Occasionally I find it astonishingly painful to be facing another blank, lifeless editing blog box.  It gathers first in my chest like a fisted hand gripping a dozen straight pins then slowly radiates a sort of tingly yet decidedly strained, prickly sensation out to my extremities until my heart feels drained and even the tips of my fingers seem stiff and nullified.

At this point my brain usually comes to the rescue frantically seeking diversions by seriously entertaining every possible alternative to writing that it can find.

 I realized earlier today that I'd taken a hard hit from my own apprehension when I found myself underdressed and sullen outside in our small backyard with a pail and garden shovel in hand, wading through the puddles of yesterday's unfortunate summer rainfall, mechanically scooping soggy piles of dog poop.

 Could this be any less debasing than pounding out my discontent at this keyboard even if only in verbiage drafted from the dark side?  I think not and question a brain that sees such a distasteful chore and my writing both in the same dim light.

What I fear most is not being heard, which is ironic since I've arranged my life to attract rejection and reflect convention; both of which quite naturally indicate moderate levels of emotional repression as well as heavily edited modes of communication.

You'd think I would have cultivated a more assertive, flamboyant persona and a cunning stable of tricks to make myself appealing.  Appealing people are always listened to even when they are wrong.

When I really stop and think about it, I don't actually know why I want to be heard or even specifically what it is I want to relate.  Nothing within me is fully-formed and the small bits that are remain largely dysfunctional.  I have a great deal of animated half thoughts and a mind bank of partial truths, but I've learned that you can get into a lot of trouble dealing in fractions.

Fractions are only of any benefit if they add up to a whole.  Although that rule would be voided if I were absorbed with the baking of cakes or postulating in the laboratories and halls of science or formulating in the field of mathematics.  But in my world halves of anything means 'not quite enough.'

 Sometimes for no big, overriding reason (but for a hundred small ones that shouldn't matter at all), I find myself lagging at the bottom of the top and barely able to hold my focus long enough to complete a single thought let alone an entire sentence. And even if I do manage a whole, comprehensible thought, I find no valid reason to share it.

But the tides will turn.

With the exception of the very potent ones every emotional ripple flattens out and conforms to the ocean at some point.  There are those histrionic or depressive waves that can often become tidal and tend to wreak a great deal of unhappiness and destruction before finally lapping into some newly formed gully or bay of reluctant adaptation.  

However, I think that level of discontent may require restraints and serious medication.

Of course, there is always a risk when you let despondency hold your hand in a moment of weakness.  Your soul gets lazy and before you know it the two of them are necking in the backseat of your brain. By the time you've caught on, they've conceived a full-scale depression and drafted you into surrogacy.

If you're not careful, you'll wind up an unwed manic depressive dialoging with disembodied voices and men in white coats.

I can usually arrest this tendency in the gloaming between melancholy and clinical gloom but it almost always requires an even deeper, lengthier sequestering than is normal even for one so wedded to solitude as myself.  

And because I have several crucial roles in this sentient production, I can't that easily bow out and lock my dressing room door without incurring the wrath of my fellow actors nor without some risk to the quality of the play itself.  At least as it is in its present revival.

But that's okay.  It's good to keep busy.  And as for the lifting of this malignant haze, it has already begun.  In the course of my long-winded whining, the sun has come out and with it, a glimpse of hearty rebounding.

Who can remain tethered to tears and loathing as birds suddenly appear along with the smattering of green particles of new growth from limbs to lawns?

Alright, so I may be forcing it a bit.  The last thing that could possibly lift me out of any funk would be finding a resemblance between my own words and the mawkish refrains of a Carpenter's song.

I know from past experience that darkness always recedes eventually and in the meantime you just have to hang on to the idea that it is never too late to start over.  We've only just begun.....sing it, Karen....

Today, even that is better than nothing at all.