THESE PAST FEW DAYS HAVE BEEN very straining. I don’t have a care to speak of — my bills are paid, possessions plentiful and growing, heart is in the right place; and still, I hurt all over. My thinking’s not been straight for nights, I feel directionless and drifting, unharmed yet hurt. And once the negativity sets in—when thoughts layer, and decay, and stick to one another until they are too much to scrape away—it is really hard to look ahead.