I started to write a post about the signs of winter today and realized how boring of a person I have become. The weather concerns me now, apparently. It is more about the general malaise I am beginning to feel considering the low light we are currently experiencing and I know that the shortest day is only three days away from now.

There is a dread every year around this time understanding that it will be months of crawling out of the dark until I can feel something closer to myself again. It’s been another year and I am still here, so my post from last year fell on my own deaf ears. The reality of escape is that it simply wasn’t in the cards this year.

That’s the truth of any number of lives I wanted to lead in 2023, you can’t win them all. I’ll take up the same mantle in 2024 and try to conquer worlds, but some will simply need to be abandoned for practical reasons.

The only thing that held position and saw improvement was my writing, and it’s a sign that I should continue working on that craft. Other interests arise and take temporary control of my senses, but writing seems to maintain a sort of staying power that the rest don’t.

Naturally, the thing that I’ll have to work the hardest at to earn a living is the thing I am good at. I really must be my father’s son…