Excerpt: Darkness and Loneliness

Alright. Here I am. I have flailed around looking for a story to share with you, something captivating, exciting, maybe a little romantic, full of fantasy and wonder. Maybe that story is in here somewhere, but it is not clamoring to the surface just now demanding to be told. Instead I am full of Darkness and Loneliness. I don't want to share those things. I don't want to shine the light into the dusty corners, and I don't want to cry in front of you. I don't want to appear evil or weak. Funny that somehow those two things should be linked in my head, isn't it?

I am frightened of what might come out onto this page as I talk with you, so at times I may hedge or divert. I might wander off course and try to distract you. You must be the strong one. You have to bring me back to bear when I stray. I will talk to you as if you were my best friend. I'll trust you with all my secrets, knowing that you will not judge me, because that is what best friends do. It might also mean that sometimes I forget that you don't already know the bones of my story. If I skip something important and you need an explanation, just let me know. I will do my best to tell the truth.

Are you sure you want to do this? It is an awfully long and dull story. I am not, by any means, a remarkable woman. My life isn't full of great adventures or exciting escapades. It's just a regular life, full of regular things. Well, maybe not. I have been told that my perspective is a little ... off kilter. Maybe you will find some of the things in my life a little interesting, whereas I lived them and so to me they just are.