Wall

Sometimes, I hit a wall;

When I leave home for a week or more, the middle of the trip is always rough. I hit my wall and want to be home, safe, hidden from the world;

When I'm writing, sometimes I can't figure out how to get to point B from point A and I think it's all shit and I can't write worth a damn and wonder why I bother;

When I'm trying to deal with the Evil Genius, who can be relentless in his pursuit of attention to the point of ignoring repeated requests to give me five minutes to do this one thing (usually try to finish a sentence or put away some dishes or work on some art project or another) and I think I must be the worst mother ever because he ought to come first, oughtn't he?;

When I am looking at the photographs I so carefully cropped, mounted, matted, and so carefully placed at the gallery, or the photographs I made into cards, mounting them on unique, textured papers and sealing them into protective bags, and they sit ignored and I begin to convince myself it's because I am not, after all, an artist but rather a no-talent hack;

When bills come in faster than I can pay them and people are counting on me and I can't fucking breathe and I can't turn around without running into something else I've failed to do;

When I look in the mirror and all I see are dull eyes, dull skin, a dull mind, extra chins, extra belly, extra ass and I can't remember ever feeling young or lively and certainly never sexy or even remotely desirable;

When I'm trying to capture the wisp of a song, always just out of reach, always a little off, never quite right, elusive, maddening, and I know my voice can't do it, that I don't have what I need, what it takes, that I'm not good enough, never was, never will be;

When I inventory my life and realize that I do nothing, make nothing, provide nothing of any value to anyone, that I live by the grace of others and not by my own effort or ability, that I cannot even earn my own keep;

When I know I am in the middle of the mire and it doesn't matter because I'm useless and it's pointless and there's just nothing, nothing, nothing I can do about it;

I hit it hard.

It's unforgiving, as is its wont; it's a wall, they're like that.

I hit it again and again, sometimes day after day, sometimes minute after minute, battering myself against it in a continual exercise in futility.

Why bother?

Damn wall...always there, waiting for me to get up and fling myself at it one more time...and I never learn, because I DO get up and hurtle towards it one more time. One. More. Time.

Sigh.

I don't have an ending for this one...I'm still thwacking myself against this stupid wall.