dead on the wall

It's taken me 33 years to come to this; to taste the truth. I know there is nothing we can do to rub the stains out, to prevent it from going to rot. I have to force myself to look at it, trust it, and let it be. Somewhere in there, between the mess of conception and a pile of dirt, there are moments so magnificent you couldn't possibly dream them up let alone devise them; harness them at best, but this kind of thing can never be contrived. Once you try to pin it down it ceases to exist. It is literally a specimen, dead on the wall. And that, my friends, is what has happened to me.

All of this can be summed up nicely by a quote from The Princess Bride.

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something".

It was either going to be that or my favourite, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die", but I couldn't figure out how to make that one fit.

I can't be sure I will survive this. Actually, the one thing I can be sure of is that I won't. And neither will you. I guess it is just a question of time. To see it for what it is is painful in and of itself, but I was always a soft hearted kid. At least that's what my father used to tell me on drives home from his apartment Sunday evenings as I choked back sobs. He would say that and I would stare out the window trying to imagine what a soft heart looked like. I already knew what it felt like; a pain in my chest that never really went away.