Psychologists call it "free-floating" anxiety. What contradictory words. Anxiety doesn't free-float. It stalks. It attacks. It lands on you with a thud.

If only I had known a year ago what I'd be facing now. Until last year I lived with the innocent arrogance that my life was a simple product of effort, will, and design. But now I am a house of cards, held precariously by the fragile conspiracy of wind, weight, and angle. Perhaps it is best we cannot see into our futures.

I would never kill myself intentionally. I couldn't do that to my family, my friends ... But to have fate step in and give me a shove, that's a different matter. Then I have the exit, without the guilt. I am ashamed of myself for thinking like this. But more than anything, I am frightened that it makes me feel so much better to think about it. Sometimes it eases the terror, the sense that I am condemned eternally to this hell.

In these flashes of insight, I understand for a moment that one of the great dividends of darkness is an increased sensitivity to the light.

The body remembers what your mind forgets.

I always feel bad laughing at people who act crazy. But sometimes the things they do are so damned funny. I wonder what I'd look like if I slipped a few notches on the mental-health index.

Some struggles are so solitary that they drown in words.