Things haven’t always been this way.  I wonder when and why it all started.

A series of events, I suppose, an incident of rejection, hate, jealousy perhaps. It doesn’t matter now. It’s been a slow long drawn out process.

A process that repeats itself, like a wave crashing on the shore, or more like a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Again and again and again.

Why do I do this? Build myself up, taking on an exciting new challenge and then shining for a few moments then, in different ways, self-sabotaging my happiness and burning to the ground.  Making stupid choices. Making bad decisions. Behaving badly.

Why do I do this again and again? Different situations, different ways to destruct.

It’s almost a delicious feeling. To build myself up and then tear it all down; knowing I can build myself up again and feel brilliant. There is something exciting about turning nothing into something and then turning it back to nothing again.

It is an attraction I would like to divorce myself from. I am getting older. It’s not as easy. The world is getting more cruel. My climate is changing.

I don’t know if I can even do it again. It seems like I am starting to settle with isolation, guilt and shame.

I am not too sure why it is this way.  Is it nature or is it nurture? Has it been one too many challenges, one too many rejections, somehow the seed of self-loathing was planted, and it was nurtured.  By me? By my environment?

It’s time for this to stop. To take a deep breathe. To take a few more. It’s time to stop doing things the way I used to and not let my thoughts and feelings and actions be dismantled or altered by insignificant events, the wandering mind or the actions of others.

No more rising and then falling down.

It’s time to settle on middle ground.