This morning I couldn't see the mountain. The Mountain, that is. This of course is the worst part of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If something happening is good, then by definition that same thing NOT happening is bad. It's Wednesday. I told myself, "don't panic. It doesn't mean it has to be a bad day". After all, I lived almost the entire summer without seeing Mt. Fuji and I was just fine. Plenty of good days. Not many bad ones. Most of them were just normal of course, I can't go as far as to count anything not bad as "good".
Still, it was Wednesday. Hump-day, they call it. It's really the day that sets the tone of the week I think. Monday and Tuesday, you just live through them. And when your brain wakes up on Wednesday you wonder. What's this week like? How's it going to come out in the end? It's a precarious place to be, Wednesday. You sit waiting. Waiting for something -good or bad- to happen. Just something. Anything really. A sign that things are still in motion.
All day I thought about the humps I had to get over while I waited. Waited for that inevitable time when it would be downhill again. Downhill to the end of the day. Downhill to the end of the week. Downhill and back to my jr. high school at the foot of the mountains where it's so much colder than in the city near my apartment. And I realized as I sat watching the seconds tick by, while the hump appears to be an obstacle that once cleared will allow you to slide happily downhill, the descent is always bittersweet. For lack of a less cliched word......
I finished the third of my books last night. Around 11pm. I actually could have gotten a decent night's rest, but of course I couldn't fall asleep very easily since I've been keeping such ridiculous hours. Being that there are only 4 books published I'm well into the downhill slide on this one. And it's painful. I don't want it to end. I know it won't end now, there's more to come, but I also have a sinking (sliding?) feeling that the end won't be what I want it to. For that reason I'm not starting the fourth one tonight. I'm going to pretend not to think about it. It's getting easier to deny the craving now that I've been reading them for a while. Like the vampire who subsists on the blood of animals, over time the desire to not feel a different kind of pain overwhelms the thirst for human blood. I can go a little longer between reading sessions now I think.
Maybe it's just exhaustion or maybe it's the desire to not reach the bottom of the hill, but either way I can't give in to it yet. I've already passed the point of no return of course, but I can delay the inevitable for a little bit longer. Stop my mental time on Thursday morning perhaps. Not such a bad place to be, Thursday. The world spreads out in front of you on Thursday. The weekend holds infinite possibilities on Thursday. I was born on a Thursday.
