The end of the summer

This is my first post on this blog for absolute ages. I am determined to keep writing and don't really know what is taking all my time up these days.

Anyway - I have just finished my first week back at work after 3 weeks of holidays. It was not fun if I am completely honest. It all began wit me having trouble opening my eyes on Monday morning. I don't mean when the alarm clock went off. I mean between the hours of 8am and 12 noon when I was actually awake and upright. I just could not keep my eyes open. Let's face it, the fact that I went to bed late every night of the 3 weeks of holidays probably made opening my eyes before noon a little bit more difficult than a normal week.

And of course there was a whole heap of stuff waiting for me when I got back to the office. Not a heap of gifts or praise or even curiosity. Just work, problems and deadlines. But I made it to friday evening and am still alive and well so I guess that's good.

So driving home tonight from work I was thinking all kinds of things about the way life is right now. One the one hand it does seem like something has ended. Maybe it's a general feeling about the way the westernised world is struggling to get out of this awful mess we got ourselves into. Either way it seems to me that life feels like it is in mourning for the golden days of excess and queuing up for iPhones and new cars and buying property and stock and all that.

Then I washinking about what my work demands of me at the moment and how different it is from when I entered the organisation. And I'm still thinking about that.

Then I thought about an interesting question I had posed to me by a video on YouTube last night. What if this is as good as it gets? What if life is meant to pretty much be like this for the rest of your time and you won't be able to do much about it? Kind of bleak I know and probably not entirely true since I could go out and change things in all kinds of ways albeit shallow and superficial. I could get a haircut for example or grow a moustache like Napoleon Dynamite's brother Chip or like his friend Pedro (a fuller moustache if ever there was one).

And then I started leafing (via the computer.. I think it's still leafing even if you are pressing [right arrow]..) through old photos and something inside me was saying 'awww' and 'oh wow' and all kinds of gushy outpourings looking at pictures of my little boys when they were just babies. And I figure that from then to now plenty of great things have happened and changed for the better.

So I figure I'll leave it there. My eldest son is climbing the stairs begging me to let him watch a clip of Rodney Mullen doing tricks. He is charming me with "please dad, you're the best!". How can a dad resist such precise and balanced feedback.

Cheerio for now and slán leat / libh.. probably leat if I am honest.