I feel as if my mind has grown more cloudy and gray as I’ve gotten older. When I was younger, I had ideas coming to me all the time. I was able to take in new things easily, understand things, connect things. I was more idealistic. The future seemed more open. Reality, the mundane operations of going to work, paying bills, cleaning, taxes, all the adult things have taken focus. Life has always been a tunnel, but now it seems a more narrowly defined tunnel. It seems hard to make any headway toward anything that seems like real progress.