I’m tired tonight. Depressed, even. Just as I was yesterday. I feel run low, laid out on the tarmac of life to be run over by monsters of my own devising and picked apart by mythical birds of prey. My flesh feels torn, my heart rent in two, my mind dampened and flayed.
And this is not unusual for this time of year. I don’t know if it’s the holiday season itself or the usual onset of seasonal depression that has me in its grip. But whatever the case, the outcome is the same. I’m wiped out. I’ve been fighting to live, again. Fighting just as I fight every day, though this day the warrior spirit in me has been beaten to a pulp. There are days, plenty of them, where the Beasts of my heart simply cannot fight off the Monsters of my mind, where I lose ground rather than gain it.
And this is still okay. Because I have gained so much ground this year that losing a little at the end is not a defeat. It is merely a temporary concession. I set high and lofty goals for 2019, far higher, far loftier than for 2018 — and I nailed every single one of them. I’m starting to think about my goals for 2020, and I’m reaching for the sky, even as I’m currently lying on the ground and being driven deep into it. I know this is merely a minor setback. This moment of pain will pass. Then the work will begin again, picking the pieces of myself out of the dirt, putting them back together (more quickly now because I know myself better than I ever have before), and calling on the strength of my inner Beasts to push forward.
And forward I will go. I have work to do. I things to get done. I have goals to accomplish. And I will not be satisfied until I have achieved them all. I’m ready for even bigger and better things, and 2019 has placed me in a position to make those things happen.
So, to the Monsters of my mind, be warned. You are not safe. You are, in fact, in great danger. I would start running were I you. Because I am on the warpath, and you are in my way. Those of you still in my way when I get to you will be squashed like so much dust, and I will show you no mercy. I will be relentless in the pursuit of my goals. And not even you will be enough to slow me down.
This is war, and I will not lose.
