2004 starts in a desert that exists somewhere between an incredibly complex maze of city and career life on my right and a green oasis where people lay on the grass doing nothing, just listening to the water trickle through the creek and the leaves rustle overhead.

Sand. I sit at a desk typing this, and I feel sand underneath me.

The city to my right is overwhelming to look at. I staggered out of that city late in 2003 sick, exhausted, and a little bewildered from a combination of personal setbacks and professional triumphs. I'm a little scared to go inside again, but nevertheless, where I'm sitting I'm much closer to the city than I am to the oasis. I have to go inside. I have faith that the professional stuff is going to fix the personal stuff.

When I work on the career and all of that related stuff, I know in my bones that what I earn I'll keep. I work hard, I reap the benefits, I gain trust, I get more work, and even when I don't, I hustle to find work. In that world - that maze - I'm in demand. In the personal world, I've worked hard, I've reaped no benefits, I seek to understand, I'm discarded, I start going deeper, the hull caves in and I rise back to the surface. As I told Viv the other night, I have to do this all alone. That's what I'm meant to do. I have nobody and haven't had anyone for years, so this must be my mission in this life until it changes. As much as I want love, career and hard work is what I'm meant to do. If not me, then who's going to do it?

Wait - I just noticed something about that oasis and what it represents. Those people aren't lying in the grass. They're dead. That's why the grass is there - there is always some creature who has given up on the struggle of the city and went there to give up, to die. That's what I'm lacking right now...that's what this sand represents. This dull hurt from the girl here at work, from being alone, from still being a little sick...it needs to be replaced by the fear of becoming fertilizer for the next person to be lured into giving up. I don't want to die. If I stop, that's exactly what I'd do.

*sigh* It looks like I'm going to pick up exactly where I left off. So what's going to be different about this year, my intentions again? I think I should just shut up and get to work. That's the only thing that brings about change in my life. :)