(There was this survey thingy that my sister posted. I started to repost it with my own answers, but then I decided to just use the survey's questions to maybe give me something to write about. So that's what I'm doing. Maybe one interesting survey question a day - that should keep me writing for quite a while. And I won't have to do that annoying thing where I think up my own topics. Unless I want to.)

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?
My first thought, upon reading this question, was that a year ago I was but a hint of my current self. Like all the pieces were there, they just hadn't been assembled yet. I was just starting to rise from the depths of the gray place that had been my home for such a long time. I wasn't quite ready to believe what was happening, but I was beginning to accept the possibility. I was beginning to have hope. Me, of all people. Hope, of all things.

But things change, tides ebb, perspectives shift, hues fade.

The thing is, right now, I'm exactly the way I was a year ago. But now, now it's like I'm being disassembled. Now, I'm falling again. Now, hope is dissolving and gray reality is coming back into stark focus.

I'm living my life in reverse.

In my mind, I pass that old version of myself, as I slowly sink and he rises ever so gently. We're both accelerating. Me with this growing look of dismay, he with the timid beginning of that stupid grin that I saw so often in the mirror.

But do I wildly wave my arms at him? Do I shout warnings that it's all just an illusion? Do I try to grab hold of him, so that he might arrest my fall?

No, because I might end up stopping his ascent, and that would be cruel. Instead, I will let him have his fun. Instead, I will let him continue to grow that stupid grin. And I will look up at him for as long as he's visible. And I will remember what it was like to fly. And I will try not to weep.

In a year or so, I'll try to catch him as he plummets back home.