i used to think that i could one day solve all the personal issues that were holding me back from my phantasmic idea of happiness and once i reached the top of that hill i would live forever; bathing, figuratively, in morning light from a kitchen window, a purring cat by my side and no dishes in the sink, and now i see my life stretching out, beyond that calm august day and into the sludgy, dark evening commute of an eventual february and back, and i see that my life is not a problem to be solved but a state of constant movement, two steps forward and one step back in perpetuity. my joy will be lost and found over again with the swing of that pendulum