I’m seeing that there are a stack of factors contributing to my degraded mental health in the last few weeks. In my effort to be constructive, there are some steps I’d like to take in addition to diligence respected since last required. On that specifically: the one activity I have neglected has been my exercise, which I am suspending only because of the air quality. My recognition of the state of emotional decline does not have a logically rationalized outcome, despite my brain trying to address it as such. Some factors simply have to be understood or accepted as they are. I don’t have any sort of spirituality, but I do have a sort of faith that my own struggles were necessary to harden me into who I am now. How I proceed with my “struggle” will define who I am, what I stand for and provide a path forward from despair.

The accountability of self-honest justification binds me. Period. I wear such shame from the past as it is now… crushing shame. Memories I can’t ever erase or actions I cannot undo. Why would I further burden myself with new regret when life under the weight I have can be relentless? When I stare into the mirror, I see someone who I was ashamed of, for a time. How should I spend these precious additional days I have been granted? What is going to help alleviate the burden on my consciousness? What must I do to not continue to be someone I regret being?

I don’t feel anything but agony in surrender. I do not have zero worth. No one has zero worth. There is always something within that is 100% unique. I have that too, and it enables me to give back honestly, proudly. In the end, I’m only looking at myself. Only I have seen the whole journey. Can I ever be truly understood, or better yet, who would want to know? I contend that may not be anyone who would care enough to untangle such an elaborate, confounding knot.

I try to measure reality in terms of variables that are unlikely to change, and ones that are. I have moved companionship to a nearly inactive state, which has its own consequences. I have been in a mode where the avenue to this potential emotionally effusive destination is little more than a cul de sac of my own consternation. Having changed as much as I have in recent years, I begin to feel a glimmer that I may have acquired the skills to, at least, increase the probability of being successful. Maybe I’m sabotaging myself by having a standard of expectation to high to be met or to high to be rationally deserved. All I have left to do is experiment with the variables I can change, and hope for a positive outcome of some kind.

This blog has always been my thought stream splash pad, and now more than ever I am glad I have a place I can go to work through the various responses to my symptoms and changing factors in my circumstance. To survive, and not be at the mercy of my surroundings, my behaviors, actions, thoughts and expectations have changed. Is this a 2.0 moment, or are we still in beta?