I can not count the times I have promised myself the new start that would change all the days that have come before. If I had a penny for every broken promise I betrayed myself with I wouldn’t need the nickel for each false start I cried myself to sleep on. I sit in a chair that I have not sat in in over  year. Somehow it is all the same and yet somehow it is all different. In just a few short minutes all of the reasons why I feared this very moment came flooding back. Rage filled my being. I let the sickness win today. Time is mine. At least I have always thought. A dear friends’ sister passed this morning. I have known her nearly as long as my friend. She was a comforting voice in a very foreign land nearly  20 years ago. Over the wall and on the other side of life we traveled together. Four strangers. A red headed mid-western girl turned NY designer., a Long Island curmudgeon photographer, an upstate blue collar boy, and the masters assistants sister. Two decades have passed and each of us have gone our separate ways. I rarely speak to any of them.  The masters assistant has become my partner and somehow her sister has woven in and out of my life at random moments. I have promised my life for so many before today my soul had better be a multi-tasker in hell. I was making plans just yesterday that included her. I can’t offer what is passed today. I should be mad. I should be sad. It should hit me somewhere below the surface. But I trust nothing, as nothing has gotten me anything thus far. It’s time for something else. RIPPL.