The Other Side of the Gray

[Manuel Tavares]

The Other Side of the Gray
By Catherine Viel
https://ascensionflame.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-other-side-of-gray.html

Well, I lay my head on the railroad track
Waiting on the double E
But the train don’t run by here no more
Poor, poor pitiful me…
Lord, have mercy on me
~Warren Zevon, Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

It’s Christmas Eve afternoon, and that peculiar holiday loneliness has set in. Quite a bit of my mental space is taken up with thinking I should be doing something other than whatever I am doing. This is exacerbated by what many consider the biggest holiday of the year. The illogical certainty that everyone else is in midst of happy holiday bustle with family and friends, while I’m not, sits like lead in my gut.

I feel as if, unlike me, most people, by the time they hit their mid-sixties, have a cornucopia of spouses, children, and grandchildren with whom they can share this holiday space. I dredge up some obligatory gratitude for the good health of self and....+ https://rayviolet.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-other-side-of-gray.html