The "s" on the "Excerpts"

So here's another little snipet from the autobiography notebook.

        It should be no surprise to the cognizant reader that I have struggled with depression and a lack of self-confidence that sometimes reaches the level of self-loathing. I'm fairly certain, in fact, that the inability to identify an excerpt of my personal writing as morose, would be an accurate test for brain-death.
        Depression is one of those things that sneaks up on you. Okay, really my own experience has been more that it straight up comes and smacks you across the face. The point is that you're always unprepared for it. Even those times when you see it marching purposely towards you.
        As an adult they can teach you techniques, give you labels to use, so that it becomes possible to greet your intruder by name as it approaches. As a child, however, it can take a while for it to click that not everybody has this.
        There is still a part of me that is unconvinced that this is not the case. That everyone spent their kindergarten  evenings sobbing into the carpet, wiping away snot and tear tracks, asking "why me".


Another little bit:

        Depression and anxiety are paralyzing. So is laziness. It's a coin toss which has negatively impacted me more.
        I have a long love for language, dictionaries, etymology, grammar, and all the other trappings of words. I wonder if this isn't at least partially due to the fact that since I knew I was never going to do anything beyond talking about doing it, I became intrigued by learning how to better express what I was never going to do.
        What an ambiguous, rambling sentence to directly follow a claimed love of grammar! But then, I guess I never claimed to love clarity in particular.
        If it's true that I may never take the second step towards a goal, having never had much difficulty with first steps, at least I now had a myriad of different terms and means to excuse myself eloquently from it.
        And you can bet all your money safely that when I list the future steps I would never take, there would be a comma before the "and". If I can't argue for myself, I can sure argue for the serial comma, or the Oxford, as it sometimes prefers to be called.