A new year?

I put it to you, is it really a new year?  "New" instills some aspect of change, but try to find something different about this year.  I see none.  The past year was like the year before, and this coming year will be like the one just elapsed.  I find myself in a new locale, with a new job and a new title, but all the same miseries and sorrows and aches and hurts are still inside my head.  And they never seem to go away.

They never.  Go.  Away.

My head, the sponge of other people's art that it is, recalls moments that have made an imprint.  Jack Nicholson saying "what if this is as good as it gets?"  The line from the Paul Simon song "From what I can see of the people like me we get better but we never get well."

I can tell you what has changed for this coming year.

I have no hope left.

Last year my one goal for the coming year was "try to make it through the year without killing myself".  And coincidentally enough, that almost didn't happen.  I really can't tell you how far or close from suicide I was.  I didn't see a line on the ground.  All I can tell you is that I had it planned out.  I knew exactly how I was going to kill myself.  The implement.  The situation.  I'm lead to believe that is not a good sign.

So somehow I made it through the year.  I suppose the goal for this next year should be the same.  And it seems like such a harder goal for this year.  I have no hope left.  No hope that the anguish of this life will lessen.

It's one thing to live a life in pain.  It's quite another to live a life without hope.  But I guess I'll have to try.

See you next year.  Maybe.