19 January 1999

Vent

I sit here, staring at the screen, face tinged blue by its reflection, holding an insistenly purring cat on my shoulder and typing, with difficulty, with my free hand. The words come out oddly spaced, I must delete often.

It is the middle of the night and I can't sleep, faced my the monsters of indecision, doubt and anxiety. One roars in my head about the necessities of financial security, the other wheedles about the missed opportunities of "the road not taken" and the last simply whines about the difficulty of it all, how to pick a path, how to choose. Why, why, why?

Classes started tonight and what a long class it was. I stare down the road at the semester, still stretching before me and I am frightened at the prospect. I tried to cut myself a break for this one, but I see only that it will be just as difficult as it was last time, that I will feel the same strain, feel divided loyalties and in general, not really live life but simply skip from one event to the next in a string of days, over and over again, without really learning anything, without having time to pause and appreciate the beauty of the new concepts, words, ideas.

I tear the different angles of the problem apart, trying to see a way through. But almost all ways that I can find are blocked in some way and I feel I am walking the bridge of swords, where one false move can lead to shredding pain and anguish.

These moments of indecision, make me glad that I am not the captain of a nuclear submarine. I don't think I could stand that pressure any more than I can this.