Excerpt #12

You think there is a choice to lying down in this grave you are digging, a choice to this tone you are setting – you should view it as freedom, a golden opportunity. Get yourself a passport now and go whenever you can, celebrate, stretch, party, wiggle your toes in the sand. But when you think of it you picture yourself drunk looking into a small hotel room, mostly bare, tropical colors, a single bed made up with a sheet and light blanket and, within, what you feel is not celebration but something like a suicide only you’re still walking. Or you are standing like a sagging alabaster statue, as heavy and stiff as lead, on some beach while people whooooo! and smile all around you. You are going to have to take charge of this, or it is going to take charge of you. What will you make of your life? What will you make of your altered self?