Shadows are funny things. They're very much like clouds in many ways. We can almost form them into anything we want just by sheer will and creative use of imagination. Monsters, demons, ghosts, goblins, spirits, bunnies, spiders or ducks; whatever we wish is there. Just as insubstantial as the mist above our heads, yet much more within reach. Perhaps that is why we fear them more than any brewing storm, no matter how dark and ominous it appears.

So what happens when we see the people we hold dearest as those very shadows? Lurking and looming before us? A familiar face, a comforting embrace surrounding us in that very darkness that we are trying to illuminate. These are the shadows that we seem least inclined to battle. The soft, gentle whisper "leave the light off".... consciousness rising and trying to scream through the muffling void of fear - only this time, not fear of dark, but fear of loss. Change. Death. Hence the phrase "go towards the light".

How is it that that which we seek is both our greatest enemy and yet our most freeing force? It loosens the bonds that holds us bound to that dark space, capitulating us into a life more able to entertain the notion of health, happiness, longevity and independence.

Yet I sit there, quivering before it, pleading with every ounce of my being for release - pleading with every painful tear and scar that is the patchwork of my emotions to stay. Too many of them, these shadows. I am confused by them. They are all so interconnected and entwined I can no longer tell which one is this one, which one is that one.... what is furniture, what is a dress, what is a mannequin, what is real, what is myth, what is truth, what is a lie.

I am crumbling somewhere inside. Is it the beginning of an end to which there will be a new beginning, with more fresh air to breathe instead of this staleness that has become repetative and redundant throughout my existence? Or will it be another trap, burying me alive within myself, deeper and further away from the humanity that I am so desperately attempting to uncover, rediscover?

Again I am tired. I peer at them from where I sit and contemplate. Is it worth all this energy? I think about leaving.... The fighter in me wants free, but I'm not sure anymore exactly what it is I'm fighting - other than myself.