Cocking the Halo

You know you are not a bad person :-

·         When you can drive for an hour along unfamiliar, too-narrow. traffic logged roads, up hill and down dale, with a squalling baby (make that screaming) and still comfort the mother with a ‘don’t worry, all babies do this’.  A big fat lie, most babies sleep. My teeth are 5mm shorter from the gritting and grinding.

 

·         When you want to throw your arms round all those young people receiving exam results (and failing) and tell them to stuff the system, to go out and define themselves.  I hate the fortnight during which A Level and GCSE Level results are released.

·         When you keep your weak platitudes to yourself and just listen when a distraught man of 87 years tell you his wife of 50 years is unlikely to live beyond the weekend and you miss an important meeting.

 

·         When you really, really want to write so bad, blood is oozing from your pores and you forbid yourself to go near your ms for at least a week because your family come first. (Hmm, wonder if working between 2-4 in the morning would be excusable?)

·         When you smile sagely instead of picking up a knife and slicing the people dancing on your last nerve ‘because it’s not their fault’ – my ass.

 

·         When you agree to a birthday party you really don’t want (in fact, the very idea of it channels thoughts of self-harm) because it means so much to those throwing it.

This list could continue but frankly, reading it back, it’s a little bit too navel gazey.  Think I’ll take my tarnished halo, twirl it round my forefinger as a stripper might a g-string, release and leave it where it wherever it falls (hopefully close to a pub or for a laugh, on a bald bishop’s head.

So what act of contrition have you performed today (ok, this week)?