Broken, lookin’ up I see the enemy.
And I have swal­lowed the poi­son you feed me.
But I sur­vived on the poi­son you feed me.
Guilt fed. Hatred fed. Weakness fed.
It makes me feel ugly.
I’m on my knees, I’m burn­ing.
My piss and moans are human.
I set my head on fire. I’m dead inside.
Shit adds up. Shit adds up. Shit adds up.
Shit adds up at the bottom.

—Tool, Bottom

Remember those days in high school, when you couldn’t sleep because of upcom­ing finals, or the girl you liked told you she didn’t like you back?

Sometimes I miss those days.

Every time I want to say some­thing, com­plain, vent, I think of oth­ers. I never lost both my legs. I don’t have any crip­pling social dis­abil­i­ties. My par­ents never left me naked on the asphalt. Hell, Aaron went through shit so bad two years ago that I can’t even talk about it, and he’s one of the last peo­ple to deserve it. I really don’t have any­thing to com­plain about.

Then I ques­tion the tim­ing. And every time there’s another load added, I think, “I CAN’T DEAL WITH THIS SHIT RIGHT NOW”. I have dead­lines to meet, sleep to catch up on, inse­cu­ri­ties to allay. Is this some divine way of telling me that I’ve been hav­ing it too good lately? A way of bal­anc­ing out how well things have been going? No, the tim­ing is good, my friends remind me. This isn’t in the mid­dle of a divorce, or the death of a fam­ily mem­ber, or mas­sive debt. This is prob­a­bly one of the most con­ve­nient times for all of this to hap­pen. I really don’t have any­thing to com­plain about.

So I have to shoul­der all of it now. Not to put it all aside, but to deal with it head on when I have to con­cen­trate, to stop freak­ing out when I’m lying in bed, to stop being absolutely ter­ri­fied when I’m in an uncom­fort­able sit­u­a­tion. Another roller­coaster ride, another cru­cible, another bridge to cross.

Thank god I’m stronger now. Thank god I have my friends. Thank god I have a girl­friend I can com­mu­ni­cate with. If I didn’t have John, Trolley, Aaron, Pat, Darren, Bronny to call, I’d be going FUCKING NUTS. I’D FLIP THE FUCK OUT. Yesterday, I spoke to every sin­gle one of them through the course of the day.

Shit adds up.