The Loose Rug of Life

First off, I just wanna welcome my homey Black Erick to the readership. What's that bring me up to now? Five? I know I have Maria, Waffles, Mistah Welch, Coinstar, A-Ham and Marteen . . . so seven, with Black added. Welcome aboard sir. It's quite a party, I promise.

Anyway.

You ever just get the rug YANKED out from under your feet? Like . . . you're just chillin' like a villain, ready for some normal, everyday (but freakin' amazingly awesome) stuff, when something just . . . happens. And your world gets turned on its elbow, but it's really turned on its ass - because your world is so confusing and so confused that it doesn't know its elbow from its ass (wow that was eloquent).

What're you supposed to do when shit like that goes down? Psychoanalytic theory states that you would want to subconsciously keep things as they had been - a mild form of regression (and I only know that because I'm studying it for my major). But . . . that just leads to even more confusion - and in worst case scenarios, pain - because your common sense begins to see what your emotions either can't or don't want to see . . . that at the moment, things CAN'T be as they had been, and that trying to keep them like that would be just about as successful (and frustrating) as trying to keep water in your cupped hands: the more you try to keep it, the more pieces just seem to leave your grasp. The moment when you become conscious of this fact is one of the hardest moments you will ever live through - when you realize that the tighter you're trying to hold on, the faster what you're trying to save is slipping away.

It's a rough place to be in.

Trust me.

It's maddening. Absolutely maddening. Every single instinct and mental and emotional defense that you've honed to abso-fucking-lute perfection - for JUST this sort of thing - just suddenly decides to take a vacation, and you're left with your common sense and your emotions battling it out. You KNOW that things will be strange and unfamiliar for at least some time, and if you're optimistic (like I am), you fervently hope that things will work themselves out eventually for the better, and are willing to do whatever it takes to help things along to that end.

However, while you know all this, your feelings get in the way. They want instant gratification - you catch yourself thinking "if only I had a magic wand, I'd fix this . . ." which is a nice, imaginative thought. But when you actually start believing that there's something in the real world equivalent to that magic wand, something that could be said or done or given or removed that would somehow hit Life's "reset" button and put shit back the way it was - THEN, you're in trouble. And the worst part is, you won't even know it until you say or do something EXTREMELY retarded.

Because then it may be too late. It may not be, but it may be, and if you give HALF a shit about whatever it is, you're going to find yourself in a pretty fucked up state of mind (and if you're feeling like this to begin with, you give about 13019821093821093813098124 halves of a shit about whatever it is, so you're extra screwed). You'll realize that through all your efforts, through every word and action that you meticulously chose in order to maximize the chance of making things right, not only have you failed presently, you very well may have failed permanently, and that's enough to drive anybody crazy (or crazier, depending on the individual).

Because there are physical effects as well as mental and emotional ones. You'll stop sleeping at night, yet be perpetually in a state of near-exhaustion, so you're either nearly falling asleep or completely falling asleep during the day. Your appetite will fluctuate - you'll be starving until you take that first bite, and then your appetite will take flight (I did a little rhyme there, if you didn't notice). Your senses will start playing games with you - you'll smell a certain perfume, see someone in a crowd but they won't be there when you get closer; you'll feel like your phone is vibrating only to open it and see a regular old home screen, sans message or incoming call. You psych yourself out, and it drives you even MORE up the wall.

To put it extremely mildly, you're in a pickle. It seems that the only fix for it is time . . . but while that may be the only remedy, it's also the hardest pill to swallow . . .

I just don't know what to do . . . but I hope I figure it out soon. God knows I do . . .



But as for you, I know exactly what you need to do.

And if you're wondering, it's simple . . .

Stay classy