Avast, Me Hearties!

You know, today I was all set to write a pirate-speak post, a light-hearted piece to announce my triumphant return from the depths of Davy Jones’ locker to the ranks of those with fully-functional computers and safe internet access. But as the hours crawled almost imperceptibly by to the time when I could thankfully tuck my children into bed and have a microsecond’s peace and quiet before I collapsed with weariness myself, I realised I hadn’t the heart for Yo-ho-ho! or Shiver me timbers! My thoughts had grown as dark as Edward Teach’s famous beard. I’ve had a bad day.

Not a bad day as in lives lost or all my worldly possessions destroyed, nothing like that. Despite my flippant whinging in almost every post, I know my life is great, relatively speaking. Still, the realisation that one is woefully substandard at every endeavour one has undertaken – wife, mother, housekeeper, writer, blogger, lowly minion at the Department of Meat Products – is unlikely to induce in one a state of optimism like that of the scurvy wench Pollyanna. And the guilt of knowing I have nothing really to complain about, yet still feeling like the sloop bearing down on me has run up the jolly roger and is preparing for a broadside and boarding, only adds to the miserable richness of my self-pity stew.

But that’s life, and my usual harsh admonishment in such cases is to suck it up and carry on, doing better in the future. So I’m trying, but ye may have sailed many a sea afore the kraken of despondence loosens its grip on my frigate. Until then, there’ll be no talking like a pirate for me.