Basket.

It is October and normally I'll be saying the year is closing. But not to me, it isn't, not this year. Somehow the year I hoped so fervently would be a better year than an awful 2005 has somehow turned out to be worse.

I'm living life like a walking corpse. Every day I get up at the same time in the same way to do the same morning routine before going downstairs on the same flight of stairs to draw the same key and open the same office to see the same people, face the same frustrations, get stung by the same insults and feel that same feeling of wretchedness. There doesn't seem to be anything left for me anymore - except all my dear friends, of course. I think they keep me going. Otherwise, I eat for the sake of eating, because I hardly have any appetite anymore and sleep for the sake of sleeping, because the only thing that seems to get me a restful night these days is either alcohol or severe sleep deprivation or both. I do my work because it's there, do things for people because they are there and they ask, earn money for the sake of earning money, go places because that's where my legs mechanically lead me. I even post here for the sake of posting. The only thing I seem to do anymore because I actually like it is read.

I don't even think much anymore, unless I have to. Every day a spider headache stretches the nerves of my brain, filling with the rhythmic pulsing of blood, so loud. I hear instructions only vaguely and I always drift off as the world ebbs and flows around me, ever-changing and forcing adaptation. Every day I seem to face an uphill slope like none I've ever faced, and the difference now is that it seems to get steeper and steeper and steeper...

I really can't take this sort of life for much longer. I console myself with friends, but then I think of how fragile human relationships really are. People can be friends one day and simply stop speaking to each other the next, the thread of their shared experiences and memories snapping like a reed in the wind. Simply to keep one's head above water in this world demands so much calculation, and you can still fail. In fact, most of the time you will.

In a world like this, all I really want to do is hide. Stop working, stop juggling all those words and papers and orders that are really not worth a jot to me, stop putting in effort in the office. To just forget everything. But of course, I can't. Reality is painful. But if I carry on for much longer I'm really going to crack, and I can feel it. All the frustrations, snubs, foolish impulses, injustices, unreason, hatreds new and ancient being held back with increasing difficulty by the dam of my mind are going to burst out into a torrent of self-destruction. I feel it coming and I hope I can stop it, but I probably can't. It'll overtake me and I really don't know what is going to happen.

I thought it would be a better year. I wanted it to be one. I never wanted anything so badly in my life. And still I didn't get it. The last time I cracked was, significantly, New Year's Eve 2005. I cracked then because I wanted 2006 to be a good year, a peaceful year, so, so, so, so, so, so badly. It just has not been that, and I think I'm going to crack again.

I think my health is truly shot, both physically and mentally. I started the week with a horrendous coughing fit that is still going on, headaches pinch my brain every day and I can't even breathe properly with a clogged throat. But the worst thing is I don't give a fuck about it. I just keep going and I don't care how it's going to damage me. I can't remember the last time I had a real appetite for food or the last time I slept well without "help". Fatigue robs me of any real inclination towards doing the work I need to do, the work I'm increasingly being pressured to do, and juggling everyday the responsibilities of two people is getting increasingly difficult. I feel a complete lack of motivation to carry on, although everyone keeps reminding me of "two months left". I think my job is honestly killing me. I feel like just throwing everything down and leaving.

But of course I can't do that. I have responsibilities and I would disappoint a lot of people. I've never liked to disappoint people, especially the undeserving. I've always carried on as best as I could with a smile and some dry humour. But I'm finding it harder and harder to do so. Forget "crack", I'm probably going to crumble instead. Crumble into a useless heap and lose everything I ever built myself up for all these past two decades.

Increasingly disinterested, misanthropic and feeling victimised by fate are what I'm feeling now. I don't think I've felt this low for so long a period of time before. It worries me whenever I find it within myself to care. Usually I don't.

Anyone who thinks they can help, I need it.

It's not often I admit that.