definition of insanity? "Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result." I have never tried to deny that I am crazy, but that was one aspect that to this point I had tried to avoid. Now it seems it is my only recourse. Oddly, another version, said to be the original version, comes from Narcotics Anonymous, "Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results." Maybe that is the crux, I repeat the same mistake, I lead with my heart, and see where it has gotten me. Or maybe it is just a new manifestation of the same old melancholy, a new face on a familiar demon, same old song and dance but just a different tempo? Regardless, there is nothing for it but to keep moving forward, getting up each morning, throwing myself into training, pushing Body to the limits so I can fall into bed at night exhausted, then start it all over again. I just don't know. This time, I just can't figure it out.