Rebecca's spring break ended on Sunday, and after she left, I felt such a void. She has a sunny disposition, and the world seems so much brighter when she's here. It�s funny I should have this kind of a reaction to her departure because she comes home nearly every weekend, and, in about a month, she�ll be released from college until fall semester begins.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I�m getting closer to having an empty nest. For so long, I thought that was something to look forward to, but now I�m not so sure. About an hour ago, as I was finishing Song of Susannah, book VI of Stephen King�s Dark Tower series, these words hit me right between the eyes:

Tabby and I just got back from the Bangor Auditorium where our youngest (and about four hundred of his classmates) finally got a diploma. He�s now officially a high school graduate�He�ll be starting college in the fall and I will have to start dealing with the ever-popular Empty Nest Syndrome. Everybody sez it all goes by in the wink of an eye and you say yeah yeah yeah�and then it does. Fuck, I�m sad. Feel lost. What�s it all for, anyway? (What�s it all about, Alfie, ha-ha?) What, just a big scramble from the cradle to the grave?

Is that what this is about? My mortality? No, I really don�t think so. At present, I'm more afraid of living than I am of dying. My fear is that of being trapped in a body beaten down by agony � a prisoner of pain.

I was in such excruciating agony one day last week, I gave serious consideration to ending it all with a bottle of pills. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of what it would do my daughters and Daniel. But I really can't go on living with this kind of pain (which is unlike anything I've ever experienced before), pretending that everything is okay when it's not. The false smile on my face is cracking, and even that hurts.

Song of the Day: Ain�t No Sunshine by Bill Withers

Reading: The Dark Tower (Book VII) by Stephen King