oh, sister.

This is about me. Some things are. I've been carrying the universe on my shoulders, and trying to balance it, too. To the universe, I say I'm sorry, but I need to let you down. To me, I say I'm sorry, but I'm out of rope.

I thought I was going to fall, but I've since landed, only to realize that it wasn't a deepening hole beneath me, but the ground. The very real, very rocky, and sometimes slippery ground. I can't say that I've landed on my feet, but I'm getting up now and I can't let anyone tell me to get back down. Not anyone. I'm dirty and I'm writing it down.

It's been a hard year. Creatively stifling, heartbreakingly disappointing, moderately overbearing, and sometimes just plain ugly. I'm taking a few steps back, assessing the damage, and trying to get back to being right again. I haven't changed, but the lighting's bad, and I've been someone else's duck in a row. I've hated it. It ruins everything I try to write and makes anything I say translate poorly. I have plans, and they don't include falling into place if said place is only where someone else says I should be.

That said, I'm calling some things off. There's cause, there's effect, and then there's a root, or a core. Whatever you want to call it, it's there, beneath your feet, underground. Or maybe it is your feet, planted there solid, safe from the weather, but not the tide.

Knowing this, I'd say it's come time to dig up the dirt and have a look at what's been killing me. It ain't always pretty.

"It's a slow rolling thunder that keeps the blue jays at bay, and the blue jays say she's pretty so it must be true."