I've had my small scale ups and downs lately, but I've been high as a kite and low as a snake in life's bigger picture as well. That's why I'm counting so much on the Kennel coming through for me. It looks as if it's about to become a reality. Whether it will live up to my soaring expectations is another question altogether.

At one point in my life I thought I had it all. I didn't, of course. No one ever does, even if they think they do. But I had a future that was rosy and solid (if anything can have those two qualities at once).

And I lost it, over a period of a few months. Some of it was my own fault, and some of it wasn't. That's only fitting, because most of the reason I was up on that peak in the first place was out of sheer luck. If I'd done more to deserve to be there, maybe I would have known how to stay there instead of dribbling it all away.

This time is different. I feel I've worked hard and earned this shot at a little security in my future. I don't think I can blow it unless I lose all the qualities that have put me here in the first place. That's certainly possible, but all I have to do is remind myself of 1985 (and 1984 and 1986, for that matter), and I have enough incentive to keep going.

Someone else could blow it for me. There's still that possibility, because nothing is signed in blood yet. There are no guarantees, even when the Kennel becomes a reality, that it will make enough money to keep me happy in my old age. Just because bankers and lawyers believe in the project doesn't make it a certainty. I'm more hopeful than I've been in a long time, but I'll still have my emotional ups and downs; that's part of my nature.