If dreams were thunder, and lightning was desire

This old house would have burned down a long time ago

Well now ordinarily I’d be feeling reflective on an occasion such as this, that being the end of another year and the beginning of another. But today I just feel tired, worn down and worn out, grasping for meaning where there is none, pedalling at the air under my feet.

Maybe it’s the hustle that’s got me grinding my gears, the months of job applications and starry-eyed suppositions, the seemingly endless possibilities that can all come grinding to a halt with a few words, a change in the body’s tides, a well-meaning remark or a careless one.

For the first time in decades, I don’t have a job or degree to get back to or babies to raise – I still have my children, but they are in so many ways not children any more – and I’m feeling restless and aimless and shackled all at once.

My thesis, that huge and significant thing I finished back in September, has vanished without trace into the world of examiners and reports. I’m not sure when she will be back. On days like today, I’m not sure I didn’t just dream the whole thing. Those words that I agonised over, they are carried out of sight and mind by the work that’s always so close at hand, in the form of laundry and floors to sweep, dogs to walk and gardens to weed. It is all the work of the fortunate, of course, but where has my life gone, in all of that? Which way did it go, and can I still catch it if I start now?

It feels strange to have no new year’s resolutions, not even any plans for bringing in another year. I could well be asleep by 11, and I suppose what I’m saying is that’s okay too – or at least, it should be.

It feels like I’ve spent so many moments at the end of one year and the beginning of another, putting too much stake in what might or might not happen. Adding all the layers of meaning that didn’t really mean anything.

I wasn’t in the least bit ready for anything that’s happened in the past few years. I’ve stopped expecting much of myself or other people, because I am tired of being proven wrong.

There is always hope, of course, and it keeps me company most days. I hope it’s keeping you company too, if you have read this far. My hope for all of us is that we find moments of joy and appreciation to keep us going, even when the path isn’t clear or hasn’t been built yet.

May the crows never pick your haystack,

And may your donkey always be in foal.

— Irish proverb

Image: Dream Chaser by Andrea Kowch

rjdgallery.com/artist/andrea-kowch/

Headline: Angel from Montgomery by Bonnie Raitt. Written by John Prine.