I don't have to live like this.

That phrase caught my attention and i've been mulling it for awhile now. It's true. It's something of an epiphany. I don't have to live like this. But then the question is: How do i want to live? What do i want? What is the best way of getting there? Having had to cope with depression of varying degrees of severity for most of my life i've had lots of practice with staying out of touch with how i feel about almost everything. So if there's aspects of my life that i don't want how would i be able to improve on it if it really isn't clear as to what i do want? Even if it isn't possible yet to be terribly articulate about what i want, it's getting easier to figure out what i don't want.

I spent some time today looking through newspaper clippings and other assorted papers, most of which are momentos of other phases of my life. Some i kept but there were others that ended up being tossed because there's no foreseeable way for them to be useful to me in the future. Science doesn't want me anymore; i've been away too long so why should a reprint of an article from a biophysics journal be kept? Even if i myself wanted to get back into laboratory work there's no reputable lab that would hire me so why keep something that reminds me of something i can never go back to and would probably make me acutely miserable if i did?