jeu d'esprit

What had I been waiting for? I’ve wondered what I’d waited for. Nothing, so much of nothing, seems to be the answer. And nothing is all I’ve received. Just as I’ve made the decision that nothing would come of it and that it was best to let it go, I realised that it had already gone, and what I was watching was the wake. Slow motion, of course, and somewhat time-delayed; what I thought was today was actually last week, so delayed is my time. Possibly longer than a week, probably months and months. Sometimes it takes a long time to understand things. The books I read at sixteen are different when I read them at twenty-seven. How I wish their authors had written more lasting prose, something that always stayed the same no matter who I became. So I cannot claim it as a victory this death of a what-could-have-been, I wasn’t sufficiently in charge of the situation to end it. How I hate that. I had so wanted it to be my decision, had extraordinary belief that I was more important than I was. Some things, it seems, have not changed since I was sixteen. People still pat me on the head like I’m a child, I believe it’s called ‘humouring’ but I am not amused.
It’s not that I think all life is over, nor that I think mine is; it’s that I realise that you never have the same opportunity twice. What I can do now won’t be what it should have been but probably wouldn’t have been. We are quite contrary, you know, and things never do go as planned, as dreamed, as hoped. Or, at least, very rarely. I think that, maybe, I should have liked some early warning. You know the kind, the facts written starkly against the sky, my head held in a vice and my eyes forced open until I got the hint. Sensitivity is all very well but is just a little hopeless when you need a sledgehammer. I respond quite well to the sledgehammer, it makes sense, is purposeful, makes a point that even I cannot manipulate to a Pollyanna ending. Pollyanna mixed up with a wee bit of Bold & Beautiful or some such, there has to be just a touch of high, or rather low, drama. Maybe I should make a resolution to be less slow, or more willing to accept reality, or less easily lead by imagination.