This has been a piece-of-shit period in my life if ever there has been one.

Some people have responded with concern, while others have ignored me.

This is addressed to those who have professed concern.

When you have inquired as to how I am, I have respected your queries by answering honestly.

But by doing so, I apparently have terrified you.

You have gone running as though the hounds of hell were snapping at your heels.

Why the inquiries if there is to be no follow-through, or the follow-through is a reaction of blind fear?

Am I really that frightening? Or is it that I'm not telling you what you wish to hear?

If the latter, why was I not informed there was a pre-written script for this conversation?

Just a few of the many painful doubts that have been plaguing me since about the third week in December.

This is beginning to feel like an indeterminate prison sentence.