Time wounds all heals.

Much like Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer before her, your esteemed author knows the experience of cyclical periods of high-level turmoil that line up precisely with the calendar year.

This picture contains symbolism.

As we reach another chapter close, I find myself in the unenviable position of repeating the same thought pattern of the last three Novembers:

1.  How did that happen?
2.  Did that really need to happen?
3.  No, seriously, I'm pretty sure that didn't need to happen.

Here's the thing. It's all made up. Everything is made up. Your job is made up. Social norms are made up. The internet is made up. The voice in your head is made up. It's made up. It's not real. The fact that you are alive right now - that is real. The fact that you will die someday - that is real. The overwhelming majority of everything else is not. It's window-dressing. Distraction. A facade.

That's part of what I was dancing around a few entries ago when talking about life being much simpler than all of us - myself wholeheartedly included - make it out to be.

I just appear to have needed at least one more November for that lesson to hit home, it would seem... :-/