The Arms of Morpheus

This is what I'd like to be looking at, a blue summer sky with puffs of white fluffy cloud drifting by.

Instead yet another night dark, Winter Solstice, sky black and starless with sleep evading me yet again.

It is perhaps unrealistic to imagine there  will ever be a time when I will simply rest my head on the pillow and sleep.  This has never been the case and the more I've done in the preceding day, the less likely I am to get the necessary rest. 

Christmas creeping ever nearer is perhaps the root cause of this particular bout of sleep deprivation.  Not my favourite time of year even when there was something resembling a life to be lived and someone to share it with, and now, hectic carol services etc coming to an end and my 3 mornings in the church finished for this week, the yawning gap until Midnight Mass and Christmas morning service, followed by nothing is a prospect which fills me with gloom. 

Last year I had flu, so missed even the Christmas services, and the wait for the world to return to 'normal' seemed interminable, at least this year I've enjoyed the singing and brief companionship.

Each time November looms I think, "this year I'll find something to do, somewhere to go", and each time December arrives I realise it is too late and I'm doomed yet again to four walls for the duration.

Negativity is my middle name, and inertia lends its helping hand so the will to do anything positive cannot be dredged up from the well.

How on earth does one motivate oneself?

No amount of 'helpful' advice causes even a ripple on the surface of the dark pond of my self-absorbed morose perspective, and I'm well aware that the impetus has to come from within.

But at present I appear to be without a within if you see what I mean. 

What a load of dreary piffle. 

Putting it down in print has nothing to improve my mindset, but at least it has used up a bit of yet another night spent evading the arms of Morpheus.