Me Again.

People seem to think I’m observant, but I’m not – at least I don’t have the kind of faculty which people usually associate with the term. I’m no Sherlock Holmes, and I’d be pretty hopeless as a witness in a criminal case because I don’t notice the kind of things which matter in criminal cases.

Take eyes, for example. I’m very good at reading them. I read truth and lies; I read confidence and doubt; I read suppressed emotion; I read warmth and coldness; I read genuine interest and false interest. And if I don’t read anything in somebody’s eyes I know they’re either unbelievably dull or they’re hiding themselves from me. And yet I hardly ever notice what colour a person's eyes are.

I could give other examples, but why bother? Here I am doing the me, me, me thing again. It’s just that for some years now I’ve been obsessing over the question: ‘I need something… I need something… but what? What do I need and how do I get it?’ And I haven’t come close to finding the answer.

Well, tonight I experienced an epiphany. At a quarter past seven I felt a strange desire to go to bed. It was really very odd because apart from the time when I had an arthroscopy procedure in 2000, I haven’t been to bed before 2am for at least twenty years. Neither have I wanted to.

And then the light bulb came on and now I know what I need. I need an extended break from being me.