Today has been hard, a hard day on top of many, each pushing me further past what I thought was my limit. I need deep, healing, uninterrupted sleep, perhaps for days. I need to stop, be still, and process. I feel like the last of my energy had been sucked from me and yet I still have to get up and take care of everyone else – mostly my kids who are fully dependent on me. At least I have started painting again and that is giving me hope. It feels like it is keeping me alive. It is proof, at least, that I exist, as now I have been so completely stripped down that I am not wholly sure that I do anymore. I am a ghost of myself, my past, in a body that wants nothing more than to move into a future that is free from its pains. I at least can take the awareness that comes from writing these words and begin to shut down, knowing that in another night and two days from now, my husband will be home, school will be out, and I can stop, finally. So now, I will take comfort in that horizon coming soon, and rest at least for this short night.