The time when I am no longer able to withdraw any further seems to be fast approaching. It's worked so well for so long though, which is of course the problem. I wonder how much longer I can feel like it's all unraveling before I realize it isn't, or if it is, how much longer this spool will take to unwind.

It's not at all uncommon for us to idolize the past. The past is a lot easier to digest than the present, and memory has a way of keeping what we like or altering it to suit when what actually happened didn't fit the narrative as well.

I still remember a sunny evening on a patio years ago. Flush with victory, well-fed, in good company and in love, I closed my eyes and imprinted. I was happy. I was happy, and I knew it wasn't always going to feel that good. There may have been other times when I've been on that kind of crest, but that time I felt myself feeling and tried to store it up within myself knowing how fleeting such things are. Now, looking back on it, the pleasure I take is in knowing that I did experience that glorious few hours and that it was no product of selective memory (and don't go getting recursive or derivative on me here, I hear you thinking: "But you are just applying creative memory to the memory of your thought process! You're fooling yourself at one step removed." I have no rebuttal to offer that could answer that charge except suspect assertions of veracity that serve no purpose). I knew that I had something good, and I held on to it.

Long it's been since I found my foot in the door and pushed my leg through rather than pulling the door closed as I withdrew.