The Black Dog

Today I am alone, self imposed loneliness. I thought I'd try it.

I have work to do but am distracted by remnants of a past life, several past lives .

I have a tin of photographs, I lift the lid and shuffle through. The second one I come to is my dear granny, long gone now, but still remembered often. In the photo she is sitting on a deck chair in a sunny garden, my parents old house I think, and she is smiling, perhaps even laughing. It can't have been taken that long before she died, she looks old and frail in the picture. We must have been having a BBQ at the time I think, perhaps a celebration, maybe a birthday. Tears spring from my eyes as I see the picture. It takes me by surprise.

I flick through all the years printed so colourfully on glossy paper. All that time, passing in an instant. In amongst the photos are long lost friends, long lost partners, and moments that will never return. Today I am looking backwards, to the past and I want to turn the clock back.

There are photos of me in the tin, some of them taken when I was barely 4 years older than Tall Girl is now. And it is not so much that I am lamenting the loss of my youth, but the people in it. How can I have been so careless as to lose them?

My head is hurting now, I have cried for too long and the Black Dog has sniffed about and remains at my feet, curled up but drawing me down.

This year life has moved on relentlessly, I never have time to stop but perhaps this is why, it seems that, as soon as I stop running, he catches me up. It doesn't do to slow down these days, if you keep on moving forwards there is less time to look back.

Today Tall Girl updated her blog. Her post is the total opposite of this one. This is the final sentence of her post "I have changed over the last few months and feel more exited for what's going to happen in the near future!"
I have never read her so wonderfully full of excitement and youth before. I don't remember having the feeling myself at her age; I am glad she is so self aware. It is as though she has just realised that her whole life is before her, isn't that wonderful? Wouldn't you like just a little piece of that again? I envy her, for I have squandered over half of mine already. This, I guess, is how it feels to be grown up.

I realise today that, for the first time in several years, I have no plan. So where do I go from now? Do I wait?  No, I must move on relentlessly before the Black Dog wakes again. But in the meantime I will look to my daughter and listen to some wise words that she has found... 'Every day may not be good, but there will be something good in every day'