Knee deep in vice

O.K., that's a fantasy.

I'm just not good at vice. Advice, perhaps.

But at pure vice, I'm a loser.

I'm sure many of you wonder why I have any regrets about this. But I never had the chance to sow those wild oats.

Every time someone told me where they were, I got there after everyone else had plowed the fields and gone home.

Relational and identity crises? That's quite another matter.

That's NOT a state of mind to desire, but it's one in which I constantly seem to find myself.

Or one in which I find others.

And the annoying thing is that I never quite know how I got there.

I did not choose to dwell in the misty, muddy and sometimes challenging land of moral ambiguity.

Though not inclined to a natural love of black and white (my best friends are those who knowingly discover themselves in the grey areas) I find that, often where I expect to move freely, I am stumbling instead into quandaries.

Not mine, but somebody else's.

Oftime I'll start with the noblest intentions.

Drawn to spectacle like the actress I once thought I would become, I'll allow myself to become part of the dramatis personae -- the problem is that it's someone else's play.

I'm never sure if I'm the heroine, the heroine's best friend (or worst enemy, in some cases) or the clown.

It's not long before my moral antenna begin to wave badly -- and vertigo sets in.

So many insane plot twists.

So much agony. So much inadvertent farce.

And so many secrets.

If I didn't care about the people involved, I'd write a novel.

Only the truth is, watching people attempt to figure themselves out in difficult situations isn't funny.

Or I can't seem to find a way to make it so.

I care too much about their welfare to wryly watch at a distance.

Not a blessing or a curse, it is simply the way I am wired.

I'm hoping that this last time, the price was high enough that I won't make the same mistakes again.

Likely that I may make different ones.

At least give me credit for creativity.