The tides of emotion are relentlessly in motion. I wish that they were stagnant for a month, no, but a week; yet they ebb incessantly. I can gain no momentum, no solace, whilst I fight the current of my own spirit. I cannot get a tight, permanent hold of my own will. I seem to continually fall: yield to temptation after a meager struggle. The loathing, lusts, lethargy, doubts, depression, and derelict demeanor rush to drown me each time I begin to come within sight of the shore. I continue on, half-heartedly, knowing in mind that things will change, but failing to assuage the turbulent soul. I will eventually reach a shore, though perhaps not one that is desired, or expected, but needed. I pray, and I do so with desperate, yet resigned petitions, that I will have the strength day to day; it always comes, but in daily doses. I am resolved to weather the storms, but the flesh is weak. Resignation or restitution, time will tell; and it is in the waiting that I drift with the current of my faded spirit and tides of times.

It is astounding the power that sight has on memory. You could have seen the same places in the same city a thousand times, go away for a period of time from those places, and upon your return, a thousand memories you had not visited since rush back in chaotic waves. Today, most of those memories have become bitter regrets and sorrowful afterthoughts. Although my purpose in visiting today is to “catch up” and be merry, I fear the experience will be tainted by former things, haunted by regret, and dogged with depressive boughts. I was unprepared, in theory or practice, for the torrent of emotions instigated by returning to this place.