Independence

The alarm clock rings earlier and earlier, as you try desperately to lace your sneakers before the tongue of the heat wave rolls across your promenade. Your roommates squeal as the mouse leaps across the room and leave you to stage the massacre; not two nights ago in the West Village, New Yorkers with far more years in pre-war walk-ups under their belts merely shrugged when a similarly long-tailed shadow brushed around the corner. Oh yeah, he's back, he says, but at least they haven't named it yet. You think there's a lesson in there about the unflappability of New Yorkers; it's comforting.

Here's the thing: I assumed that eventually I would hit rock bottom at the dead end of where I had steered my life and there would be nowhere to go but up. I assumed that when the time came for me to pull myself up by the bootstraps, or collar, or whatever it is one is supposed to pull oneself up by, I'd know, and I would. It seems instead I am skating along the rock bottom comfortably, round and round in this cul-de-sac, looking around at all the lives I could be living and choosing instead to refill the vodka in my glass and postpone any action to climb out of this hole yet another day.

I only ever knew change through packed suitcases and one-way tickets.

How do I even start to build a ladder where I stand?