In interesting times…

I don’t know where the last month has gone. I was so sure that having time on my hands was going to allow me to do such a lot, but as it’s working out time seems to just pass and then be gone and I’m not really sure what I have to show for it.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not wasting my time or frittering it away watching daytime TV or playing games because I don’t do either. Neither am I sleeping in late or taking afternoon naps. My days are very full, but as to what I am actually doing… well I can’t quite define it.

I spend a lot of time looking and applying for jobs, and of course I have e-mails and my jaunts to the job centre, but at the end of each day I really can’t describe how I spent my time or what I’ve achieved. I’m used to defining who I am by what I’ve done you see - perhaps that’s the problem.

Time was, not so long ago, that I knew exactly what I would be doing each moment of the day. It was all diarised electronically on my laptop, on my phone, and physically on paper. Those were the days of six o clock starts, long drives to short meetings, even longer drives home and getting back late. I knew where I’d been and what I’d been doing, although knowing what I’d achieved wasn’t always as clear as it could be. At least I thought I knew what I’d achieved but ultimately, towards the end, it didn’t seem to much matter.

I’m living in interesting times, have been for a while now. Sometimes I feel that I’m disappearing. No, that’s not right. Sometimes I feel that I’ve already disappeared. Vanished to somewhere else, gone, but I don’t know where.

I wonder if I’m real at all? Maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m a just a painting by Magritte.