The toughest time of the year, for me personally, is here again. Ironically, this used to be my favourite month. I used to love December with its slight dip in temperature, festivities, year-end holidaying and partying. Now, it's just an ugly reminder of the undercurrents that persist.

I manage to somehow get by the rest of the year until now. There's only so much I can pretend, so many fakes smiles I can paint on my face, so many I'm fines I can mutter. Come December and I'm reduced to such a heap of despair and nothingness. I could put Heathcliff to shame.

Come December and my mind begins to wander farther off into the moors of despondence and loss. In strange and strong measures, it is the futility of it all that I find comforting.

Two years.

It's been two years since I last "celebrated" a happy occasion, stumbled upon an ugly truth, and had my head spun in a not-so-pretty manner. All in a span of 10 days. From the 15th of December to the 25th. That's all it took to erase a decade of rose-tinted views and honey-hued vistas. Retrospection can be very romantic, while real life sparks and fumes on the fringes.

Shades of dust and dusty shades. Why do I feel like that 15-year-old all over again, high on Rand and hopped up on Salinger?

Accept all loss for forever. Damn your acid-laced fucked-up logic that always makes sense at the wrongest of times. Damn you Kerouac and your ilk.

I am not looking for answers or a solution. I am just looking for someone to distract me from the crap for a while. Things that work - pointing out a dog and a bitch going at it like there's no tomorrow. Or trying to prise open a bottle of beer with your mouth and losing a tooth in the bargain. Simple things like that?

No. Don't tell me it'll get better, don't tell me to forget and move on. Come. Reach into my skull and pull out this mulch we call memories.

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