Hollowed out and crushed. 

I think that’s a good way to put it. Doesn’t mean that all is lost, just that there’s not much else to give without being filled back up. 

The important thing, to be clear, is that I still exist. And that’s a powerful thing to take away. 

 One of the worst feelings: wanting something so bad for so long only to have it break before it’s finished. 

Optimism is just shooting yourself in the foot, but closing your eyes first. 

 I have waves. 

I am a pendulum. 

Good days. 

Bad days. All with an ebb and flow. 

But, lately, I feel like an oil slick has crept over my surface I no longer feel the warm reflection of the sun. 

I guess this is decent metaphor for depression.  

I've been feeling a little more, in very small increments - mind, that I'm becoming more detached from the world as I know it. I don't know if this could be attributed to just being tired, being paranoid, and having an overactive imagination - or - I'm just getting older and seeing the beginning wrinkles of something more serious.

For instance, nearly every night when I'm driving a long stretch of dark road on my way home from work, there's always something that dances just outside the field of vision my headlights provide. Granted, that's a shadow's specialty, but it doesn't make it any less potent for turning my stomach into a fist. With that, I've also seen amorphous shadows dance across the road or my windshield, prompting a heavy tap on the brakes. I know it's nothing, but there's always a tickle in the back of my mind that tells me otherwise. Regardless, this is a road I've traveled since I could first drive and I doubt new secrets would unearth themselves, nor that I'm becoming aware of things I wasn't able to perceive when I was younger. It's just weird. And turning in on myself as I like to do, I'm just wondering how much longer my brain can hold out before it unravels and I start buying in to all the crazy conspiracies out there instead of entertaining them like fun what-if works of fiction.

No one really explained this party about living in your 30's.

It seems that the same old things will always haunt me through that dreaming state of stress and anxiety when I least expect it.

I have a lot of unresolved dilemmas floating around in my brain lately.

Mostly to do with social things like gender and equality, those sorts of riffs. And it's nothing that's denying anyone who they truly want to be. There's just so much I don't understand about why anyone wants to squash those identities or ideals. And on the flip side of that, I'm a person that always has a lot of questions, because I really like understanding - seeing the cogs turns - and every time I get the chance to have a relationship with someone that is more empathetic to these ways of life, my questions come across as crass and insensitive, which is the last thing I'm truly trying to promote.

All in all, everyone has the thinnest skin these days and the time where you could speak freely without walking on egg shells is diminishing. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but it does pose more of a challenge than it should. People should know who their networks are and who honestly means well and who doesn't.

I guess I'm just frustrated because I feel guilty all the time just for being who I am and for that having been the baseline norm for so long.

Excuse me. 

That romantic idea in the back of your brain... quell it. It's dead in the water already and you're no closer to realizing that fake sense of fulfillment that was on the tip of your supreme conscious.