1. Fasting. As if the unremitting diet isn’t bad enough then there’s the periodic bloodwork that must be done while fasting. How in the year 2024 has science not progressed to the point where a man can both have breakfast and know his cholesterol simultaneously. I swear, for all our fancy scans and computer enhanced diagnostics, we feel about two steps removed from casting bones and reading entrails sometimes.
2. No plans. We’ve reached the point in the year where I traditionally start burning off vacation time. The catch is, I used to take my time off and go places and see interesting parts of the world… or at least go sit on a beach receiving a heavy dose of sand and rum. It’s been a good long time since I’ve done that. I bought a house, a couple of vehicles, ended up with a few pets that I hate the thought of being separated from and suddenly it’s been a decade since I’ve been any further away than a quick road trip lasting no more than a couple of nights. Oh, I’ll go scouting for some books, do a bit of TV binging, and be absolutely thrilled about not being tethered to work in any way, but there’s part of me that wishes I was headed off somewhere exotic next week, just to get a proper change of scenery.
3. Everything else. In addition to the traditional beginning of annual leave season, it’s also that time of year when where I get unreasonably angsty and out of sorts about nearly everything as my birthday closes in. At this point it’s no longer just a glitch, but a feature of the last few weeks of May every year. Look, especially this year, I appreciate the arrival of another birthday as a sure sign that I managed not to drop dead, but it’s still a stinging reminder of how much I haven’t gotten done – and how much grows increasingly unlikely to ever get done as the years crack on at what feels like an increasingly frenetic pace. I know my mood will improve once I get through next weekend… for now though, you’d best think of me as decidedly surly. If I were a sign, I’d be brightly painted “approach with caution.”
Tag Archives: black dog
Total lack of motivation…
So, I have had a total lack of motivation lately. And I’m not just talking about blogging, but a total lack of motivation for class, for work, for much of anything, really. My black dog apparently takes a little longer to kick in during winters in the south… must be because it stays warm longer. I’m sure this lull in the action will lift at some point, but for the moment, I’m just… blah.
A visit from my black dog…
Those of you who have been regular readers (thank you, by the way) may possibly have noticed a somewhat cyclic pattern to my posts. I know in reviewing them from time to time, I have identified a pattern that seems to emerge, at least to me, quite clearly… Building up a full head of steam and ranting or railing on a particular topic or series of topics, punctuated buy a post or two of more sullen thoughts. Until I sat tonight to write, I hadn’t put it together that those periods when my mood darkens are closely aligned to the times when I have the least to do… To those times when I have nothing to throw myself wholly into or to get lost in. They are the times I take counsel in my fears.
As I sit here tonight, I thought I might share some of those thought, some of those fears, with you.
Perhaps my greatest fear is that I’ll never be as great as my own ambition. It tends to be worse near my birthday and those who have spent any time with me in late May are probably all too familiar with my lament that Alexander had conquered an empire by the time he was thirty. As I write tonight, however, the thought, the fear, that plays on my mind most, is a question of why my own path seems so different that that of so many others. I’ve watched a parade of friends and associates pair off, marry, and settle into a routine of family life. And I’ve watched myself drive away the very possibility of those things in my on life at every turn. Just the outside prospect that things could move to that point fills me with abject dread and brings on images of the walls closing in on me, of suffocating under the weight of it.
The better part of the last three years has consisted of vaguely organized chaos, of flying across the country at the drop of a hat, of learning to think of hotels as second homes, and of never really being able to plan more than a few days of my life in advance. There is at least a part of me that envies those who know they’ll be home each night and know what and who to expect once they get there. There is more than a little regret for some of the opportunities I have allowed to pass untaken and for those my own chaos has hurt as it unfolded around them. I’ve not always been proud of the things I have done or the decisions I have made, but in almost every circumstance, I believed I was acting for the best. Some, however, were made in moments of fear, and of these, I am the least proud.
I will feel better tomorrow, because that is how these things work for me. Thought my black dog still lies at my feet, writing tonight has been a catharsis, as it almost always is.
I don’t often choose to post something this soul searching, so read and digest while you can… before I wake up in the middle of the night realizing what I threw out for the world to see and delete it… You know how I hate putting a weak face to the public.
P.S. Just so you know I’m not taking things too seriously tonight, I seriously considered posting this under the “Pets and Animals” category just for a lark and to see if anyone noticed.
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