I am now certain that my downstairs neighbor moved out. No question. I peeked through the window and saw the bare floor. I also overheard a leasing agent giving a tour of the vacant unit, so that settles that. Downstairs neighbor and downstairs neighbor’s cat are no more.
I am writing this on Christmas Eve. This post will go up on Christmas day. One week later, it’ll be 2021. The timing makes it feel like I have to do some sort of profound summary of the year and what the holidays mean to me and how this year was tough but it only made us stronger and we have so much to look forward to next year and be thankful for and blah blah blah. I’m tired y’all. While uneventful and in a lot of ways simple, the past twelve months have been exhausting (the last two months especially). I’m deep into my two weeks off from work, yet I’ve spent the last four days cranking away at my comics. There’s so much I want to get done and the days feel like they’re already flying by.
Am I blue about spending the holidays alone? Not consciously, but I’m sure that plays a part of it. While I may not be in a particularly festive mood, I can still enjoy the window dressing and accoutrements. Seeing decorated Christmas trees, shiny gift wrap, visiting family, food, festivities. I will get by totally fine without them, but 23 years of Santa and stockings have conditioned me to expect those things during the winter months. And a high of 72 certainly doesn’t help (thanks Texas…).
Maybe my job carried me through this year more than I realized. My life was built around that 9-to-6 workday routine and it’s been the great stabilizer when everything else has been up in the air. Two weeks without any obligations or anything in the books have been incredibly freeing and productive, but at the same time, it’s intensified my isolation. I’ve got even more time to sit and think all by my lonesome, which is, as I like to say, one of my favorite activities. But everything in moderation!
This has been incredibly rambling because I’m just in that mood. “Ships in the Night” and the next two Day and Age comics were conceived during a mood very much like the one I’m currently in. It’s just the natural way of things. Emotional states ebb and flow, sometimes without cause or reason. It’s probably very healthy, if I had to guess. I don’t trust anyone who is always happy. And if you’re always sad… well that’s just depressing.
