I’m setting down with some tea. I had wine on Friday night and regretted it – I couldn’t sleep and and had to fight my tendency toward rumination.

Tonight it is Mint Matcha Green.

I took the news apps off my phone this afternoon.
I went to the beach for a run.

I snapped at my husband at dinner, and then typed a running commentary on Telegram to my son – all about how stupid the guy giving a TEDx talk was.

Things go up and down. And most of the time I don’t like myself. I think that is what too much time alone does to me. I circle around myself as my own critic, and peck at myself until I bleed.

Then I look for something beautiful. And I feel sorry for myself.

Leonard is sprawled across the cool floor next to my desk. Sighing occasionally.

And this is my life.

I was thinking today about the gross national product. And about the World Happiness Report that came out last week. About trust and security. And that means I’ve been thinking about faith again.

And wondering why it is so difficult for me to accept that I have faith – that I am honestly an optimist who pretends to be a pessimist. It’s almost as if I hold dire predictions in my hand, fingering them like talismans against the worse happening.

The blackbirds are singing in the dark. I keep expecting that should mean something, but it doesn’t. The blackbirds just sing. They sing when the sparrows are quiet, and the crows have left the trees for the night. They sing after the larks have settled in their nests in the grass along the furrows in the farmland behind the nursing home.

We are waiting for test results again.

Europe moved the clocks forward last night, so it’s later than it should be.

No wonder it’s so hard to catch up with myself these days.