gathering clouds

my mood has been declining fairly precipitously over the course of the morning. right now i'm hovering somewhere between sadness and melancholy with suspicions that at least a somewhat deeper depression is on the way. i can trace the beginnings of this emotional decline to the realization this morning that i had another significant life event coming up in the next week, that being my birthday. it's with that moment of recall that i had a mental image of seeing dark storm clouds looming in the distance. the more i looked at that mental horizon the more i could see that they were gathering strength and heading my way.

i should make clear before moving on with this entry that i am not one of those people who obsess about my age or even necessarily getting older. the only times birthdays even become an issue are when my life circumstances are not as i hoped they would be. it's under these conditions that i look around at my state of affairs and think about what i likely imagined my life would be like at that age. needless to say the present state always greatly suffers by comparison to the predicted one.

what has been a sobering thought though of late is that, even should i live to a ripe old age, i am now entering the time of life that the number of birthdays i have left are fewer than the number i have had to date. while i understand that this is part of life, my desire to have these remaining days to be as meaningful and fulfilling as possible has only become more acute as a result therefore, i am not exactly thrilled that i know my birthday this year will be spent on my reflecting on my feeling alone, isolated, and without love in my life with no discernible prospects for any of that changing anytime soon.

so as the clouds gather, it's no wonder that i find myself doing what i normally would do if there were a literal manifestation of a storm on a saturday. i'm in my bed, ready to take a nap, hoping for better weather ahead.