This was 1983, and now… Now I’m told it’s 2022 but show knows for sure. That would mean nearly 40 years passed since then and that’s difficult to conceive of. Where do 40 years go? Can you do 40 years and have no… Well, let’s not get too deep into this. It can’t be that long, can it? Good morning, Rumplestiltskin. You’re in for an interesting few days if you’re really just back with us. You have a lot to catch up on. You may not even want to bother. It’s going to be an awful lot to process. You may want to forget about your old life and just focus on the present.

Four decades is an awfully long time.

So if the calendar date is correct, and it’s really August 27, 2022, then tomorrow is my birthday and not just any birthday. It’s my 61st birthday. But that doesn’t seem possible. I wasn’t supposed to make it to 40 and now it’s 40 years beyond the release date of this nugget, Dream Distillate. My expiration date was supposed to be some point before 2001, or I presumed it would be.

And still…

I can cut this line of thought short, because I’m not sure you need to know the details of why I believed these things to be so. Let’s just say that it wasn’t that I wanted to have a relatively short life. It’s more that I couldn’t conceive of anything beyond 2001. It was all just too much to wrap my head around. I couldn’t conceive of it so no plans were made for an extension. Does that make sense?

I don’t know. It’s hard enough for me to comprehend how this summer has rocketed by so quickly. When we start talking about dates like 1983 it puts my Universe in a spiral. It makes my head hurt really badly. This isn’t hyperbole. It’s not an exaggeration. It’s just impossible to “get.” I remember when old/older people used to talk about time racing by and I didn’t really get it. A summer vacation from school lasted forever back then. What was this phenomenon that they spoke of? Years racing by? Life passing by? What were they on about?

So now I know.

Now I know.

And the curious thing is today, that it isn’t age or the passage of time that has me in a mood. It’s not that at all. It’s not the limited amount of time left. I’m almost grateful for that, in a funny way. Limited time means a limited amount of whatever it is that ails me and ails me about the world. All things must pass, and all that, thank you Mr. Harrison. All things must pass.

No, it’s a sense of disconnectedness from everything. It’s not quite loneliness. Not quite, but perhaps almost. It’s more a sense of inconsequentiality and there is an irony in that. Nobody is particularly important against the greater scheme of things. The world goes on with or without us. All the people in the world go on with us or without us. That’s the great leveler, that none of us really matter all that much. The problem comes when you want to matter, even on a small scale, and feel like you don’t.

I’ve never quite gotten over that, and frankly I don’t even know if it’s true.

I’m normally too uptight to even utter such words. What if it were true? What if it weren’t? Stop being such a whiny bitch and be happy when you matter to yourself. Feelings aren’t facts after all and because you feel it doesn’t make it real. That’s where I am today though, feeling as if it’s all just about waiting for the boot to drop.

And actually almost welcoming the boot.

Come on, boot.

Bring it.

Strange days, indeed.