There is no mercy in the shifting year . . .

Yes, indeed. I have had my Dorothy Parker poetry book out again.

I can't believe it is October. This has been a cruel, bleak year. One of the worst. I just haven't been able to pick myself up. I hate my fragility. The fact that my bruises never heal. I am exhausted by living under this suffocating cloud of sadness (what Sylvia Plath called the Bell Jar). I was so happy and hopeful at the start of the year. Now it is the season of falling leaves, woodsmoke and darkening nights and I am absolutely terrified at the prospect of Christmas. I don't know where this year has gone, I've stumbled wearily through it. I just don't know what to do now, how to get through it all.