TheBanyanTree: Middle of the Night Depressing Bullshit

[Maria Gibson]

It doesn't necessarily start out that way, but disappointment can become 
a self fulfilling prophecy.  I don't want to be disengaged and yet I 
remain distant so that no matter how far I reach out, I never get 
close.  I don't get close to those I love, I don't get close to those 
who need me, I don't get close to myself.  I continue to be at least two 
arm's length not only from who I used to be but to who I have come to 
realize I need to be in order to figure out who I am destined to be.  
God knows, this isn't it.  It wasn't always this way and I'm not sure 
when the tides turned on me.

So it begins as a little trouble here and there.  Mostly things are ok 
but a slip up from time to time is like a little red flashing light 
under the desk that no one pays much attention to.  The alarm is silent 
and the panic button has dust on it.  A person certainly can get away 
with an awful lot like that.  Excuses are handy and plausible, hardly 
ever used so they are still shiny and clean.  As time meanders on as 
time is wont to do, the trouble gets a little bigger and the excuses get 
a little scuffed up but, still, functioning is at a good level.  Time to 
get new excuses.  Time to drag out the bigger and bigger guns so that 
the person firing can remain calm knowing the fire power is bigger and 
better than the enemy but unfortunately never knowing the enemy is 
within.  This is where the vortex of sucking begins.  The whirlpool may 
be understood to be taking the heart and soul in but has actually become 
the heart and soul and is dragging everything in with them, down and 
down and down to a place that is never ending.  Just down.  Down becomes 
a way of life and there are no excuses and no attempt at any.  The 
lights are large flashing domes, the wailing of alarms is deafening and 
the panic button is getting a workout but no help arrives.  Look under 
the desk, the panic button has been disconnected.  Funny.  So have I.  
Not really funny ha ha, just.  Funny.

Well, now, everyone is alarmed, everyone is in a panic and running 
around like chickens without heads but with blood spurting madly all 
over the friggin' yard and the other chickens aren't digging this crazy 
scene, man, because it's actually just the one chicken with the 
problem.  Some problem, no head and no plan.  Chickens can be driven to 
insanity watching one of their own kind having that kind of trouble.  
But the poor chicken without the head no longer knows what to do to help 
itself so it just flails about and would be clucking for help except for 
the annoying problem of the mouth being attached to the head that's 
being kicked around like a tennis ball.  Damn, I hate all that dust in 
my mouth and no handy wing to rub my lips on.  It's across the yard and 
flapping wildly in a tizzy.  I hate a tizzy, too.

So.  Here we are.  Plan A and plan B are laying on their backs, sides 
heaving with lack of oxygen.  I don't know what plan C is.  Fiddle dee 
dee as Scarlett said.  I'll worry about it tomorrow.

Maria