Some days it’s all a bit too much

The cold settled into my bones and in the grim grey light, I pondered the Fates – how they decide which innocents to steal, whose time is up. I suppose they’ve been at it long enough to know.

Some days there is too much to say. Too much, and yet the words won’t come.

When I feel so deeply, my thoughts tie themselves in knots, my words strangle themselves in my throat, and I fall silent. I feel dissatisfied no matter how much I try to write it out. Even music – all music – seems discordant. I move from chair to chair, never quite feeling comfortable. I can’t be with people. I can’t focus on reading.

When nothing else works, I sit alone in silence. I let my mind wander where it will, I don’t try to escape or entertain or distract.

Today, I thought about the Fates.

At the end of this restless day, I went out to pick up my son from his friend’s place. As I drove down a busy, well-lit city street cocooned in my silence, I happened to look up between the streetlights and see the thin, red, low-slung crescent of a new moon. It was large and otherworldly. Beautiful.

For a moment I imagined I was on a different planet.

Then, I turned on the radio and belted out songs until I had thoroughly shattered my carefully constructed silence.

The future is unwritten, tenuous, and we are all pulled along into it, day after day. All we can do is find whatever we need in the moment to keep us going.

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