Once in awhile I get these flashes of clarity.

It's like between them I'm living, breathing, thinking, existing in a haze. Nothing is distinct, everything is muted, but that's my reality so I don't notice it.

Then the moment comes and the fog clears and I see everything in my own mind the way it is supposed to be. I see the momentum I could have, the drive, the honesty and kindness and sense of purpose.

I hate those moments. I wish like hell it looked like a mountain I'd have to climb or some challenge or even something painful that I'd have to suffer through. Those I could handle. I don't have a high enough sense of self-worth to be that concerned about suffering.

Instead, it looks foreign. I recognize there is a distance between where I spend most of my time and these moments of lucidity. I can even see a path from here to there, but it's through a medium I don't recognize. It's like seeing a glimmer of hope at the end of the proverbial tunnel, only to find the air has become water and the ground quicksand. I don't understand how to travel in this medium, and so I can't move. I can only watch.

It's probably just another way my mind has found to torture itself for all the things I haven't done. I don't mind the suffering - not because I'm noble or strong, but selfish. Pain without purpose is indistinct like everything else, but pain from a clear source that perhaps I deserve, that can sometimes be sharp enough to pierce the veil of...all of this.

You don't know what that's like, and if you do I'm sorry.