Hello old friend... *sigh*

"Wise as a serpent - gentle as a dove."

Life... is a very fickle thing.

Always up and down - never the same for long. Change after change after change. Never consistent... never easy.

I feel so strange these days... so very scattered. It's like I was hit over and over again with stuff, until I was finally on my knees. Even then the blows didn't stop. They just kept coming, yet I tried to pick myself back up - to compose myself and fight off whatever was coming at me. But I couldn't, because I could never quite catch my footing. Not until I was flat on the ground did the blows stop.  After that... I just felt heavy. And weak. Tired. Useless. Couldn't move... didn't want to. So I stayed there.

But now... now I'm getting restless. I want to be alive again. I want to believe there is good in the world - that there is hope. I want to open my heart up again as if I never knew hurt and pain. I want these wounds to heal... oh, how I want them to go away. I want to be able to have confident answers instead of unsure questions. I want to feel sunshine instead of damp. I want to love unselfishly. I want to feel loved, instead of just used. I want to open up again, and say goodbye to the turtle shell I've been hiding in. ::sigh::

I want to stand.

Yet as I lie here, I can't seem to recall how. How does one start over again? And how do you do so when everything else is telling you not to - that it's not worth it? How do you fight when you simply cannot?

Finally...