Slumps

The word itself carries a heaviness. "Slump." Your tongue slips from the roof of your mouth down the back of your teeth only to hang mid-air on the "um." Jaw-dropped, your lips labor to pop the "p." A slump drags us down like an anchor attached to the ankle, and yes, some drown. They accept their self-imposed "ill-fate" and stop fighting. Exhale. But others -- nay, they break the chain by...

Well that's the thing, isn't it? There is no thing. No concrete way to break the slump. Only time and tribulation. It could be days or weeks or months or Hemingway-put-a-gun-to-your-head years. You can't hit a baseball. Can't write a song. Can't get laid. You can't, you can't, you can't, you can't...

Until you do. There's the thundering yet hollow crack of the bat. Lyrical epiphany. The moment he or she smiles back at you at the bar and you know, for the evening -- they're yours. All of a sudden, memory of the slump disappears. It's as if it had never been real -- only a figment of our insecurities, like a nightmare, on loop, played for the entire world to see. And we're back in the game.

That's all it is. Life, Forex and the pursuit of happiness are games of ups and downs, risks and rewards. Slumps you'll forget all about.