What a cheery thought on New Year's Eve. And yet it's the most depressing time of year. But then again, whilst these two sentences are true the time frame is not for I'm typing this in September. Ahead of the game by a long shot. Projecting my feelings by a few hundred miles. Same again. A repeat of last year. A waiting, a sitting it out. When will it be over? When will Jules Holland and World War III going on outside stop?
Oh God, do we have to hug? Sing? Join in with the Big Ben countdown? ...4, 3, 2, 1!
Oh Lord, I forgot to switch my mobile off. HAPPY NEW YEAR! flashing at intervals on the screen as if I didn't already know how this night would climax. And as usual, I stubbornly refuse to reciprocate. Leave me alone people! Maybe when the New Year feels more official, say in a couple of days...maybe not.
I hope I'm wrong...I bet I'm not. I know myself too well.
Doom and gloom. Scrooge. Grinch. Party pooper. Yep, all of those.
What are we celebrating – the end or the beginning? Nothing will magically change when the clock strikes midnight. This is not Cinderella. Riches to rags. Rags to riches.
One digit of the year. And the month. That's it. The days will continue to be short and the nights dark. In deep, bleak winter.
I'll shiver, swaddle myself in numerous layers and tense my shoulders from the wind-chill. And all my movements will feel constricted as my blood struggles to pump around my body. The inner cold causing my brain to freeze, my joints and muscles to stiffen. My hands and feet encased in blocks of ice that never thaws or chips. A longing to be warm, but oh the pain. The throbbing, the tingling, the redness. The chapping of cold and heat. The extremes.
Give me a temperate climate. I'll take the dull days, a bit of a breeze, some rain. Just the briefest glimpse of the sun, a slice of blue sky.
But the world will turn as it always does. And it relies on its seasons, regardless of how I cope or don't cope, or that the overlaps between them seem to be ever-changing. The narrow, they widen, they alarmingly morph from one season into another and then back. In a matter of hours, not days. There was a time when you used to know approximately what each season would be like. Cold, wet, crisp, warm. More chance of showers, gales and storms.
Hell, there was a time when I used to know where I would most likely be, what I would be doing. Now there's no routine, no stability, but often a stifled boredom. Even enjoyment in any capacity has lost its appeal. Its sparkle. Too much effort, and I just don't have that energy to waste. Or the inclination to want to.
Who knows what I will have been through when we actually make it to this pivotal point? Or what state the world will be in? It will probably look nothing like it does now. Overrun with extra peoples with no infrastructure to support the tilting. The end is nigh. Armageddon. The approach of yet another year always brings that prophecy out, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it. As if I'd failed somehow. Any writer worth his salt would do so: beef up the science fiction slant, invent a theory about the void between 11:59 and 12:00am. A tiny black hole we could all plummet through.
However H. G. Wells is not my bag.
To read
occasionally but not to write. I like things that don't make sense,
but could feasibly happen. Time altered states. Loss of time and
memory. Sudden disappearances with no explanation. Conspiracy
theories. Leaks and cover ups. Occurrences that cannot be
scientifically proved.
Nothing
explains the Blues. The melancholy notes that often announce
themselves when you should feel joyful, or at the very least
contented, so that you spiral down. Like a human log rushing down a
water flute, no armbands, no rubber ring, or giant inflatable killer
whale to leap on, to the accompaniment of a poignantly played
saxophone.Picture Credit: Bleedin' Gums Murphy, Moanin' Lisa, The Simpsons
