That might be so, but we all have to try in life.

The painting of a landscape unfolded before me as the sunrise lit the shadows and brought forth the sad and ugly world that we inhabit. The sun brought the dark asphalt to bear that was once melted into the horizon and was only exposed by my moving headlights and the occasional liquor store or gas station. I remember thinking to myself that there was something to be said about the sun never setting on the British Empire and how they always quip "The sun will rise tomorrow and the world will turn," but frankly, I wasn't in the headspace to make such a loosely connected joke. To think of it, I don't think I've ever met an English person in my life. Either way, I kept driving as the mountains rose to meet me in the distance and the world became warm through the windshield. The empty stretches of absolute nothingness didn't register to me and I was simply an automaton to the car screaming by me. I maintained exactly the speed limit and just looked ahead; the world a play that I was simply an extra in. I do remember the sunshine though and how bright the world burned. It was both invigorating and absolutely depressing at the same time; I loved it. 

"New Year's resolutions are funny. They don't mean shit and we are all going to be forgotten when the sun burns out of the fucking sky." I remember saying to some orderly who was underpaid and was more of a soundboard. 

"That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," repeated the orderly to me. He had said that line to me so many times that I could almost do a perfect impression of it.

"What's the point of all this? We may all have to try, but," I paused for dramatic effect "but maybe I'm trying to just be a waste of oxygen and resources of this world. Nothing out there is uniquely beautiful and no one is beautifully unique." 

"That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," 

The semi-truck came barrelling towards me, still with morning dew on the windshield, and came within inches of painting me like a dark smudge on the highway that leads into the mountains. The mountains shimmered in the distance and bore silent witness to my letting go of my senses and turning over the white dotted lines. Luckily, or rather, unluckily (depending on how I feel in any given particular moment) the driver skirted to the shoulder, nearly running himself off the road, and passed by with an orchestra of honking and fist waving. I kept driving. 

"That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," belched a different orderly during a different season of the year, in a different wing, of a different building on the grounds. 

I remember looking so disgusted at her at that moment and let the poison gas she just spewed linger a bit. It crawled across my skin, into my pores, and I suppose into my inner self. It burned like the touch of a stove, gone in a flash, but present long past the acceptable time it should be for a quick dance with heat. 

"That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," I mimicked and stood up with a swiftness that even scared me. "That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," I shouted. "That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," I screamed. My voice was rising now and others were taking note. They looked on in shock and some even tried to look away out of pity.  "That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life." I cried. "That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life."

I wailed. The hot tears on my face materialized and I remember feeling nothing but heat. The searing heat was in my hands, neck, feet, and mind. I remember seeing the white figures move in closer and I remember not even caring at that moment. 

"That might be so Augustus, but we all have to try in life," I whispered to myself repeatedly as I was carried off. That hospital trained its own staff to keep repeating the same thing to us loons in order to maintain quotas and keep training costs down. I was convinced of it. 

Those words rattled around in my head for days like my own body rattled around the padded room. The words would pull and pull and pull at my mind until they would admit defeat and roll over, like dogs on a choke collar. Then a few hours later, something would happen and they would become emboldened again to simply keep tugging at me. There may not have been a single window in that room, but the mountains were there. They called me and their snowy peaks wanted to wrap around me and transport me somewhere else. I didn't know what was in those peaks, but I knew I had to go. Eventually, the leash snapped and those words had their revenge. 

Driving through the golden morning of wheat, a lightly roasted color bottle I "found" in an ABC store and the sun. I kept driving until the mountains no longer rose to meet me but instead I rose to meet them. I climbed up their ridges, praying the radiator wouldn't explode and finally reached the vista I wanted. It was a familiar spot that was ingrained in my mind from road trips as a child and drunkenly fantastical midnight rides as a teenager. I had managed to forget this spot, buried by medication, other memories, and lust for exotic countries and people. Pop culture and other worries blanketed over this vista like the snow that I felt around my ankles. Fog rolled in over these mountains and I guess partially I didn't want to remember this place.

But I did remember what this place was because in times of pain we return to past selves that we know already survived and can harbor us for awhile. 

It looked out over nothing but vast fields and the misplaced and mistaken barn. It was beautifully unique and I knew that I would find nothing like it again. The sky was like a watercolor with perfectly wispy clouds and colors were nothing less than vibrant. 

When they see me and this, they'll know what I found here. Or maybe this place will be wasted on them and a report will be filed that I was an anomaly with no clear plan.  I'm sure that the rocks won't be kind on the way down and the time will be wasted ultimately to bring me back up. However, we all have to try in life and I wanted to complete this resolution before the sun burns out of the sky and I am forgotten even by those I didn't make ripples or trouble for. 

 My resolution was simple: find something that makes sense to you.