As I am talking to my friend she is giving excellent counsel. It's funny, because she tells me that she is giving me the same counsel that I gave her some time back. You would think that I would know this. Knowing does not help. It is easy to know, and different to Know. Logically, I know this. In my head, on paper, I know this. Where I do not know it is everywhere and in everything that makes me do and think and say the things that I do and think and say. I tell her what is wrong, that two opposing forces cannot exist in the same space, and that I don't know which, if either, will have to go in order to make way for the Hyperspace Expressway of a restful night's sleep. I don't know. I want both. I want what I have and what I cannot seem to have no matter how I try or try to ignore. I have accepted the possibility that it will simply never go away, that I am doomed to find this everywhere I go. And then I go Fuck that, mang. Cause that's stupid, cause I can do or be whoever and however I want. Can't I? I mean, I can, right?

So she says If I remember correctly it was you who told me that if you can't beat it you have to stand it. Which is, of course, fabulous advice from an okay movie. But it was fitting, when I reminded her, and it is fitting today as she is reminding me.

If you can't beat it you have to stand it. Maybe I cannot beat it. It is possible that I will not beat it in time to have what I want, that thing that makes me smile and makes me laugh and makes me happy to be me, that thing that is so patient and good and just, just good. That thing that is getting ripped off every time I question and assume, because where is my faith? Where is my mind? She tells me where it is, and once again it is just right. It is on the sole of the shoe of some man walking around in some town that I do not live in, holding a baby that I did not have. Trodding on my confidence and esteem and even though I cannot see him or his shoes or watch it as it happens, somehow it is still wrecking everything. My security. Gum. A leaf. A discarded receipt that will eventually become attached to the floormat of his car, to be forgotten and overlooked because while he stole it, without even an apology, he really did not need it.

But I do. I need that back, man, and I need it quick. Give me back that fucking gum, because I need it to hold this together. Because while it is certainly not my fault that it's gone, it will be my fault if I let that wreck everything. Cause I can pick. The anxiety or the good. One will overcome the other, given time. Because they are opposing forces, and they cannot exist in the same space. Unless I make room. I prefer to stand it, and best of luck to me.