And Little Lambs Eat Ivy in anticlimatic

I am not doing particularly well this dark and frigid evening.

It’s hard to speculate as to why. The volume of possibilities are too numerous. The general feeling is one of joyless despair, of being drained, incapable of deciphering even the most earnest meaning behind the simple things I enjoyed. Could be the fact that it’s been two years since I’ve had any kind of vacation or worked less than a full week. Could be missing my lost loved ones. Could be lockdown isolation. Could be any or all of the seemingly endless procession of difficult events that’s marked this previous year.

I want to escape, but the only places I want to escape to no longer exist, so I find myself in a bit of a bind- can’t go home, can’t stay here. I want to escape to the Out To Lunch parking lot at 10:00 AM on a Sunday morning next to my grandfather’s red truck. We’d always hug long and good before catching up over pie and coffee. I want to escape to deer camp after dark, to join my father and uncle for laugh over a pot of chili cooking on the wood stove. I want to escape to the 6:00 AM sofa and blankets of my youth, watching the 90s morning play out on cable TV through tired and bewildered eyes.

The world feels to me right now like a fountain of need constantly crying out for help, clinging to the hem of my shirt, dragging me into one act of moving the world for them after the next. I just need a wee break from carrying water. I need someone to look after me, and someone to look after the world in my absence. Just for a bit. The small handful of people in my life that I’ve depended on to do so have all moved on. I still have my mother, but she’s been more preoccupied with filling my father’s shoes than being herself, and really it’s her turn to be taken care of, and I’m a grown man for God’s sake- but one that is not made of stone or steel.

Just a week break. That’s all I need.