Older, but no wiser

I’ve finished the task for the evening - first top coat of paint in the shower room. I’ve been redecorating our bedroom over the last couple of weeks; we had the attic converted to provide a bedroom with en suite shower room a dozen years ago, and it was due a new carpet, a change of wallpaper and a lick of paint. The new carpet comes on Friday, so I had a deadline.

That’s always the way; always things to be done that can’t not be done. These few weeks it’s been decorating, next week it’ll be something else; there’s always something that needs doing, something to fill the hours which aren’t spent working or sleeping. I know I create these pressures for myself, so I can’t blame anyone – and I don’t want to blame anyone. No-one forces this schedule on me; I choose it for myself. I guess it gives me a sense of achievement.

I know the things I write here may seem to create the impression that I’m griping about all manner of things in my life, but it isn’t really like that. Outside of work, everything is pretty much fine – not perfect, room for improvement, but I’m reasonably content. Sure, I’d like to have more time and energy for reading and writing – oh, and photography, and hillwalking and philosophising and… and… and just relaxing. But if they mattered enough, I’d do something about it, wouldn’t I? It is, after all, within my power to do so.

Yet whenever I sit down to put pen to paper, all that comes out is a string of woes. It’s as though I have an alter ego with a huge chip on his shoulder whose only way out is into my journal or through this keyboard. He takes over whenever he gets the chance, but I get sick of hearing him whine so journal entries are becoming few and far between. Blog posts are becoming that way too.

Question is, is he Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?