Here on the hilltop there is a cool breeze.  It's slightly uncomfortable but not unbearable.  Just enough to raise a few goosebumps on my arms beneath the light jacket I wear and make my muscles tense a little.  You'll survive, I think to myself. Can't afford to start thinking about the temperature or the wind or I'll miss the beauty of the moment.

It is late and laid out below me is the valley.  It is filled with the hundreds, or thousands more likely, of lights that illuminate the city during the night.  I've always liked the night.  Somehow it seems cleaner than the daytime.  In the day you see all the cracks, the garbage, the detritus of modern city living, but at night all you can see is darkness, light and the way they interact with one another.  Neon signs, streetlights, car headlights and tail lights.  Some find them garish but I think they're beautiful but perhaps that's because I've always been a city boy.

I sit down on a boulder and look out over the panorama.  It's a little on the cold side too.  Not the most favourable of places to plant your backside.  You'll survive, I remind myself once more.  I've told myself that a lot over the years actually.  As I sit there looking out over the valley a train's horn sounds in the distance but I don't really notice it too much as I start to think back.

It seems that I've had a lot of disappointments and frustrations in my life.  I've always managed to survive somehow though.  Whenever I thought that things were really awful I have managed to hold onto some little bit of hope that kept me going, looking towards tomorrow when things might get better - and they have.  I've lost jobs but gotten new ones, lost friends but found new ones, lost myself and reinvented myself.  There have been plenty of downs but there have been ups too.

Reaching back I rub at the back of my neck a little, then my temples.  There's a slight headache in the works and it will probably get worse before it gets better.  Those are fairly common when I'm stressed and I am indeed stressed.  Trying to figure out what you're going to do with your life can do that to you.

I sigh and ask myself, "What are you doing, huh?  28 and trying to go to university now?  You should've had this all taken care of a decade ago."  Then I smile wryly, realizing that talking to myself while sitting on a hill in the middle of the night is a bit silly.  That's another sign that I'm stressed probably.  You'll survive, I think again.  Then I stop and think, Will you?

That's what really is eating at me.  The idea that maybe this time I won't be able to survive whatever trials and tribulations that the future may hold.  When I was younger I could keep telling myself that I had plenty of time to figure life out, to polish off the rough edges but time is passing by and I'm feeling the pressure more now.  When I ran into obstacles, failed plans and frustrations in the past I could shrug it off a little more easily.  Not that I really took setbacks with ease in the past either, they always hurt but now these things hit me harder since I know I have less time to get things right.

I shrug my shoulders as I continue my internal conversation with myself.  Well, I just have to do my best.  The inevitable reply comes, But what if your best isn't good enough?  What if you don't get into the program?  What will you do then?  My jaw clenches a little as the expression on my face tightens with annoyance.  You're not helping, I inform the other voice in my head.

It seems that voice is always there speaking to me.  The negative voice.  The voice of pessimism.  In my younger days I called it the Worry Monster because it was always coming up with things for me to worry about.  Actually it's not really a voice, or a creature, or anything as fantastic as that.  It's not like I actually hear voices in my head.  They're just thoughts, a string or pattern of thoughts that my anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder creates within my mind but it's easier to think of them as my negative voice, the negative side of my personality.

Ironically that negative voice can be helpful at times too.  It is so busy thinking of what can go wrong all the time that it is rare that I am ever caught off guard.  No matter what nasty occurrence happens to present itself the chances are that I have already probably envisioned it and perhaps made some sort of preparation for it.  What is that the Boy Scout saying "Always prepared"?  Well, the voice must be the ultimate Boy Scout in a dark kind of way.

However, right now the voice isn't helping.  It often doesn't.  It often makes me tense and nervous about all the things that can go wrong and, if I listen to it too long, it will make me too afraid to do the things that I want to or need to.  Why take the risk?  Why put up with all this tension and anxiety?  Better to just go to bed and sleep... and that's where the depression will kick in.  Once you realize that trying for something is too hard and won't work then you get depressed and want to go to bed and sleep, to avoid the world.  At least that's how depression works for me.  If I am really upset sometimes the anxiety and the depression will struggle for control over my bedroom, one will try to keep me up all night with dire thoughts of what is going to go wrong tomorrow and the other will try to get me to go to sleep and stay in bed all day in order to avoid it.

You're not helping, I tell the voice.  You have to be firm with it and not let it ramble on for too long.  Yes, maybe I will fail, I think.  But that's better than not trying.  There's lots that could go wrong but sitting on my butt won't get me anywhere, that's for sure.  It's worth the risk.  I just have to do it. 

Just do it.  That's an old Nike slogan that I like to use from time to time.  It's a little strange that I actually like it because I'm somewhat skeptical of marketing and advertising efforts but, hey, the slogan works, it does motivate you.  Even the village idiot occasionally says something wise I guess.  Hmm, perhaps that is too harsh.

And if you don't get into the program? the voice ventures, almost tentatively, sensing that I'm not really interested in listening to it's doom and gloom right now.

That's a real possibility, it's true, I admit fearfully.  But, if that happens, I will do something else.  I'm a survivor.

The voice is silent.  Even it has to admit that it is true.  I have survived.  I've been wounded, I've been knocked down but I've picked myself up again and again and I will again if I have to.