2017, was indeed, "The Year I broke My Face." Granted, I had help. Bad planning, bacteria and questionable decisions by the attending doctor. I would like to point my bony finger at one specific detail. Single out one element and announce triumphantly, "Here it is! THIS is where things took a turn for the worst." Painful little one gets from the laser like accuracy of hindsight though unless lessons are learned. More about how I broke my face later. In other posts. Promise. Pictures and all. But for now... It is the last day of the year. A dreadful year.
I am alone on new years. With the cats. Four. It may very be Bobbies last New Year on planet earth. Chronic Renal Failure is catching up with us. She will haunt me forever. My favourite cat. Her tiny ghost will be a permanent member of the household and there will always be a place for her beside my pillow. Tiny fluffy puff ball, with eight black toes and two pink ones. 17 years is a good innings for a cat I suppose. Animals in transit. No end. No beginning. Only the everlasting now, and inklings of before and after. What memories does a cat hold on to? I hope some of them include me. Don't forget me little one, I will never forget you.
I am alone tonight. Wondering to myself, when the New Year of explosions, traffic glowing red bumper to bumper, cheap party crackers, tinkling glasses, soggy paper masks, spontaneous countdowns... and grinning after grin, after grinning grin of "Happy new year".... when did it turn into writing about what I did all those crumbling years ago. Those delightfully presumptuous years. Photos, wall after wall, and album upon album, tell not the stories I hoped they would, but the ones I never expected. Remember. Remember. I can never remember enough about where I was to make moving forward of much consequence. There is never enough now. But there always seems to be too much time gone by. Always plenty of that stuff. Lined up like dreadfully strong shots. Order another round. Next one is on me.
Next year has already evaporated into the one after it. My diffused collage for a rocking chair and a rainy day has already begun. Time stamps on a photo make no difference. Useless yellow numbers fading in the corner. Favourite memories regurgitated into a real album. Chewed and chewed until they taste like the paper they are printed on. Spat onto the pages from a bitter mouth. Notice, the more precious the memories the harder it is to make new ones. Theory: We can't remember our childhood because: Who needs to remember when a lifetime is on it's way? A photo is only information to a three year old.
“Time is running out.”
All kinds of time running out into the "Will I Evers?" and out to the "If only I hads." Dreams and desires waiting to be "post it noted" and neatly, and diligently, and mindfully, listed into existence. There are ways and ways, it seems, to dream and desire. Nights and nights dotted with mild butter milk stars. Pull out the threads of my memories and spin new fabric, stitch up new disguises in which I will say, as if the disguise of my unrealised dreams dyed in ethically sourced crimson red cochneal was always (ANYway) the thing that always counted.
"Well I could have done it if... I wanted... to."
And there are ways and ways to be cynical and practical but time is running out. Is it too late? "It's never too late." (they say) Prop up my disillusionment with aphorisms. Lean my delusions against a clever quote. Convince or fool myself.
It would be nice to go to my grave full of memory and free of wishes.
Almost midnight. Persuade myself that i'm doing fine. Lie down. Take a dream. Take a number.
Photo Credit: Google image search.... (wasn't paying attention)