Older, but no wiser

Time passes. Days fill with the stuff of living – work, shop, eat, sleep, pay the bills, feed the cats; that kind of stuff. Not much writing though. Why do I feel such an urge to write when I have nothing to say? Perhaps to say “this isn’t the way I want it to be, I don’t want just to live boring routine, I want to communicate, to share, to be heard, to listen”. (Note to self: examine that last statement more closely – I have a nasty feeling I’m more interested in being heard than in listening). Or just to say “Hey, world: I’m still here y’know”

But is that true? That stuff about wanting to communicate? Is it just a fantasy? Isn’t the way that I live only that way because it’s what I’ve chosen? I make choices every second – to go with the flow of routine or to cut across the stream. Striking out across the current seemed to hold promise, seemed like a good idea at the time, but it’s hard to maintain and I’m not a strong swimmer (metaphorically or in reality). So I rested for a while – for much of the last few months in fact – and let the stream take me again. From where I sit now I seem to have come full circle; in a job that could be the same as the one I was doing 20 years ago; in relationships that have ebbed and flowed and settled into safe, non-committal convenience; with vague notions of desires for change, fuzzy ideas of my purpose here on this planet, but neither of those mature past the first few faltering steps. I’ve reached an equilibrium, neither hot nor cold. You know those questionnaires that ask you to rate your feelings on a scale? Customer satisfaction surveys, that kind of thing. If 1 and 6 are the extremes of the scale, I’d answer 3 or 4 to every one. Middle of the road, neither one thing nor the other. No passion.

No passion? What about all those things I claim to love doing – climbing mountains, taking photographs, making music? I’m not doing much of either of them; that doesn’t exactly reflect passion, does it?

Maybe I need something external to kick me out of this rut. I guess it’s the old problem – ruts just get too comfortable to take the trouble to get out of them. I need to find a cliff edge.

Oh, yeah, right – I nearly forgot. There might be one of them racing towards me quite soon; I’ll find out in March if I’ve still got a job, along with a few thousand others. Big, big cut-backs at work. And if I still have a job, in a few years time it’s going to be moving a couple of hundred miles away. Maybe that’s a big enough cliff edge.

Don’t get me wrong - in many ways it’s actually quite an exciting prospect; an expenses paid relocation to a beautiful part of the country. Much nearer those hills and crags – cragging on a hot summer’s evening after work; weekend strolls in the local hills; only a couple of hours drive from something bigger. I’m not against the idea; it’s just these months in limbo that are hard.

I wasn’t joking when I said that I’d forgotten – big as that cliff edge might be, it really had slipped my mind. Nothing I can do about it right now, so there’s no point in taking much notice of it.

Strange; only a few days ago I was feeling so full of energy. It’s all dissipated now. I suppose that’s the effect of the bug that I’ve picked up from somewhere. Why should a virus have such an effect on thought processes? On feelings, even?

Hey ho… I’ll go and take my fuzzy head away and sniffle somewhere else now. Like I said, middle of the road – no great thoughts, nothing to excite or entertain or inform you.

Hey world, I’m still here.