Shoot, my mind is blank! I can't get this assignment done in time. Maybe I should forget it and be sick tomorrow? Talking out loud to myself was a habit for me.

"You can't do that! It won't help you pass the class." A voice was talking back to me.
Sitting in a corner of my living room, three sons sleeping near by, and a voice is talking to me………….am I going insane? Then I saw the wall wiggle. The wall was arguing with me…. the wall!

Oh, shoot up. Wall! You didn't pack, move these lazy slobs, unpack wo rooms of boxes and junk plus take time to help a friend try to solve some personal problems. You slept while I worked. My bones feel as if they were made of lead with rusty nails holding them together. Even axle grease won't make them stop creaking when I move. I wonder if I am a dog. I feel about two hundred and thirty-eight years old. Can people age seven years per earth year?

Wall, leave me alone. Why did you move with me? I thought I had left you behind. There's a knife stabbing me in my side, a train roaring though the tunnel behind my eyes while the rest of me is sitting on a merry-go-round unable to get off and you are preaching to me to study? You are the insane one!

"You are trying to rationalize your laziness. You're crazy! Stop being silly and do your homework!"

"

Wonder if crunching some chips will drown out the wall's nagging. …Crunch…crunch…crunch

"This isn't getting your homework done."

Wall. I wish you were a fireplace. A half oval brick furnace with an open triangle of cedar logs glowing red with heat. I want to watch the blue, yellow, and orange flames dance to the soft hum of violins. I want to share the warmth with someone who'll hold me, protect me, and want me. Why do you have to be a brick wall?

"You are talking to me, aren't you? Do people talk to fires?

A logical wall, I find. It tells me to study, to work, to eat, and to sleep. It's worse then a mother!

"So study. Stop dreaming, and study!"

Where will studying get me? It won't pay the bills. It won't stop me from coming unglued under an over load of pressure nor will it give me someone to lean on, depend on so that I don't have to face each crisis alone.

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Study! It will help you get a better job to pay the bills and to meet someone special."

I wonder, could I hand in a note, asking for an extension of the dead line on the deadline on the grounds of insanity. People get away with murder on that plea, why not late homework?

What!No comment, Wall? I must be recovering. The past two weeks I was positive I had terminal blues. I would yell, scream, curse my kids…true, they are lazy, selfish blobs at times, but not as bad as they seemed then. I sat here pulling my hair out, drinking coffee by the gallons all day, drying, sobbing, feeling deserted----very alone, wishing only to die. Yet, the more I wished to escape the problems here, the more I feared the problems somewhere else. Now, I think I can go on, one day at a time.

"Umm, sounds smart. That is all you can do, so study!"

Wall, I'm trying to study. So--------Shut Up! Hey, Wall, thanks for listening.

One day at a time. I studied, graduated from college, my sons grew up to be responsible adults and parents, and each day is a new adventure. It took many arguments with many different walls, a few kicks and punches, but one day at a time. I made it!