The End Is Nigh

There are now only two weeks to go until my return to work, and I can’t help but feel the same way I used to when I was a schoolgirl: when the gloriously long summer holidays during which the previous year’s lessons trickled out of my brain unchecked were nearly over, and those hateful back-to-school merchandise ads mocked me with their timely bargains. That same pulsating ball of violently ill, metamorphosing larvae is lodged somewhere in the region of my diaphragm (anatomical, not contraceptive), and this time I don’t know if they’ll be appeased by the promise of new stationery.

I’ve been trying to quell the rising dread with reminders of the benefits I’ll soon be enjoying, but my half-hearted attempts at a list have not produced anything compelling. Sure, I’ll be getting paid again, but I’m doubtful there’ll be much left over after Mr. Costello and childcare have taken their sizeable chunks. Yes, I’ll have more interaction with adults, but my children (who even with their tantrums and sometimes maddening behaviour are always preferable to many grown-ups I know) I’ll probably only see for around three hours a day. Alright, my sartorial aesthetics will improve, but have you not read a single post on this blog? I’d go everywhere in my pyjamas if I thought I could pull it off without looking like an escapee from the psychiatric ward.

The only outcome of a return to work I can grudgingly admit may be positive, is receiving sufficient stimulation for my brain to return to reasonably intelligent function. I’m talking about being able to think of the mot juste without having to resort to frequent consultation of the thesaurus and dictionary, or even worse having it elude me entirely like a butterfly just out of reach of my tattered and ineffectual net. I’m referring to the ability to string together a sentence, a paragraph, a page of something vaguely interesting to read that doesn’t leave me sunk in despair and clinging to my earlier scrawlings like a once-vaunted starlet now fallen into obscurity obsessively watches her own films to remind her she was once The Next Big Thing.

Then I can lament the lack of time and energy to fulfil my childhood ambition, whilst deflecting attention from my laziness, half-arsedness and disavowed mediocrity, so much more eloquently.

In the meantime, there’s a well-stocked supply room in my office building – and there’s a fistful of pens with my name on it.