Oh, mercy me -- you know, on the one hand it's really nice to have two legs again and all. I mean, I still need the cast, and it's still sore, but basically I can walk again, carry things again, and function like a normal human. That's all very nice.

Unfortunately, now that I am no longer an invalid, I'm dropped right back down into the sucky reality that is my life. Not that having a broken limb is exactly a great vacation or anything, mind you -- yet nonetheless, the ability to be all industrious and motivated is pretty much wasted on someone who just can't physically do much.

But let's regroup, shall we? Once more from the top, ladies and gentlemen?

Moved to Minneapolis pretty much on faith, inspired by a thriving job market and an uncharacteristically giddy and optimistic outlook on the world -- you see, I'd just finished an enlistment in the military, and even the prospects of living in a hovel and working a crap job seemed a nirvana-like freedom so long as it was as a civilian. I didn't enjoy my time in service really, kinda turns out it doesn't really suit me -- yeah, I know, who'da thunk it?

"Hi, I'm a guy with a certain strange quality about him that almost guarantees he'll stick out like a thumb, and a vaguely antagonist personality."

"Oh yeah. Any bastion of uniformity and obediance would be good for you. Come on aboard."

But I digress. I came here and in fairly short order found a job ... a job I wasn't qualified for and that I wasn't trained in, and for which no one seemed to care if I ever actually showed up -- because I never did anything anyway. I mean, like I wasn't responsible for actually doing anything.

So yeah, that was fun for a few months, I was laid off, and pretty quickly landed a job really more along the lines of what I was looking for. It paid well, and it looked like there was a future with this company.

Well, things go downhill. Two years later (and about a year after I should have quit) I was finally laid off as the company pretty much shut down -- there'd been four rounds of layoffs in the period I was there, so the work environment had been getting increasingly sucky for most of that time. But I stuck it out, because I was loyal and I actually hoped we could turn it around. We actually worked hard, a lot of long hours -- and the company went under anyway.

As it happens, part of why I didn't wisen up and jump ship before it went down completely is that I'd spent a bit over a year being alternately filled with rage, confusion, and mostly just a whole lot of depression over the rather harsh dissolvement of a relationship that had been important to me for a long time. Okay, essentially this girl that I'd been amazing friends with since high school had over the past few years grown particularly closer to me.

And while we'd pretty much left it out of the arena before, we began discussing how we were aware that our feelings for each other were changing, and had pretty much decided that we really should probably try and see if we would work. Only problem being, we didn't live in the same city -- yet as it happened, when we were in this mode the company was still doing well and had branches all over the world ... including in the city she was in. So I think that had been originally the intent -- I would work for this company here for a bit, and transfer to her city as soon as possible.

Now, the thing about all this is that it was pretty casual -- it's wasn't like, "Oh, I'm madly in love with you and can't bear to be apart from you" or anything. It wasn't, "I spend my days and nights consumed by you." I'd come to Minneapolis pretty much on whim, I could go to another city just as easily.

But, long story short, she started dating some other dork and for some strange reason didn't want to tell me. I wasn't so much bothered that she'd met someone, but it did get very bad when I knew she was outright lying to me. Go and read my entry about "Careful Who You Lie To", if you haven't. For one, I can spot most lies pretty easy if I'm paying attention anyway. And for another -- when you really know someone, they don't have to necessarily tell you something ... you just get to where you understand.

So, yeah, eventually we got to fighting and I got to kinda hating her, and in the midst of it all had a rather traumatic short-term relationship with a lesbian who'd moved in next door to me -- not even going into that one except to say it really didn't help my mental state.

So, all that's going on in my personal life, and now yeah, they're gonna lay you off. Okay, if you have to. Yet right about then --

You know, it's really kind of magic when it just happens. You're just going through your normal mundane life, its ups and downs, highs and lows, dreams and fears ... and all of a sudden here's this person. They're just there before you, resplendent and beautiful. A person so beautiful that they see just as much beauty reflected in you.

Of course, this would be the woman I've mentioned before as having been absolutely the wrong woman for me. In support of that claim, and to further the story, I will say that 2002 was her year. That's pretty much all I was doing that year. From the blissful and dreamy beginnings to the nightmarish torturous death throes. I mean from intellect, to emotion, to endeavors, she was in my head -- and to be fair, I think I probably was in her's, too.

So all this to say, we hit the beginning of 2003 -- essentially I've been on a downward slope of depression for over two years, my personal and professional life are in a shambles, I'm actually getting really scarily far past penniless -- into that truly nasty zone wherein you might literally not be able to support yourself, at all.

So, I go into therapy. Because it's one thing to realize you're losing it, and another entirely to see that it's already gone.

So fast-forward to now. Things were looking up for a bit there, somewhere in the summer. Gainfully employed, continuing school, healthy, hopeful, and ready to do what it takes ... till I broke my ankle and pretty much became as productive as most infants. I don't know, maybe I should have been more active than I was, maybe I was being a sissy about it or something ... but in any event, losing the job and having to endure an overall sense of helplessness and uselessness came nicely in hand with lapsing back into just not thinking it was worth it to even try.

You know you're in trouble when you say "Why bother?" and you literally mean it.

And hoo boy, am I in trouble. I realized today that my primary checking account is shockingly into the negative. You know, I never actually balance my checkbook, but there's no way I didn't know I was that far in the hole -- I think I just chose to rather not think about it.

And this is the problem, you see. From a realistic and objective point of view -- my life is really kind of screwed up, but far from unfixable. Unfortunately, the major reason it's as screwed up as it is, is that -- truthfully, I find it impossibly hard to in my heart care.

Okay, that's not true. I do care. Yet somehow -- apparently not enough to do anything about it. I mean, I'm not unhappy, and I think that's the truly scary part. I should be. I should be unhappy, and worried. I should be fantastically motivated.

Get this: I've been driving with expired tags on my license plates for over a month. In fairness, I did try to get new ones, they just never arrived. Nonetheless -- who lets something like that go for so long?

And: I got a notification a bit ago that Minnesota says I didn't pay taxes the first year I was here -- and honestly, I don't really recall if I did. I would think so, but -- yeah, the point is, I haven't responded or really even thought about that, either. It's in the back of my mind. And in the future, it will be impacting on my bank account. Which is an example of how I come to this state of affairs in the first place.

You know, I like to tell myself that worrying is pointless and unproductive, and that I honestly hope I am one of those whom I admire, who've simply learned the necessity of choosing to be happy, because life will quite often be kinda crappy.

But is that really it? I mean, it's fine that I'm not suffering -- but really -- not so much helping, either.

So I don't know. Tomorrow is a new day. I keep hoping that one day I'll wake up from this sort of half-asleep state I seem to wander about in. Who knows, maybe tomorrow will be that day.