Another Pilgrim's Progress

I've been thinking about Pilgrim's Progress this week thanks in part to a friend's random question.  (If you were your own character in Pilgrim's Progress, what would your name be?)  Being Nameless for the time being, I cannot escape perceiving my days in terms of Christian's journey (or was it Graceless's).  I say this with a sigh, because I wish I could read it again.

I'm stuck in the Slough of Despond.  Am I allowed to be stuck there?  I'm not supposed to be, I know.  But I am.  Despite my bloody efforts to avoid these deceitful slough's scattered about the Way, I was left one day with no other choice but to take a moment's solace in the middle of one.  Lucky chance?

But it gets worse.  Experience told me one day that there's no room for people like me in America's version of the Celestial City.  Wayfarers don't know how to help people who fall into sloughs.  If America's Celestial City isn't a safe place for Slough-trapped farers like me, what else is there to journey toward? Already I lack the strength to creatively lean forward into the future.  How can I dream of something better than America's Celestial City?

Perhaps then that's the beauty of an allegory--that's all it really is.