The Sting

We--that being the people in my own hometown--have been spared the storm.  Others haven't been as fortunate.  Here we begin to feel normal, begin doing normal things.  Elsewhere, there either has been devastation or there will be.  It is difficult to reconcile.  But do not ask for whom the bell tolls, we are warned.

It is difficult.

But today, for me, the factory whistle blows.  I do not ask for whom it blows.  It blows for me.

Last night, I made a jest to Ili that she didn't have to go to the factory in the morning.  She did not take it so well and told me that she had to write something more difficult than I had written in ten years.  It startled me like a sucker punch.

But it was true.

I went to bed chewing on that.  I have become. . . well, the sort of person to whom one can say such a thing.  Rather than sulk, I thought, I must do something about it.  But doing something may now be beyond me.  I don't know.  And rather than do something, not knowing what to do, I sulk.

I'll have to figure this one out today as the factory churns about me.  I still feel the sting of that statement, the truth of it.  Perhaps I am not of the caliber any more.  At least, I'm not feeling so.

I'll figure out what to do today.  I hope it is not simply to have a drink.