Concrete Jungle

I'm going around acting as if I'm a victim of circumstance...but this can't be right.

I haven't the slightest idea of how to grow up; I just don't have a clue. You see, I'm trying to set a goal for myself, in my mind... that I aught to work on figuring out learning how to do something that could financially support me if the need arose. Just to have the knowledge that I would be able to support myself if I had to. To try to figure out how I could use the basic inclinations and skills I already have, and put them to some proper, productive use....

But (sigh) my mental capabilities seem completely crushed and overwhelmed by my emotional and psychological inabilities, deficiencies. Even as I tried to just sit and think about this idea, consider really DOING something about it, not just thinking...

It's like a huge black pall of death and fear falls over me and swallows me up, cripples me, locks my mind in a cage so it can't be used. Like this huge oppressive force sits on me, pins me to the ground. Oh, I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's as real and tangible to me as if I were being pinned down physically by a heavy object.

Sometimes I really wish I were dead rather than to live like this, so weak, trapped, overwhelmed by these dark feelings so easily. Everyone else got their grown-up survival kit, and I was out sick.

Am I...genuinely phobic?? Is this more than just a character flaw, and there's some real problem behind it? Oh, i don't want to think about this any more.

I want so much to have something fresh and beautiful and alive to say instead. Something that moves and flows and doesn't stagnate and fester like these other thoughts do.

You know what I wish? What I'd like to imagine?

That I step out onto the floor of my hard, gray paved internal landscape, and as I wander around hopelessly, I begin to notice these cracks forming, little jagged fissures appearing in the pavement. They begin to spiderweb out in all directions. And then beautiful wet, green blades of grass begin to sprout up everywhere, they push their way up through the cracks, growing rapidly, yawning, stretching. And then strange, fresh, green living vines begin to grow, creep up the dull stone walls, spread and unfurl like proud, resplendent creatures. Spectacular vermillion blossoms popping out in unexpected clusters.

And suddenly my dead gray landscape is a jungle of life; of growth and color, inspiration and curiosity. I'm no longer in a prison yard, where all I can do is pace and await my execution. I'm running and spinning about, and exploring.

How did I get so cold and dead? When, why did my thoughts, expectations, this horrible view of life I have- set and harden like concrete? WHY AM I STUCK?? WHY CAN'T I BECOME UNSTUCK?? Oh, I feel so frustrated!! With myself, my mind, these stormcloud-colored glasses that have been welded to my face. I want to pull it all off of myself, shed it like some disgusting, ponderous, unsightly chrysalis and tear up the road at full speed as far away from it all as I can possibly get; all dizzy and laughing with freedom, all cartwheels and somersaults, glistening eyes, flushed cheeks, up-stretched arms, joyous laughter bursting from my lips like a fanfare.