I don’t believe in a lot of absolutes (for myself, anyway). I believe everything is a fractal; that everything has the potential to move as a circle, an arc, a pendulum, repeating itself on smaller and larger scales beyond space and time. Even in death, the cells and fibers and minerals have the potential to become part of something alive again. Even attrition makes way for something new to become; allows for the possibility of something…else. Because I believe all of that, I necessarily have to believe that just as I am certain that happiness isn’t permanent, sadness is not, either. I have felt every cell in my body vibrate in celebration of being alive and I have felt so numb I can’t cry or identify with my own pain or perceive color or intimately process sounds. I have felt my cheeks wad up involuntarily beginning inside my chest and gushing out in the form of a smile on my face. I am also capable of forcing a contrived smile. I know it’s possible to stay stuck, but I don’t believe that it is ever the only way. It all depends on if we can or will or are able to do whatever it takes to move. At any moment we all have the capacity for radical change but we get bone tired and emotionally numb and sometimes a complete upheaval doesn’t seem worth it because the only promise in that is *different*. There are no guarantees we will suddenly feel better and there are no guarantees that we won’t suddenly feel worse and we know the possibility exists that we will feel the same no matter what we do. The concept of simply changing ourselves and our attachment to that self is infinitely more intimidating than completely changing what the outside looks like no matter the cost. I thought I was stuck in Fairview doing a job that made me sad around people that weren’t willing to see me and love me. I felt so stuck that I changed *everything*. I hurt people. I made enemies. I thought I was doing something for myself for once in my life. I thought I was taking a chance to move from adequate to something surreal and sublime. My regret, my mistake in that, is that I oversimplified the process. I have to assume that another radical upheaval would land me in the exact same spot I’ve always been in: myself.