So, you want to hear somethin'?

      2/5/02 - Holy shit. I got it. I got it, and I'm not letting go. I hope that I never do again. Wait a sec, don't let me get ahead of myself.

      First I have to say this: I hit bottom yesterday. Hard. I don't know what some people consider the bottom, either despair or self pity or loss or self respect. Whatever it is, I hit it. I don't know what it was for me then, I couldn't figure it out. I was at the bottom, though, I damn well know that. That was the hardest thing about it, knowing where I was, but not knowing why or how or what the fuck happened. I got it, though.

      I was thinking again in my truck on the way home. I lost sight of something huge. It's not a revelation, and it sounds really cliche, and hackneyed and trite now writing it, but...hang on. That sentence was way too long. It sounds shitty, but you have to have been where I was just yesterday to hear it. You have to have hit bottom, where you cry for almost a half an hour and you don't know why. When you spend the whole day trying to think and you can't do it. You can't get your mind to work, and the emotions of everything are just overridden by a feeling of being lost. When you get there, you'll know why this simple little thing is so big. So huge, gargantuan, tremendous. Ready?

      Picture your life as a building. Yesterday, everything that I had built came crashing down onto that foudation, and that was all I was left with. I had nothing but the mess I had been left with. The fallout. Then I realized that one thing still remained besides that, and that was the cornerstone. The one stone integral to the very structure that was built upon it, the one that held everything up. It had one word on it, one simple word. It wasn't knowledge or dreams or hope or anything that is intangible, it was only one little word. Me. I was it, when it came down to everything that I had built towards in my life, it all came back to me.

      I lost sight of this. Big time. I was really deep when I was sitting here yesterday, and actually fell asleep so I could escape it (sorry Becky). I had to get away, left to examine the rubble. I didn't spot that stone until the way home today, and realized that I was it. I was the one, the only thing that was responsible for the life I had built, and could stop building at any time. Blow the whistle, take a break, pause, refresh before continuing. I hadn't in a while, and as I mentioned, it comes back to work. I was working hard, but not playing hard. I'm off to get friggin' canned this weekend, I tell you that. I'll be asking every damn person I know to take me out, too, so that we can all meet somewhere and laugh.

      I'd ask why no one told me to get a life, but I've been told. Now, though, I can. The barrier was there, and it was me, too. Time to fill up the house of my life with friends again. I love company.

I've got all my old rants catalogued, so if you wanna read some of my old stuff, click HERE to see 'em.