The treadmill
There is nothing so hard as life.
You can’t escape it, except one way. And that is not a fair way, or right, or… possible.
There are some of us who can never escape where we are. There’s no place to go where things would be different. And nothing ever changes for the better, it just moves side to side, in a small circle of the same things over and over again.
That’s the hardest part – the things that never get better.
I’ve tried for years to better my life, but it has stayed stubbornly the same. The local is all that changes, and even that doesn’t change much – 10 miles in 10 years.
And when you have nothing to look forward to, the days are interminable.
People try to help, but it doesn’t. Even they know that there isn’t much chance of something good happening. Just this weekend my dad was trying to cheer me up after some bad news, saying maybe things will change, because it was “time for my ship to come in” – he couldn’t look me in the eye when he said it… yeah, I don’t believe I have a ship either.
It’s funny, there are two ways to train a dog: positive reinforcement, and punishment. Repeated punishment is what leads to breaking a dog’s spirit – I know exactly how that feels. After a while it’s hard to think that there could be anything positive ever again.
But the treadmill of life goes on. So you take a deep breath and some pain killer for the headache and keep going – some how.
