I remember sitting at my old house, empty bottle on the hearth, my head propped on my hand, elbow on the arm of the sofa.  Watching nothing.  Despair in control of my every thought.  Catching, out of the corner of my eye, the artery in my wrist gently pulsing away in soft, peripheral-vision focus. So many nights, year in, year out.

There seemed to be nothing whatever for me then, no future of any kind.  Surrounded by the detritus of my life, permanently installed into that one seat as though I'd been surgically grafted to it.

I've come a long, long way since then.  My life has changed for the better in more ways than I can count.
And yet the despair, and the reasons for it, remain.  So long it's been my companion, it has almost become my identity, in and of itself, defining me.  In the (increasingly unlikely) event that the original cause should ever be resolved, I've a nasty feeling the despair will remain anyway, as much a part of me as I was of that old sofa.