From January 11th through to October 14th I was visiting the hospital virtually non-stop…
October the 14th, when it came, was a brute of a day in itself, of course, as the reason for all of that visiting reached what I suppose was its inevitable tragic outcome…
Since then, to be honest, the year's not been all that much better to endure, if truth be told… with mountains of paperwork to wade through and various external administrative incompetences meaning that, as the year turns, I'm still not able to actually do anything about any of it apart from fend off the people demanding money with mild menaces and generally wait and wait some more as the various forms stare back at me waiting for some attention...
No messages. No enquiries as to my well-being. No we'll-wishing... came this way during the season of goodwill... All my own fault, of course... We reap as we sow...
God, I'm so tired...
Time to sleep...
For me, the icing on that particularly bitter cake which we're still going to remember as being called 2013 seems to have been the almost casual loss of the Ashes in Australia… and finding out that somebody spent £25 million of the pension pot that I used to have a ten-year stake in on something or other - perhaps their new yacht - leaving me looking at an old age full of poverty because of it.
The howling winds and gales which have accompanied this year towards its conclusion seem to have brought along with them a whole lot of melancholia (for this individual at least) and a strange sense of the sheer pointlessness of everything seems to have threatened to overwhelm me for much of the time. All of my energy and enthusiasm seem to have been sapped away and replaced with a feeling of hopelessness and lack of will which I'm going to struggle to overcome, especially as we traipse into the coldest, darkest and dankest time of the year. My life so far seems to have added up to very little and, to be brutally honest with myself, doesn't look as if it's going to improve all that much despite the new hope that a new year brings.
Of course such bleakness is both infectious and utterly resistible, so I fully expect that the few people that I haven't yet driven away from me will finally decide to find me as repellent and avoidable as I usually find myself and my prospects for finding out what "fun" is again remain grim.
But then, not quite as grim as for some.
This has also been a year in which there have been all of those other "celebrity" losses too, and not just the ones who are actually dead and gone, but those who are alive and kicking even though they've turned out to be such bitter disappointments to everyone who once adored them on TV…
Additionally, of course, the loss of stars like Peter O'Toole is never easy, nor the greats like Joan Fontaine who we thought had already gone years ago if we're being perfectly honest, just reminds all of us of just how old we're getting ourselves.
Mind you, there is still time, if we're lucky, to turn such things around. Joan Fontaine died at ninety-six and, according to her obituary, had a long running feud with her older sister. Now, reading that you'd imagine that the feud must have ended decades ago, so it came as some surprise to discover that, at the time of Joan Fontaine's death, at ninety-six years old remember, her older sister was still alive…
(Their mother still wasn't talking to either of them, by the way…)
There's some kind of comedy notion buried in all of that nonsense somewhere, by the way, if you know where to look for it, but I don't suppose anyone will feel much like bothering...
Sigh!
Time, I think, to sign off for the year and wish you all a happy new year, if you can find such a thing...
Mind you, personally, I'm not exactly looking forward to 2014 either given that, all being well, it's the year that I'll be fifty years old in...
Yey...
No messages. No enquiries as to my well-being. No we'll-wishing... came this way during the season of goodwill... All my own fault, of course... We reap as we sow...
God, I'm so tired...
Time to sleep...
For me, the icing on that particularly bitter cake which we're still going to remember as being called 2013 seems to have been the almost casual loss of the Ashes in Australia… and finding out that somebody spent £25 million of the pension pot that I used to have a ten-year stake in on something or other - perhaps their new yacht - leaving me looking at an old age full of poverty because of it.
The howling winds and gales which have accompanied this year towards its conclusion seem to have brought along with them a whole lot of melancholia (for this individual at least) and a strange sense of the sheer pointlessness of everything seems to have threatened to overwhelm me for much of the time. All of my energy and enthusiasm seem to have been sapped away and replaced with a feeling of hopelessness and lack of will which I'm going to struggle to overcome, especially as we traipse into the coldest, darkest and dankest time of the year. My life so far seems to have added up to very little and, to be brutally honest with myself, doesn't look as if it's going to improve all that much despite the new hope that a new year brings.
Of course such bleakness is both infectious and utterly resistible, so I fully expect that the few people that I haven't yet driven away from me will finally decide to find me as repellent and avoidable as I usually find myself and my prospects for finding out what "fun" is again remain grim.
But then, not quite as grim as for some.
This has also been a year in which there have been all of those other "celebrity" losses too, and not just the ones who are actually dead and gone, but those who are alive and kicking even though they've turned out to be such bitter disappointments to everyone who once adored them on TV…
Additionally, of course, the loss of stars like Peter O'Toole is never easy, nor the greats like Joan Fontaine who we thought had already gone years ago if we're being perfectly honest, just reminds all of us of just how old we're getting ourselves.
Mind you, there is still time, if we're lucky, to turn such things around. Joan Fontaine died at ninety-six and, according to her obituary, had a long running feud with her older sister. Now, reading that you'd imagine that the feud must have ended decades ago, so it came as some surprise to discover that, at the time of Joan Fontaine's death, at ninety-six years old remember, her older sister was still alive…
(Their mother still wasn't talking to either of them, by the way…)
There's some kind of comedy notion buried in all of that nonsense somewhere, by the way, if you know where to look for it, but I don't suppose anyone will feel much like bothering...
Sigh!
Time, I think, to sign off for the year and wish you all a happy new year, if you can find such a thing...
Mind you, personally, I'm not exactly looking forward to 2014 either given that, all being well, it's the year that I'll be fifty years old in...
Yey...
I, too, will be glad to see the back of this year, for much the same reasons as you (apart from the mountains of paperwork!). I am still reeling against the accusations levelled at Rolf Harris, and dearly hope they are proved wrong as is still is one of my favourite TV presenters and characters. Innocent, until proven guilty, for me!
ReplyDeleteAs for being fifty, well, I found it quite a good place to be! Older, and wiser, yet still in good enough bodily condition to be able to get out and enjoy life. It's a more "respectable" age, I think! But is is also, don't forget, just a number.
This year has definitely had more downs than ups for me. I am missing Mum more than ever, and sadly, my last image of her is not that of her lying peacefully, and at rest, in her coffin at the undertakers, but of her in the side room at the hospital when I saw her for the last time. She was looking lost and confused, and was shouting for the nurses who seemed to be ignoring her. And I just walked away, not realising that would be the last time I would see her alive. Regrets I've had a few.........
But, life goes on and I have much to be thankful for. So, my lovely Big Brother, I wish you, and your Beloved, a peaceful, enjoyable, healthy (and maybe a little prosperous) New Year!