Deep water.

I feel the weight of the ring on me, every day, feel myself worn out and aged beyond my years. I feel the eye upon me, every night, filling me with offal and tyrannical blues. Reds. Wish I'd been snuffed out before I could breathe. Wish I had the will to see through correcting that mistake now. Wish I were happy I suppose, but happy seems an alien feeling to me right now, a vintage wine I tasted a couple of time in a previous life and have almost forgotten the taste of, fleeting as it was, and I've no wine cellar and no more money and happiness seem ridiculous to suppose is in my cards.

I've lived a life. I've been part of a family and raised a child, held down some well-paying jobs and bought a new car. I just don't want to go on anymore. I don't want to keep waking up and feel that sick sensation in the pit of my stomach when I realize I'm still here and another day has to be faced. I don't want to start all over, invest myself a hundred percent in life, in career and relationship and health, for that is the alternative to self-destruction for me. I cannot bear to do anything in the middle. And I've found only incomplete crumbs of reasons to commit to that one hundred percent, and the effort seems way beyond me now in any event. I'm completely and hopelessly lost in the briar patch and out of shape for that sort of thing, like asking a broken down man in a nursing home to go be with the girl who loves him, knowing he'll want to train for a marathon for her and will probably keel over or burst at the seems giving the effort.

I think it's time to go. I wish people would understand how unhappy I am and how hard life is for me on an daily basis, with only brief respites of air like a seal coming up under the arctic ice, but there's always a bear lurking by my air hole. And the deep waters hold nothing but horrors for me. I am trapped inside a mind and body that is living a life I do not want anymore. There is the occasional spark of brilliant light and color, like the retinal afterimage made by a firefly or a distant camera flash or a falling star, but these are always swallowed up again by inky darkness, and they are rarer now and more muted and further away. A few people care about me but I don't seem to care about myself enough to be able to give what I should in return. Old friends have gone away. Old memories of contentment are far away; they only make me cry and go into a ball to think about them. Problems don't go away. People don't love you and then walk away.

Swimming the same deep water as you people is too hard. Reluctantly, I choose the bear.