Out with the old

Amazing, isn’t it, how Christmas just… comes and goes. The stores put their displays up as early as September these days, and then the weeks (months) are spent thinking about it, planning for it, and shopping before it arrives.

And after the presents are unwrapped, the turkey eaten or put in the fridge for later, it’s like one of those summer holidays that seem like a vague memory as soon as you step off the plane, exchanging the hot sun, soft white sand and sisters from Scotland that take you under their wing, for the grey skies and drizzle that are somehow comforting, like being back in your own bed. For home.

Sometimes, but not often, my entire life seems to feel that way… as if I’m sharing someone else’s experiences but can’t quite feel them as if they were my own. A kind of disconnect somewhere. It doesn’t worry me too much, because I believe in looking forward, but I do wonder, now and again, what the boy who I once was would have thought of the man I am now. Would he have tried to change the course of events that have led to the here and now, or just sat back and enjoyed the ride? I'm so different to that boy now, I really don't think that I know the answer.

This will probably be my last post before the New Year, and I wanted to say how lucky (and grateful) I am to have stumbled across you guys out there. It’s strange but, in less “virtual” circumstances, I suspect many of us would become friends in a very real sense. And it makes the time spent writing, reading and commenting very worthwhile.

Happy New Year to all of you, and may 2006 be a wonderful one… a year that we all remember for the positive things that happen to and around us, and one that we spend looking - and moving - forward. Best to leave the past where it is.