Holocene.

You know those days when you wake up, start going, and suddenly realize that you should have stayed in bed?

I've had about a week of them.  A week of days that should not have been.  

So here I am, standing in the kitchen, cooking and sipping wine and thinking about everything that's gone wrong and right- over the past few days and over a much longer time.  I am thinking about the past, the present, the future.  I am considering good days, bad days, days that made me stronger and days that nearly killed me.  

And standing here, I'm listening to music that is guaranteed to make me cry- music that defined the bruised time, the time when I became a walking corpse, a non-thing.  This is the music that was the soundtrack to my pain.  This is the music I used to weep to, to fall asleep to every night- night after night after night.  

Why am I listening to it? Why am I thinking all of these things?

Because it's good to remember.  When forgetting is too easy, it's all the more important to remember.  It's important to remember the wrong, to relive it from time to time, to shock yourself with the pain of  badness.  

The bite of brutal memories makes the fight so much stronger.  

I'm not a perfect person.  I'm not even remotely close to it.  I have lost count of all of the stupid things I've done, the people I've let down, the people who have let me down.  I haven't forgotten any of them, though, even if I deliberately attempt to keep them out of my mind.  

So why am I thinking, listening, remembering?

Because the bad makes the good better.