Talking in Circles

It's like there's an elephant in the room and I'm ignoring it. I'm telling myself it isn't there when I know damn well it is. In fact I think it's stepped on my toes a few times or more. But I refuse to recognize it. I seem to think if I don't, then it will go away, and I figure it might as well because it's bound to come to naught either way. Why I hold out some silly hope this time will be different, I don't really know, but that's what we do, isn't it? We tell ourselves one thing, say it out loud for all to hear, while we secretly hope for another. We just don't acknowledge that hope. It's the elephant in the room, the one that keeps stomping on our feet trying to get our attention.

I read somewhere not too long ago that it isn't despair that kills you, it's hope. That made perfect sense to me at the time, still does. If you despair, well you're already about as far down as you can go and you grow accustomed to it in some fashion or another. Accept it as how things are. But if you hope, then you still have room to fall, still have the ability to be let down time and time again.

I know this, and I tell myself, this time I'm not going to hope. This time, I'm going to just ignore that damn elephant. And so I tell myself that's exactly what I'm doing. I've been here, I've done that, I'm not doing it again. I won't be tricked into believing this will change. Nope. Not me, not this time. But then the little voice starts to whisper. But what if... maybe...just maybe...

I hate that little voice. I'd like to get the elephant to sit on that little voice and squash it flat so I never had to hear it again. I've done everything I can think of to get rid of it. I've ignored it, I've tried to drink it away, I threatened to throw it out into traffic with myself attached (some would say my driving might achieve this for me but I think they exaggerate). Nothing shuts it up. Damn thing just keeps on yammering away as if it had some god given right to drive me mad by holding out that one last ounce of hope, dangling it in front of me like a carrot, then pulling the rug out from under me just as I make a grab for it.

Worst of all, as I lay prone on the floor in a world of pain, it has the actual audacity to whisper, maybe next time...maybe...

I wish, for once, it would just shut the hell up.