APOLOGY DISSECTED

“I’m sorry!”

There, I’ve said it.

Phew! That’s a huge weight off my mind.

I know things have been getting a bit heavy recently and it’s true, my little brain has been heading off into all sorts of dark places, many of which I’ve eventually decided not to share with you because it’s hardly fair now, is it? I start off trying to produce a lovely light and happy-go-lucky observation on life’s little mysteries to share with my mysterious happy band of “wibbly-wobby-woo buddies” but somehow these tales always seem to end up heading off into that dark place, which is all well and good, and probably very therapeutic for me, but must be a bit of an old blogger to read.

I have a note here I scrawled down yesterday morning. It says “Something happy about a frog”. Now, I do have a happy little tale I could tell you involving a frog, but yesterday morning the words wouldn’t come and instead I found myself unexpectedly turning to poetry, but not jolly whimsical poetry, oh no, this turned into the kind of dark brooding angsty stuff that even the average teenage goth would consider a bit “too much”.

It really wouldn’t have been fair, not on a chilly autumnal day as you’re getting up. It might have sent you scuttling back under the duvet. If I hadn’t got work to do I’d’ve been tempted to join you… in being under a duvet, I mean, not specifically under yours…

I’m starting to suspect it might be due to my diet. One of the downsides to being at home a lot is the constant struggle to resist the wicked temptations that lurk in the kitchen bellowing “eat me” every few minutes. One of my “solutions” is to have bags of sweeties at hand which fight off the craving to cram my mouth full of tasty goodness by persuading it that I’m actually already eating because my mouth is moving as suck on a Morrison’s “Sparkling Fruit” or some such, and, at the same time there’s a distraction as I feel the remains of my tooth enamel ebbing away. It’s probably not the wisest of solutions, and with all those colourings and flavourings I do wonder why I’ve not taken to tearing about the place like a hyperactive toddler, although, that might go some way towards explaining what my mind is doing in the middle of the night, and also might explain all the angst and turmoil as the inevitable low following the sugar rush high.

I quite like the idea that the mind might have a mind of its own, leading a sort of double life that it's using to prod me awake and say “Hey! Hey! Look at what I’m doing!” Maybe my mind is a hyperactive toddler, running around the place and getting into all kinds of scrapes and bother and hoping someone will just give it a cuddle and say “There, there. It’s all right” after the inevitable tumble over the edge or collision with the ill-placed coffee tables of life. Better still, if my mind is off doing its own thing, I can hardly be held accountable for all this angst and anxiety I’m putting into words for you, can I?

“It weren’t me, M’Lud, it was the toddler within.”

You’re never going to fall for that kind of flummery, are you?

Thought not.

For a while, I did consider putting up a caption card. Something like this:

...and just leaving it here for a while whilst I got my head together. You might think of it as being something like the old “potter’s wheel” or the “dancing toys” or something involving fluffy bunnies…

(Hang on, “fluffy bunnies” I know a happy little story about some of those… Oh, wait… maybe not…)

…but then I realised that “normal service” in this context might just mean more of the same, so I thought better of it.

I mean, I’m all in favour of using blogging as a form of therapy, but it would hardly be fair on you all to have to suffer along with me. A trouble shared might well be a trouble halved, but you never asked to get lumbered with your half now, did you?

So, “sorry” once again.

On the subject of apologies, I’m starting to think that there really aren’t enough of them about any more. “Sorry” as the song goes really does seem to be becoming the hardest word for a lot of us. The old adage “never explain, never apologise” might make you a tough old so-and-so that no-one’s going to mess with, but it can also make you a bit of a swine as well. I watched an incident unfold last night which was a bit reminiscent of an old “Galton and Simpson” comedy. The road outside is very narrow, and has cars parked up along one side of it for quite some distance. This requires quite a lot of give-and-take on the part of the motorists that use it, a need to pull across and allow the car coming the other way to get through, something which seems to be a thing people do less and less these days, if you hadn’t noticed. Anyway two cars ended up bumper to bumper with neither wanting to back down and a bit of a row unfolded with lots of door slamming and general unpleasantness. I didn’t hear one apology, just a lot of “It’s my right of way” nonsense. That’s the problem I guess, we all know our rights, but won’t respect anyone else’s. Ideas of basic civility, “live and let live” and a general sense that we all have to share this crowded little planet of ours just seem to be ebbing away in a general whirlpool of unpleasant attitudes.

See? I’ve done it again; Gone to a dark place.

Sorry, so sorry…

You’re going to doubt the sincerity of my apologies soon, I can tell.

Maybe you should, after all, when a politician or a news media outlet issue an “unreserved apology” it always comes across as being just “weasel words” anyway these days and always comes a little bit too long after the damage is done. “Sorry we didn’t keep our promises”, “sorry we told a lie in that report”. Oh, well, that makes it all okay then, does it? Do we ever remember the tiny apology on page sixteen, or is it always the ten full pages of scandal that sticks in the public consciousness and the general zeitgeist a couple of months later? I wonder…

So, for using you as a sounding board for all my misery and woe, I humbly, unreservedly and sincerely apologise, in the full knowledge that I’m completely likely to do it again in the very near future. Sigh! Sometimes I know me (and the toddler within) too well.

Ah well, perhaps it’s time to…

Stop! Look around! Here it comes (here it comes)

Here comes my nineteenth nervous breakdown…

(If in doubt, always end with a song...)