It's been a while since I last updated...a while since I've felt like updating would probably be more accurate. It's not been an easy few months for several reasons, but I'm hoping that the worst of it is behind me now. Famous last words if I ever I heard them, but never let it be said that I'm a total stranger to optimism...
Anyway, while I was off trying to find some order in my little chaotic corner of the universe, I managed to find some time to sort through the mountain of paperwork that I have stored beneath my bed. I'm a terrible hoarder, or at least I used to be, and I found it a strange, bittersweet experience to sift through the detritis that can accumulate in a person's lifetime. Darkly comic though it may be to imagine my relatives swearing and cursing at the rubbish I've held onto over the years when my number is finally called (which hopefully will not be for a very long time yet, because there is still plenty of internet to litter up with my scribblings), I do think that there are certain corners of a person's soul stored in such collections that would mean very little to anyone else. So, I came to the conclusion that it was time for a clearout, if for no other reason than to have more space to store more rubbish.
There were a lot of memories stored beneath that bed. A lot of my early manuscripts, in various states of completion, were the most entertaining. Some were just so cringingly awful that they went into the shredder straight away; others I deemed salvageable were tucked back into their folders so that I could work on them again in the future. But there was only one that really blew me away. It was an essay I wrote about ten years ago on the search for extraterrestrial life for a college course, when I was going through a thankfully short phase of watching 'Most Haunted' and believing that it wasn't a pile of sweaty pants. Which, of course, it is. Too many nights spent watching The X-Files, no doubt, had its influence in that, but conspiracies and paranormal phenonmenon were such a huge thing for me back then. I've always loved ghost stories, but the idea that we may be able to commune with the dead, that there are angels, miracles, truths in Tarot cards or that little green men are flying around in triangular shaped crafts are ideas that were relegated to the pre-millenium, end-of-the-world hysteria a long time ago. (No doubt to resurface again in 2012, but I digress...)
The sad thing is that I don't feel any wiser or soul-enriched for my more scientific way of looking at the world. If I think about it, I actually believe that I'm poorer for my lack of faith in all things mystical, and I feel quite nostalgic for the days when I did believe that there was more to the universe than rising petrol prices, recession, over-paid bankers and hypocritical, criminal politicians. Maybe because there was a certain peace to be found in thinking that there was something greater than all of us going on out there; an antidote to the poison of living in a country that's about to destroy everything that once made it great. A cynic's lot certainly is not a happy one, and reading through that essay, I couldn't help but wonder at the changes that have affected me since I wrote it that caused me to so radically alter my point of view to one so completely lacking in the imagination and whimsy that makes life worth living.
With so much visible change in a person's life from home decor to fashion to cars, I can't help but wonder at how much is going on that we don't even stop to notice. But I've noticed it now. Hopefully it's not too late to do something about it.
