So, like most females, I am a woman of ups and downs.

I don't pretend to know how males are. I think my past has proven that I should just give up on that field of knowledge.

I believe that life ought to be a steady movement toward improvement, with periodic setbacks. Because, as we know, there will always be setbacks. We may as well accept it. Life is not all roses.

But sometimes the lack of forward progress isn't due to a "setback" per se. It's not a sickness, or a breakup, or an unforeseen financial disaster. It's just that an accumulation of tiny things seems to impede any sense of improvement, and in fact, seems to be pushing you farther and farther behind. That type of lack of momentum seems to be particularly destructive. It's a slow, inexorable, "why do I even bother" sort of feeling.

The tiny things seem to thrive off one another. Last weekend I decided "OK, enough of this" and I cranked out a really good blog post on what makes a great newsletter. I t was my first issues-type post in a long while. But I was logged both in my Feral By Nature blog in one window, and the Wildrun blog in another, and when I hit "publish" some cruel technological misalignment caused the post to be eaten. I normally can save almost any eaten online data by a skillful dance of windows...but not this time.

So after that wasted hour, I was a victim of "why bother anymore."

Then I've had a couple of good adoptions. Hey, progress! I was out in the cat facility evaluating who might come into the house. Allie? Morgaine?  Then I got an email. A kitten I adopted out mid-summer is coming back. I'm glad the adopter reached out to me (we have a no-questions-asked return policy), but once again...

..."why bother."

I received inquiries from people who want to visit to adopt, so I know I'm not in some dead dark hole by myself, stuck with a zillion cats. There are a number of tasks that wouldn't take too much work do do (clean out the old trucks, shovel them out, pull out the titles, and make them go away) that would give me an enormous sense of accomplishment. I know that.

It's a demon we all fight. The "why bother" demon.