I was woken by a shell-burst in the trench of sleep. Heart skipping, with eyes fighting light, my thoughts sprang up like a field of starlings startled by a farmer's gunshot, a thousand separate, autonomous specks that swirled into a single united black shape.

Finally, it's not the lies we tell others that do the most damage, it's those we tell ourselves. From this all troubles rise.

It's definitely a rude awakening. We're going to have to get better. We're going to have to get better every step of the way.

It's definitely a rude awakening.

I remember asking myself one night, while I was curled up in the same old corner of my same old couch in tears yet again over the same old repetition of sorrowful thoughts, 'Is there ANYTHING about this scene you can change, Liz?' And all I could think to do was stand up, whle still sobbing, and try to balance on one foot in the middle of the living room. Just to prove that - while I couldn't stop the tears or change my dismal interior dialogue - I was not yet totally out of control: at least I could cry hysterically while balanced on one foot.

It seemed silly to wash one day when I would only have to wash again the next.

It made me tired just to think of it.