And so it goes
The Obsessive Diary - 29th Dec
And so it goes. I seem to have drawn to a halt. It’s winter. Hibernation is obvious.
Christmas was incredibly loving in the arms of my Somerset family. They filled me with the good stuff. I’m grateful for them. I love them so much. Me and Margaret cooked up a storm, everything was delicious. We talked and walked and opened presents. We put on glad rags and toasted our fortune and love for one another. I missed J&B but there it is.
I stayed at The Chapel which was luxury and white cotton, silently closing doors and carols on Christmas Eve. From a corner table the perfect view to little theatre plays of families gathering, seasonal jumpers on, granny with her friend in tow, brothers and a neat, nail polish girlfriend nervously eyes front wishing he’d speak to her and not his mother, so well turned out, so intimidating. A rowdy group at the back held pints aloft, a young lad couldn’t finish his. A pair of stuff & nonsense friends beside me attacked steaks and chinked large glasses, a daddy with small squirming child tried to set her attention on the balcony while his mother in law yet again failed to be interesting and sat back with a thump and refuge in a cocktail. I have sat alone and sober in many crowded public rooms this Christmas. It’s a practice of looking and resisting the self-conscious threat of embarrassment. No one will remember the woman watching.
And so it passed in immense care and tradition, the sun set on Boxing Day and I drove home. This was a shock. The empty farmhouse. Me and the cats. The last days of 2025 shed of so many relationships. I never saw it coming, that I’d be heading into 2026 like this. I feel unencumbered and silent. Took J for lunch, picked him up from his dad’s, talked of his possible paths and dropped him off again; now he’s gone to Wales. B is still in Stoke. Yesterday I cried all morning (thank you M for calling). Today I don’t want to get up but I will because this one blessed life holds what I can’t see.
And so it goes.
Eleanor
"...because this one blessed life holds what I can’t see."
Amen to that!
Grace Paley said, in a story I read last night, “Every character, real or imagined, deserves the open destiny of life.” The story is her answer to those who expect tidy endings instead of hopeful blindness like what you’re now experiencing. So it goes (and keeps on going). I wish you a fruitful 2026.