"You're not eating anything," said Marilla sharply, eying her as if it were a serious shortcoming. Anne sighed.

"I can't. I'm in the depths of despair. Can you eat when you are in the depths of despair?"

"I've never been in the depths of despair, so I can't say," responded Marilla.

"Weren't you? Well, did you ever try to IMAGINE you were in the depths of despair?"

"No, I didn't."

"Then I don't think you can understand what it's like. It's very uncomfortable feeling indeed. When you try to eat a lump comes right up in your throat and you can't swallow anything, not even if it was a chocolate caramel. I had one chocolate caramel once two years ago and it was simply delicious. I've often dreamed since then that I had a lot of chocolate caramels, but I always wake up just when I'm going to eat them. I do hope you won't be offended because I can't eat. Everything is extremely nice, but still I cannot eat."

Quoted from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Ever since I was a kid and my mom gave the first Anne of Green Gables book to me to read, I've loved the feisty red-headed orphan and the Cuthbert siblings, Matthew and Marilla, who care for her. Anne has been a kindred spirit of mine for ages and for the past several days, the episode quoted above has haunted my memory.

Like Anne, I know what it means to wallow in the depths of despair. I don't allow it to happen very often simply because it's a nasty place to be, but every now and then, circumstances will work so visciously against me that the depths of despair move from the fictional to the real world. That's where I am now.

The constant coughing has triggered more headaches than I could possibly count. As if I already don't have a hard time sleeping, the coughing and headaches are making it even more difficult to sleep. How pathetic is it that I took an extra dose of prescription cough syrup just so that I might be able to sleep without disruption for a couple of hours? Or to wake up just about every hour with a headache so painful that breathing is difficult?

I really don't want to languish in this place very long, but it's becoming harder to escape from it. Despair and self-pity don't suit me very well because they are shackles that strip me of the freedom to remember how blessed I am that my situation isn't worse like it could be.

So for now, I will play Scarlett O'Hara and sign off with, "Tomorrow is another day!"