Despondency

THE THOUGHTS that rain their steady glow

Like stars on life’s cold sea,

Which others know, or say they know—

They never shone for me.

Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit’s sky,

But they will not remain.

They light me once, they hurry by,

And never come again.

("Despondency" by Matthew Arnold)

I finished my first post six months ago exactly, coming to think of it, saying that I intended to take full advantage of the fact that I had the opportunity to say a whole lot of things! Fat lot I've done since then !

Everytime I thought of writing something, I would wonder what on earth I was to write about. This would put me off for the next few weeks.

Just now, I realized that I spend an awful lot of time just sitting around wherever, in my room or on the sofa just watching my thoughts go by. So now I'm going to catch them as they do.

So much has happened in the past six months, it is difficult to comprehend now ! I've grown up. I can't seem to decide whether that's a good thing or a bad one. I was vulnerable and naive then, and I think I'm still both those things. Somehow, grown up or not, I don't think I want to outgrow those traits.

Wordworth and Coleridge had opium addictions. Lewis Carrol liked magic mushrooms. So that's how the brilliance came. They lived in fantasy worlds, just like I can do, although I don't need opium to do it !

Maybe I shouldn't have read Enid Blyton when I was young. Used to spend an awful lot of time shut up in my room, reading. My sister was a baby, my mum was busy with her. Actually, all I can remember of that time is being told to keep quiet, because the baby needed sleep. I couldn't breathe too loudly, for crying out loud! Enid Blyton's fairy stories kept me sane and kept me going.

That's why I spent and still spend so much time staring out the window. A lonely little kid found a friend in a book. The characters in the "Faraway Tree" and Hop, Skip and Jump from the "Book of Brownies" seemed better companions than anybody else.

Why would I want to live in reality when all reality brings is sorrow, loneliness, confusion and despair? Especially when I can live in a world where everybody loves everybody else just by shutting my eyes or looking out the window?