Now what?

Well, the first working week of the year is done, and it wasn't that bad.  Unfortunately, this has led me into a false sense of security.  I thought I'd broken the back of the new year.  I was rudely disabused of this belief on Monday morning when I work up with a monumental gob on.

It's not even as though I've got much to bellyache about at present.  Work's ticking over; we've got some holidays booked and looming, and all is well.  However, it's the prospect of another year exactly like the last that's getting in amongst me.

That's the real catalyst of mid-life crises I think.  It's not grandiose, nihilistic notions of one's mortality; it's the realisation that all the great changes that happen to a rotter over the course of his allotted years are now very probably behind you.  It's going to be like this until...well, until it is no longer like this, if you know what I mean.  That's a sobering thought, eh?

Also, there doesn't appear to be any easy way out of the malaise.  On Saturday, I had an inkling there might be a fug on the horizon, so I thought I'd take myself off to London's fashionable west end and piss some money up the wall on unnecessary consumer durables.  But when I got there, I realised I couldn't be bothered with them.  Most men my age still get a minor frisson from buying toys, but I no longer do.  I've never been very materialistic I suppose.

I could take up a dangerous hobby - martial darts for example.  But it sounds like an awful lot of effort.  I'm not sure I could be bothered.