This too shall pass. That's something we say a lot in sobriety to each other, and it always feels good to hear it. I like talking to recovered drunks. They don't take any shit, and when you tell them all your wicked secrets, all your gump and refuse they smile that snake bite smile and say, "Is that all you got?". Then sometimes they tell you about the meth lab they blew up, or the children they neglected and lost, or the people they put in the hospital, or the many divorces, or the many wrecked cars, or their prostitution pasts, and you feel better. Better living through "there but for the grace of god..". I haven't been going to meetings lately and I know that's a large part of my depression.

         I haven't been writing either. That's a pride thing, and something else we're told to watch out for. When I get down, I isolate, not because I so enjoy my own company to the company of others, but because I don't want people to know what I'm like when I'm sad. I look like shit, I feel like shit, I don't want people to see that. I want them to think that I'm a funny, happy, sunny girl. Smart, talented, oh pride. Without the company of others it takes longer to get better, but without anyone around, it's easier to forget it was ever so bad. If a Miss Maybelle falls in the forest and there is no one around to see her, did she really fall at all?

       This time is different. This particular camping trip into the Tate's Hell of my subconscious has gone on far longer than in the past. I've run out of breadcrumbs, my sleeping bag is damp, and I've been wandering in circles for days. 

       Anyone who has gotten help for addiction or depression, anyone who has dropped and broken all the eggs in their basket has a fear that once they get "better" people will be watching them more closely, waiting for it to happen again. And they will. Some with love and concern, and some with wicked love of watching walls fall down, but they will be watching. That, I have to let go of. That is not something I can control. It is none of my business what other people think about me. Most of the time they have better things to think about anyway. It's only me who thinks about me all the time.

         So. Sorry about the dreck and dreary of this post kids, it ain't so much for reading, it's more for the writing. Insanity, so they say, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. I'm lighting a signal fire, I'm going to try to get out of these woods, and if someone crawls in here to help I'm gonna take it and damn my pride. I don't think I was fooling anyone anyway.